Are you gambling with your business?

You frequently gamble with your business. You will pay out huge sums of money in the hope that you will see a return on your investment.

Who’s guaranteeing that you will see a return on what you are spending? Nobody.

You would have a better chance of betting on the outcome of the Grand National.

Where are you doing all this gambling? In how you advertise your business.

Where do you gamble?

If you’re going down the route of traditional advertising (newspapers, leafleting, local directories… hell you could even buy a billboard), it’s all static. That means you need interested people to happen across your advert. I know of a local directory service that will happily relieve you of £650 a month to be listed in their book and they’ll kindly throw in a bit of digital advertising as well.

When you spend on digital advertising, some of that money will be used on search engine optimisation (SEO), where someone will rewrite your webpage so that it conforms to the latest search engine algorithms (which are actually unknowable) in the hope that will increase traffic to your webpage. But the key to getting more traffic lies in integrating content with SEO as well as social media marketing… so now you need to pay for that as well.

Is it right for you?

If you’re a county-wide or national company with lots of staff ready to service your clients, then yes. You have the resources to spend on your business.

If you’re someone who works alone as a mobile hairdresser, a dog walker or even a physiotherapist, then probably not. It comes down to whether you can you afford it.

To be clear, we aren’t having a dig at marketing companies that offer these services; there are some that understand their business very well and tailor packages to suit. We’re just saying that it depends on your business size and how much you can afford. Remember, there are still no guarantees that your spend will get you more paying customers, but it’s better than doing nothing, right?

At me:now we’re massive fans of businesses taking an active part in advertising themselves. They know what they do better than anyone, but we also realise it’s time-consuming and bloody expensive.

How does your business stand out?

The me:now app advertises when you’re available to do what you do. It also alerts your existing customers that you have a free slot: that’s advertising to people who want to know when you are free. (an anti-GDPR tool if you like)

When you say that you’re available you’re standing out from the crowd.

When you promote your free slots on the me:now app you can also share them on Facebook and Twitter.

If someone on social media asks for recommendations they usually get 10-15 replies. They then usually ring through those 10-15 until they find someone free to do the job. Imagine now if someone recommends you and also says that you’re free on Saturday at 2pm (for example) because you’ve shared your me:now listing. What is the person looking for the recommendation going to do?

They’ll ring you first.

We know that by providing you with a service that is easy to use and extremely cheap to run, you will have a better chance at filling those empty appointments/slots/tables. If you’re more successful then you can spend elsewhere on advertising if that’s what you want to do.

What you should do is this.

1. Download the app.
2. Register your business.
3. Tell your customers to follow you in the app.