Best place to advertise business services?

Enemy Of Fate

I was just wondering if anyone could let me know of any useful sites for advertising a new business services company? I'm already using gumtree and add.ie, and am avoiding adverts.ie at the minute as I think the price for placing an ad in the services section is an absolute rip off. Any other ad sites similar to the ones mentioned above that I should be using? Thanks for any advice.

jetsonx

Each business service will require a different advertising medium?

What sort of service is it?

Enemy Of Fate

Its basically a site that offers casual/temporary outsourcing for short term periods of time to SMEs (so if someone wanted to hire an I.T person to come in and do tech support for a day a week or something like that). I'm in the process of setting up the website at the minute and am just looking for ways to advertise, it'll initially be somewhat of a side project to see if it has any legs so I'm trying to keep spending low.

jetsonx

Enemy Of Fate wrote: »

Its basically a site that offers casual/temporary outsourcing for short term periods of time to SMEs (so if someone wanted to hire an I.T person to come in and do tech support for a day a week or something like that). I'm in the process of setting up the website at the minute and am just looking for ways to advertise, it'll initially be somewhat of a side project to see if it has any legs so I'm trying to keep spending low.

So your offering a more flexible option to SMEs, right?

I thought there was loads of small operators offering tech support in the SME
market and the market is near to saturation?

When there are loads of players in a market, there also tends to be loads of flexibility offered by these players and especially when a lot of them are small time operators. You will have to rethink your strategy. You have to offer the marketplace something that is not there already.


Your proposed business model would work very well in a market where there is a) big existing players who are inflexible b) where there is a lack of market information available to the consumer. For example, using "flexibility" as a CA (competitive advantage) in the US and UK car hire market. A couple of big players Hertz, Avis etc., who are pretty inflexible AND coupled with a very fragmented bunch of small time operators - there was an ideal opening there for new entrants. The market was crying out for flexibility.

With the facilitation of the internet, operators like Streetcar and Zipcar have filled this niche using flexibility as their main CA.

Advertising will not help you. You have to readjust your business model first. Try to bring this model to a market that is in growth stage. Your current business model would have been very suited to the Irish market in the 1990s but not now.

Feel free to PM me.

Enemy Of Fate

PM sent Jetson!

Just back on topic, has anyone got any other free ad websites that would be useful for advertising our services? On a slight side note our primary offering would probably be more flexible, short term sales support rather than tech support if that makes a difference.

sparky28

The are a few good free ad websites in operation. Whatswhat.ie offer a free listing as do needit.ie and hotfrog.ie. Have a look at these and see what you think.

Kent Brockman

sparky28 wrote: »

The are a few good free ad websites in operation. Whatswhat.ie offer a free listing as do needit.ie and hotfrog.ie. Have a look at these and see what you think.

Whatswhat free version aint worth a sh1t as you don't get any links to website/FB etc.
Hotfrog I have found good.
Haven't heard of needit? but as this is your 1st post I assume you can tell us a bit more about it?

sparky28

I have an ad running on needit.ie and I have gotten a couple of calls as a result. Seems to be working quite well. I have also used whats what and found them to be quite good as well. Some of the bigger players charge big money so you need to be sure before you invest.

sparky28

In terms of affordable advertising, you could also look at Google ad words. I know you pay for the service but the advantage is that you decide how much you are willing to pay per click. If you are clever and choose a small group of key words that relate to your business you could attract traffic to your website for as little as €30 per month. The more you pay the more traffic you attract.

In relation to your business proposal, I don't agree that you need to rethink your model just because there are a lot of players offering the same service. What you must do however is analyze what other people are offering and then offer a service that is either better or cheaper than the available alternatives.

footie_fanatic

local traders you can advertise for free, try to target local enterprise boards as well

HappyKate

sparky28 wrote: »

In terms of affordable advertising, you could also look at Google ad words. I know you pay for the service but the advantage is that you decide how much you are willing to pay per click. If you are clever and choose a small group of key words that relate to your business you could attract traffic to your website for as little as €30 per month. The more you pay the more traffic you attract.

Regarding google ad words...
Does anyone know how much does it cost to put the advert on the top google searching page and on the first place in yellow (paid) sector? What to do if my competitor is on that first place in yellow sector and I want to get this advert place for me?

Thanks!

sparky28

Hi Kate, That still operates around the google ad words package. Google seem to rotate them around. I pay Google a small amount per month and sometimes my ad will appear at the top of the page in paid section and other times it will be shown along the side of the search results page. There is a lot of info available if you click the business link on the google home page. Hope this helps.