"Wealthfrom took our
advertising, turned it on its head, created an
effective web based
campaign, increased our turnover and saved us an absolute fortune in
advertising costs
Page 1 of Google
in our local area
within 3 weeks
10/10 -
Well Done Wealthfrom! ILS Electrical
If you already run a business you need to read the whole of this page, your financial future could
depend on it!
Business Building - the
future
Over the years I have owned and operated several businesses, with the
benefit of hindsight I can see how the finances of those businesses were utilised. A large
proportion of our budget was always taken up by the prohibitive cost of advertising.
In most businesses advertising is an important part of the sales process, in some businesses it is
the very lifeblood.
The thing I most hated about advertising was that about half of it did work and half of it did
not work. The half that did work was essential to maintain the flow of customers
and therefore new contracts into the company. The mainstay of my advertising budget was the
Yellow pages Directory. This did in fact bring in consistant phonecalls. It was
however, very expensive. Some years I placed over twenty thousand pounds (that was
£1833.00 per month) worth of advertising to keep the enquiries at a growth
level, I was also placing ads in the local paper or in a glossy magazine, with this style
of advert the volumel of enquiries appeared to decrease but the value of sales seemed to
increase.
The only way to find out what was working and what was not, whilst trying to understand
why was to test every bit of marketing and advertising we did, this could become an obsession,
it takes a lot of time and effort to find out exactly what is what. In fact it became so bad I
decided to try a professional marketing company to give me a better Idea as to what was worth its
money in marketing and advertising. Unfortunately this proved to be a very expensive excersise, the
only thing that these guys seemed to be accomplished at Marketing and selling was themselves.
I have to say they were the most agrovating people I have ever dealt with, awfull buzz words
for everything, enthuisiasm beyond belief (especially when using my money) and they could even find
an up side in wasting a fortune on a failed campaign?
It panned out that they had no more idea than I did. I asked the owner of the marketing company
what was the most successful method of marketing my business, he said
(quite correctly) that it could only be discovered by trial, error and testing. I pointed out
that I thought I was hiring them for their experience and expertees, he agreed,
but added that he could only do so much and he didn't have a crystal ball! That
was the final straw, I had already been doing that myself and did not value my time at
any where near what they were charging me. I booted them out and decided to stick with
the Yellow Directory, at Least I knew that worked!
The reason I knew the Yellow Directory worked was because I advertised in it
using a stand alone phone line and number, that way we knew that every call that came in was from
only that source. Everything else we had listed used a different phone number including our
letter heads, cards and receipts.
I sold that business and moved
on.
Several years later I set up a new company in a similar field, I again advertised in the
Yellow Directories but this time I was extremely dissapointed by the return, I had just assumed it
would work the same but had not taken into consideration one very important factor.......
The Internet
Times they were
a changing, it was now 2005 and what started out as a gimmick was beginning to take on a life
of it's own. I had witnessed the start of the internet and seen the dot com explosion, in fact the
nineties almost seemed to make and break the internet in a short time. The stock market and banks
suddenly rushed to invest vast sums in the dot com revolution and over valued it, boom and
bust. But bust it was not, just sort of set back a bit. In the last few years we have seen a
quantum leap in the commercial usage of the internet, this is mainly due to the falling price
of things and the fact that almost everyone in the developed world now seems to have easy and
affordable access to the web. Unfortunately this seems to have had a devastating effect on our old
friends the Yellow Directories, why do you think that is? It is because things just got a lot
easier over the last five years, and in the last year ?
A Quantum leap is now taking
place
Well here is my take on the situation.
This is the age of the quick fix and people are getting lazy, if there is a faster or easier
way to do something they will take it. So if someone needs information or the number of a
company or business what will they do - they will look it up on the internet, it is quick and it is
easy. Wait you scream, what if they are not beside a computer, surely it is easier to pick up the
yellow pages then? Well that is where the quantum leap is now taking place
Is this the death of
the yellow directory?
Over the last couple of years, another quiet
revolution has taken place. There has been a big stride forward in mobile devices, by mobile
devices I mean mobile phones, ipads etc. The mobile phone has morphed into the smartphone and
it is basically a computer that makes phonecalls. At the time of writing the mobile internet
platforms are starting to outnumber the traditional PC's and laptops in volumes used
to access the internet. Things have now turned on their head, for the very
first time it is easier to find what you want online. If you think about this
logically, who is going to get up and go looking for the yellow directory when they
can simply pull their phone out of their pocket and search online without moving out of
their seat? And if they are not at home or just do not have access to a directory - well that
is an absolute no brainer.
It's happening
everywhere Drive past any school at hometime, look at
the mums waiting in their cars for kids to come out, what are they doing - they are
surfing or talking on their phone. At the bus stop or train station, what are people doing?
They are talking or listening to music on their phones or surfing the internet on them.
What is now taking place in the financial world - you are going to pay for things with your
phone, yes it is happening all around us, the shift is taking place. If you can find a
teenager who does not have a mobile phone today you can bet they are an oddity Todays kids are
growing up with technology, and that is the future, and it is hitting us like an express
train.
Are you wasting your
money
Technology is moving on at an incredible pace, and the majority of
people are quickly adapting to it. It is no good Wasting your money investing in outdated or even
current trends, we have to look to the future, the future is mobile. Development of current mobile
platforms is in it's infancy, I predict that phones and browsers will move to watch format next, we
wont need a keyboard we will talk to it and the images will be on a small watch touchscreen with
the option of projecting the images or video onto any flat surface! but that is a different
story, nevertheless it will be mobile.
What Next?
On our Website Services page you will see a list of options, all working on PC
and Mobile platform ready for the future. You can have anything from a 2 page presence (or feeder
site) up to a fifteen page site. If you require anything not offered please contact us for a
bespoke price.
was the most successful method of marketing my business, he said
(quite correctly) that it could only be discovered by trial, error and testing. I pointed out
that I thought I was hiring them for their experience and expertees, he agreed,
but added that he could only do so much and he didn't have a crystal ball! That
was the final straw, I had already been doing that myself and did not value my time at
any where near what they were charging me. I booted them out and decided to stick with
the Yellow Directory, at Least I knew that worked!
