New business advice

natnifnolnacs

Hi,

Myself and a business partner have recently set up a new business in Waterford. Although both of us are already self employed, this is the first time that either of us is involved with anything that we have to advertise and neither of us has much experience in this regard. We have a website and a facebook page but I was wondering if anyone would have any advice on where to go next....Is print media advertising worth the cost? Are fliers?

As it is a new business, we are obviously trying to keep costs to a minimum but we reckon if the word gets around properly that it will really take off. I'd love to hear any opinions on the most effective way to get the word out....I'd also love to get some feedback on the website so if you see any ways to improve it please do let me know.

www.bubblesoccerwaterford.com

Thanks all!

Digital Society

School days out maybe. A bit expensive though.

Not sure where it could be aimed. Id say bring down prices and start contacting businesses etc for group days out with discounts.

old gregg

Web site is a bit naff. Gallery link at top does not work and the gallery images once opened only close when you press the Esc key (most people will expect a close option or click outside the image to close it). Search engines will penalise a single page site. Meta tags are not great. Does nothing to say professional business.

Digital Society

Theres an exit option when i open the gallery images. X at the top centre. Theres not much competition for that niche so id say SEO wont matter that much and overall i honestly have seen a hell of a lot worse. Not the worst site ive ever seen. Not award winning but just about enough to make a sale if the bugs where taken out and price was improved id say.

I still think if prices where lowered groups could be well targeted. 200 quid for 40 mins 5 a side is too steep. closer to half that i would have thought.

Also 3rd video uses bad language. Remove it. Bounce Ni***r is probably not a good choice of words to represent your business.

Sully

Website isn't loading for me. If you are an Irish business, get a .IE domain name but shop around - they can be very expensive if you go to the wrong supplier.

Advertising is a lot about brand awareness, it's very hard to gauge the result and it depends on the business. I've done flyers for one particular business who has done the marketing very well. They target their client specifically with the flyers and their flyer has the appropriate message. I've found some advertising works, but advertising in newspapers hasn't got me very far and a lot of businesses I work with have said the same.

Branding is important. An awful lot of cowboys out there doing design & print and the work is shoddy. People do notice these things. Look at those who are successful and you will see their printing and design is done very well. Website & Social media are key players these days, with a lot of focus going on social media in particular. That's Facebook in particular, with Twitter following suit and other platforms depend entirely on the type of business you do.

Chip Whitley

Don't get flyers for the sake of it! Identify what segments of the market that would be most interested in Bubble Soccer and get flyers to them. Maybe have a think about striking up some deals with people in a similar line of trade to ye... if ye want to attract stags maybe talk to a pub that puts on package deals, if ye want to attract birthday parties throw some flyers in to Partyworld, if you want school tours, talk to principals etc etc.

If ye are going to do Facebook and Twitter make sure they are updated with interesting and relevant content regularly. It looks terrible when you see a business on Facebook and they haven't posted since Feb 2013.

If you're getting stuff printed, talk to a proper graphic designer to get it done, if your artwork isn't print-ready a lot of printers will charge you an extra fee to make it ready for print. Don't go designing anything yourself in Word, Excel, Powerpoint or anything like that. It always looks ****e. And get quotes! No harm in shopping around until you find a crowd you're comfortable with and can get into a good relationship with!



Best of luck, Bubble Soccer looks like great craic!

Jambo

Sully wrote: »

Website isn't loading for me.

+1 Same here not working either

cardwizzard

Site not loading

natnifnolnacs

Digital Society wrote: »

School days out maybe. A bit expensive though.

Not sure where it could be aimed. Id say bring down prices and start contacting businesses etc for group days out with discounts.

Where to aim it isn't really the problem. There are loads of groups we can target - stags, staff parties, team building days etc. We have researched the price and we are in line with (or cheaper than) anyone else that does this in the country.

old gregg wrote: »

Web site is a bit naff. Gallery link at top does not work and the gallery images once opened only close when you press the Esc key (most people will expect a close option or click outside the image to close it). Search engines will penalise a single page site. Meta tags are not great. Does nothing to say professional business.

Thanks. We have quickly decided to do a complete re-design. mk2 will be along soon!

