A stand at Accountex caught my eye called the Entrenpreneurs Circle. As I plan to expand my business this year I had a chat with them. On reading a follow up email I'm rather shocked that this will be a staggering £3000 a month although they do seem to do the whole caboodle. Maybe if I was turning over 200k I might consider it but it also got me thinking, what is the expected ratio of spend to return? I've done 2 advertising stints in the last 4 years, first I spent about £600 on yell.com and received a staggering amount of £0.00 in return, and the second, an ad in the local magazine over 10 months costing £420 gained me 3 new clients, 2 of which are still with me 4 years later, so that more than paid for itself.
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
The firm I work for had the same results with Yell, several thousand pounds spent and not a single enquiry. Social media advertising is the current biggest outlay for them and is the one we're seeing the best results from. I'm not involved in the adverts myself but I see the average spend with Facebook each month versus new leads/customers and the ROI seems pretty good. Google Adwords is still up there but has been surpassed by social media over the past 12 months.
Interesting post and made me have a look at my client list and see where they came from and to be quite honest I have done well out of Yell looking back, I have a free listing and have actually picked up 5 clients, 4 of whom are still with me and the other retired.
I had an advert in a local shop for about a year but only got 1 client from this who sadly passed away.
When I was first starting out I posted about 200 letters to local firms with a little bit about me and what I offered which included a 30% discount for new clients (everyone loves a discount) and actually picked up 6 clients as well as another 7 that they recommended me to, so worked out really well
All my other clients are people that I already knew.
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Doug
These are only my opinions of how I see things and therefore should not be taken as advice
Does anyone actually use Yell? Well yes obviously if youve done alright from it Doug, but its never a place I think to use thats for sure. I think the free listing would be enough, but my gawd they dont half spout some rubbish when they try to sell you an 'upgrade' including their website review things and it appears expensive.
But you know me - never advertised, no website etc (although I did click on the Facebook thingy when it suggested I set up a page for my business....but have done NOTHING with it since so it tells folk nothing. Guess I should update it at some point or delete it).
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Does anyone actually use Yell? Well yes obviously if youve done alright from it Doug, but its never a place I think to use thats for sure. I think the free listing would be enough,
Hi Joanne
I only did it because it's free and yes I have done okay out of it, they do still phone asking me to go on one of their paid for packages but I just decline
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Doug
These are only my opinions of how I see things and therefore should not be taken as advice
