Welcome to the BKN Weekly Bulletin, our weekly update to keep members informed of the latest BKN website updates, just to ensure you don't miss anything new! This weeks updates:
- Tax deduction for a classic motorcycle (Posted Thursday 21st November 2013) http://tiny.cc/bdlw6w
-HMRC - Warning of the latest scam (Posted Thursday 21st November 2013) http://tiny.cc/telw6w
-Our 'Find a book-keeper Directory'- Book-keepers wishing to be included in the BKN 'Find a book-keeper Directory' are advised to check out BKN Full Membership, which includes a wide variety of resources and costs just £24 per year. http://www.book-keepers.net/join-us
Do you have any feedback on results from the directory -how many actually have gained new business through advertising? I keep looking at different options of advertising
I've been in the directory for 2 years and not had anything from it at all :(
thanks- I have come to the decision it is better to find out feedback before paying for advertising- I have paid so much out on advertising without any results, word of mouth is always the best for me
-- Edited by Sharon Eyre on Monday 25th of November 2013 11:40:47 AM
Shaun I have had nothing from any of them -I had one from the free Yell.com a few years ago and one from the Thomson Local, I have had 2 that googled and I came up but of the free sites and directories nothing at all. I have advertised in menus, local mags, fire station booklets and everything but to no avail.
I agree-the bookkeeping directories to me are a bit of a nonsense-if I wanted a bookkeeper/accountant the last place I would think to look would be on their sites-I would imagine most people have never even heard of ICB or even AAT for that matter.
I still stand by word of mouth and client referral as being the best form of advertising-I have around 60 clients and the majority of those have been referrals.
It is interesting that people think the payment on this site is purely for the advertising- I stumbled across this site when someone on ICB put a link to this site when having a moan about what someone had written!
-- Edited by Sharon Eyre on Monday 25th of November 2013 12:55:36 PM
Gumtree never gets a lookin although it was 3rd and 4th on Stuarts list.
That maybe because I have my location set in Google to "Glasgow" as that is where the Gumtree searches are looking to.
EDIT TO ADD : Google is probably freaking out just now with us searching for bookkeepers, bookkeeping, book-keepers, book-keeping and then refreshing. (Peasie obviously appreciate how many searches Google gets worldwide per second).
-- Edited by Peasie on Monday 25th of November 2013 05:37:06 PM
__________________
Never buy black socks from a normal shop. They shaft you every time.
But this advertising is free. Its the membership that you pay for.
Some months the site gets close to a million hits. Everyone thats signed up for it gets the weekly newsletter which always has a link to the directory.
I've had one call in four years as a result of being on the directory but figure that as its pretty much free advertising what the heck. Even if I don't get any calls its one more place where people see my name and as you know, the more that your name gets seen the more confident people are to use your services even if the call doesn't come directly from the source where they saw it.
I should just add here that there is no financial link between myself and BKN. These are my thoughts, not the site owners.
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
So the perception really is that people are paying for the advertising and nothing more, even though from the other side of the fence the perception is that people are paying for membership and the advertising is free.
Thats certainly feedback that I'll chat with Steve about next time that we get chance to talk as people should be getting so much more from membership in order to keep them renewing in order to keep the forum free and totally independant.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Shaun I understand what you are saying but I pay for both AAT and ICB membership so I get their newsletters for info as well as Sage newsletters and I am on the ICB directory along with all the other free ones such as free-index etc. etc.
I have paid for Yell and the scam ones such as Scemes (in my early days) all to no avail- I have had one client from Yell and the rest have been client referrals.
The hits that are received I would have thought or mostly people like ourselves as oppose to prospective clients?
Clare- do you offer incentives for client referral- I offer 10% off for them
of those that you are signed up for which have brought positive results?
What is the ICB directory like for finding clients as I would have imagined that one suffered from a similar issue to this site in that you are to my mind correct in that we are selling snow to eskimo's.
I wonder how they are getting end user business hits if we are not and how are they converting those hits into enquiries?
Certainly from my earlier career I never came accross ICB advertising in my business dealings so if they are getting businesses visiting their site I'm wondering how?
Have you (or anyone else reading this) converted any enquiries from the ICB site into paying clients? If so, when chatting with your client what made them go to the ICB for a bookkeeper? How are the ICB getting the word out there to end clients?
This isn't in any way anti ICB before others start looking for issues where there are none. I'm genuinely interested in how I am not seeing any marketing from them to business but business knows to go to them when they have jobs that need filling?
Even typing bookkeeper into Google doesn't come back with ICB on page one so what are they doing to attract businesses that I am missing?
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
they were'nt on the front page at all this morning (now it seems that we're not even though we were top of it)
just did the same search and already I get a different order to yourself.
Is this Google giving everyone a chance or a result of this site being more popular in the morning and the ICB one's more popular in the afternoon? (lol, sure that there's a joke in there somewhere that BKN members get up earlier than ICB one's.... Well either that or the ICB one's are just too busy to go online in the mornings).
Looking at the current list it does seem a bit confussing as well doesn't it that you've got the institute of certified bookkeepers sitting there and a few below it there's the IAB page for find a certified bookkeeper... Not even seperated by a hyphen anymore.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
This reminds me of a football chat forum I was on. At the sides of the chat section were ads supplied by Google - these ads obviously roughly based on what the person had been searching for. They complained about getting ads for "XYZ" on the site - they were a little embarrassed when it was pointed out how the ads were arrived at. In fact, did am MP not get caught out when making a similar observation.
I find it funny when I see my Ebay searches turn on some website ads. (Not in the slightest bit worried about the implications before anyone points them out).
__________________
Never buy black socks from a normal shop. They shaft you every time.
On the question of to use a hyphen or not, I thought the word didn't have a hyphen since watching University Challenge some years ago and the question of 'what word has three consecutive double letters in it' and the answer was of course bookkeeping/bookkeeper. I guess if there was a hyphen it wouldn't work!
Currently the Wikipedia entry is the top of my list... Nope just refreshed, its now ICB... Now total jobs.... Gumtree never gets a lookin although it was 3rd and 4th on Stuarts list.
Personally I've never been on Gumtree so wonder is our own search histories feed into the search equation?
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
yes, no matter what I view on Youtube someone is always trying to sell me ACCA training... First time I saw that I thought, Ooh, thats a coincidence. Doh!
Actually, I quite regularly get Sage one's come up as well and always just think "well, they're barking up the wrong tree here".
Funny I've not had one come up for Swedish nymphs in the banana factory yet? lol.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
had this debate about the hyphen with Vince some time back and I ended up quoting the Oxford Russian English dictionary which has the hyphen where the English version of the dictionary doesn't.
As far as I was concerned the real reason for the hyphen was to differentiate when one was talking about the IAB rather than the ICB but as I say the IAB seem to have dropped it as well now leaving this site as the last line in the sand for the humble hyphen.
No... just been off to the IAB site and at least their title still has the hyphen.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I have had one client (a very good one!) from the ICB but that was me checking the vacancies board on their site rather than them contacting me.
The client searched (using Google) to find a bookkeeper and chose the ICB to list the vacancy as he wanted a specialist in his particular industry. No-one with appropriate knowledge answered his advert except for me. He couldn't remember whether ICB was at the top of the list or he scrolled down.