Digital Society wrote: »

Theres an exit option when i open the gallery images. X at the top centre. Theres not much competition for that niche so id say SEO wont matter that much and overall i honestly have seen a hell of a lot worse. Not the worst site ive ever seen. Not award winning but just about enough to make a sale if the bugs where taken out and price was improved id say.

I still think if prices where lowered groups could be well targeted. 200 quid for 40 mins 5 a side is too steep. closer to half that i would have thought.

Also 3rd video uses bad language. Remove it. Bounce Ni***r is probably not a good choice of words to represent your business.

We definitely aren't clear enough about what is offered for the money. Just to clarify, the session is an hour long. The money covers hall rental, bubble rental, insurance and a session co-ordinator who will run the games.

We added music to the videos on youtube but obviously never checked that one video properly. It has since been changed. Thanks for pointing that out and apologies for any offence.

Sully wrote: »

Website isn't loading for me. If you are an Irish business, get a .IE domain name but shop around - they can be very expensive if you go to the wrong supplier.

Advertising is a lot about brand awareness, it's very hard to gauge the result and it depends on the business. I've done flyers for one particular business who has done the marketing very well. They target their client specifically with the flyers and their flyer has the appropriate message. I've found some advertising works, but advertising in newspapers hasn't got me very far and a lot of businesses I work with have said the same.

Branding is important. An awful lot of cowboys out there doing design & print and the work is shoddy. People do notice these things. Look at those who are successful and you will see their printing and design is done very well. Website & Social media are key players these days, with a lot of focus going on social media in particular. That's Facebook in particular, with Twitter following suit and other platforms depend entirely on the type of business you do.

Thanks for that, we do have a facebook page which is doing quite well for us and have had a lot of interest from it. There is some other good advice in there, I was unsure about print media anyway but I think I'll avoid, It is expensive and I don't think the return is there at all.

Wesite should be loading now? I'm not sure what happened last night!

The Incredible Hulk wrote: »

Don't get flyers for the sake of it! Identify what segments of the market that would be most interested in Bubble Soccer and get flyers to them. Maybe have a think about striking up some deals with people in a similar line of trade to ye... if ye want to attract stags maybe talk to a pub that puts on package deals, if ye want to attract birthday parties throw some flyers in to Partyworld, if you want school tours, talk to principals etc etc.

If ye are going to do Facebook and Twitter make sure they are updated with interesting and relevant content regularly. It looks terrible when you see a business on Facebook and they haven't posted since Feb 2013.

If you're getting stuff printed, talk to a proper graphic designer to get it done, if your artwork isn't print-ready a lot of printers will charge you an extra fee to make it ready for print. Don't go designing anything yourself in Word, Excel, Powerpoint or anything like that. It always looks ****e. And get quotes! No harm in shopping around until you find a crowd you're comfortable with and can get into a good relationship with!



Best of luck, Bubble Soccer looks like great craic!

Thanks, some good advice there!

Jambo wrote: »

+1 Same here not working either

cardwizzard wrote: »

Site not loading

Should be working now lads, I'm not sure why it wasn't loading last night.

CelticRambler

natnifnolnacs wrote: »

We have researched the price and we are in line with (or cheaper than) anyone else that does this in the country.

Just remember, though, that your main competitors are probably companies doing other stuff in Waterford/the South East, so the cost-per-litre of adrenaline of your hour has to match whatever they offer, not what someone in Donegal is charging for the same activity.

Still, it's a wacky idea and I might be able to put some work your way in due course (got to get my own stuff sorted out first). What's the biggest number of people you can cater for at any one time?

hardybuck

While you've asked a fairly specific question, you should definitely speak to the City Enterprise Board if you haven't already. They offer loads of business advice, training, mentoring, financial supports etc.

https://www.localenterprise.ie/Waterford/

Ballyv24

See if you can get onto sites like http://www.discovertramore.ie/thingstodo and also TripAdvisor.

