Marketing. Group buying. advice required

[Printerboy]

Hey FS members,

I would like to get some ideas thrown around if you could spare your time.

I currently run: Printerboy

___
Questions

How would I use a group buying site for my website?

Would putting up a banner on an appropriate site be worth it?

Any ideas of targeting small businesses in my marketing campaign?

Currently doing SMS marketing, Email marketing and have someone doing a bit of SEO for me.

I'm open to all feedback and ideas

Regards

Ben.

[AgentMail]

Hi Ben,

I wonder if you can clarify - are you targetting businesses to register with you, or people looking for printing to be fulfilled?

If it is the latter, because your service appeals to pretty much every business, you need to think about how to market to them. Businesses will not be as interactive with online marketing as normal consumers, nor will they respond well to SMS marketing (this is just my personal opinion)
Have you thought about unaddressed mail? This is a service Australia Post offer, where you can pay to have your flyer distributed to every business PO Box in a suburb, city etc. - I would recommend having a chat with some of your members, so what kind of 'specials'or 'promo' pricing that might be looking to use and then get some flyers made up with that info on there.
Depending on how you feel about your business reputation, you could try telemarketing too - this can be super effective if you find the right company - or if you just want to get the word out about the company and not worried about the quality, look at the overseas call centre options.

I wouldn't have thought it too hard to fin printers willing to bid for the work, but they will lose interest if you cannot get enough traffic for them to quote on, even if it is only pay per quote.

It sounds like, based on the posts I have read from you, you are pretty clued up in the area of social and online marketing, but you may need some help with the 'other' stuff, what that be right?

Best of luck and happy to help if I can

[B Cooper]

Hi Ben,

Have you looked into Google Adwords? It requires cash, time, and persistance, but I think it'd be well worth looking into if you really want to boost your sales.

Brentis

[NickHumphries]

I highly recommend group buying if you can afford to cut your margin by over half. I had a deal on with bizzbuzz a few weeks ago: http://bizzbuzz.com.au/deals/akitso-...s-new-website/

Went very well, new customers and thus new relationships

All about building relationships in the early stages of business!

[Printerboy]

Originally Posted by AgentMail

Hi Ben,

I wonder if you can clarify - are you targetting businesses to register with you, or people looking for printing to be fulfilled?

If it is the latter, because your service appeals to pretty much every business, you need to think about how to market to them. Businesses will not be as interactive with online marketing as normal consumers, nor will they respond well to SMS marketing (this is just my personal opinion)
Have you thought about unaddressed mail? This is a service Australia Post offer, where you can pay to have your flyer distributed to every business PO Box in a suburb, city etc. - I would recommend having a chat with some of your members, so what kind of 'specials'or 'promo' pricing that might be looking to use and then get some flyers made up with that info on there.
Depending on how you feel about your business reputation, you could try telemarketing too - this can be super effective if you find the right company - or if you just want to get the word out about the company and not worried about the quality, look at the overseas call centre options.

I wouldn't have thought it too hard to fin printers willing to bid for the work, but they will lose interest if you cannot get enough traffic for them to quote on, even if it is only pay per quote.

It sounds like, based on the posts I have read from you, you are pretty clued up in the area of social and online marketing, but you may need some help with the 'other' stuff, what that be right?

Best of luck and happy to help if I can

Hey Agent Mail,

Thanks for the feedback!

I'm looking at targeting customers, with the idea that they are my draw card when I market to Printer companies.

I'm fairly clued on online marketing but not social that is over my head. I think sometimes you can only really understand a few sections of this stuff because it is such a fast changing sector.

I will look into the unaddressed mail.

Thanks again for the help.

[Printerboy]

Originally Posted by NickHumphries

I highly recommend group buying if you can afford to cut your margin by over half. I had a deal on with bizzbuzz a few weeks ago: http://bizzbuzz.com.au/deals/akitso-...s-new-website/

Went very well, new customers and thus new relationships

All about building relationships in the early stages of business!

Hey Nick,

Yeh have been learning about this relationship marketing and permission marketing this week.

Can I ask a few questions about your group buying?

What percentage cut did they take?
Anything you would do differently next time or words of advice?

[Printerboy]

Originally Posted by B Cooper

Hi Ben,

Have you looked into Google Adwords? It requires cash, time, and persistance, but I think it'd be well worth looking into if you really want to boost your sales.

Brentis

Hey Brentis, I did an initial Adwords campaign to get a bit of a feel for my website performance. However I think I need alot more specific landing pages (currently working on them now) before I start the campaign up again.

I think I will try and do that soon though.

Thanks Brentis