TheVandal

The website:

1. Make a better meta description
2. Check all images for ALT attribute
3. Distinguish your keywords with strongs and bolds
4. Improve internal linking
5. Add proper robots.txt file
6. Add proper sitemap.xml file

Don't worry about Meta tags- they make no difference anymore.

wobbles

Definately shop around when looking to get stuff printed. I try to keep local as much as possible but their quotes were unreal. Got double the amount for a fraction of the cost by going to an international printer

Ballyv24

Also get on to Groupon or a similar site.. You won't make as much money from the groups, but they send out thousands of emails in Ireland so that would be a good initial marketing campaign.

looder

For printing, I've used these. http://www.needaprint.ie/

Think they're Dublin based. Turnaround is under 5 days, and could be even closer to 2 working days. I haven't used them in about 12 months but quality was pretty good, when I did use them.

A lot cheaper than some of the local quotes, I got.

looder

Ballyv24 wrote: »

Also get on to Groupon or a similar site.. You won't make as much money from the groups, but they send out thousands of emails in Ireland so that would be a good initial marketing campaign.

Those Deal of the Day sites are very expensive. Would it be money better spent, advertising on Beatfm?

Flyers into local hotels would be an idea too. It might grab the eye of a few stags.

ROCKMAN

Hi

I know you were looking for advice mainly about website but..
I run youth groups/clubs in Waterford and our prices / Rates are way to high to attract most groups IMO , I brought my group to a place in Wexford last month and we got a package which included " bubble soccer" , bowling ,food ,Climbing wall etc for under € 20.
Now I would love to support a local business especially a new one like yours but with all the budget cuts and loss of grants ,groups like ourselves are really feeling it at the moment. so it prices / rates that will have a major say in your choice of activities .

I will say leaving rates aside , It is a great activity and some craic and I would encourage anybody on here to try it out , you will not regret it.
Best of luck lads.

cococoady

If you got on board with the likes of Beat FM and ran a few competitions would be your best bet I'd say.

MRnotlob606

hey that's a great Idea I've always wanted to do bubble soccer, Plus I'm a leader in a summer camp in the city and this would look like a great Idea for the kids. I'd keep an open mind and I'll suggest it to my colleagues

natnifnolnacs

Hi folks, I do appreciate all comments (both good and bad!) I haven't had a chance to do up a proper reply to things yet, but we've done a complete redesign on the site so if you could take another look that would be great

www.bubblesoccerwaterford.com

I know there is 1 link to "frequently asked questions" not working but I'll get to that tomorrow!

Sully

Looks good. You should pop out to the beach in Tramore and do some events on the beach.

natnifnolnacs

Sully wrote: »

Looks good. You should pop out to the beach in Tramore and do some events on the beach.

Thanks! I'm not sure if the beach would work....it's hard enough to keep your footing without playing on sand, and one rock in the wrong place and the bubble would go pop, or someone would break an ankle.

AdMMM

The first thing that springs to mind is advertising on Facebook and targeting those who have already liked the local Pitch and Foot page. That way the only people who will be seeing your ads are those who already like a novel approach to football.

You should also easily be able to set up some AdWords ads targeting "Waterford Stags" and the like. There's very little competition for that in Waterford at the moment so it should be cheap enough.

Send emails/letters to the social committees in as many businesses you know in Waterford that you think would have the employee profile suited to Bubble Football (I'm guessing 18-36, male). You'd be amazed at how Social Committees always struggle for ideas, and are accused of being boring, so something like this could be a breath of fresh air for them.

If you know a student or two, you could ask them to set up a Bubble Soccer Club in WIT. They wouldn't pay €20 a week (unless they get college funding) but at least you'd be able to secure one night every week in the same venue to keep some coin coming in and allow you to improve how you work on running the hour.

Finally, I'm down in Waterford in a few weeks and have already floated the idea of this to my old group of 5-a-side players, so hopefully I'll get to experience it first hand soon

Sully

AdMMM wrote: »

The first thing that springs to mind is advertising on Facebook and targeting those who have already liked the local Pitch and Foot page. That way the only people who will be seeing your ads are those who already like a novel approach to football.

I didn't think Facebook targeting allowed you target specific pages?

AdMMM

Sully wrote: »

I didn't think Facebook targeting allowed you target specific pages?

You can by using the Power Editor, although some pages aren't supported. Facebook haven't made it clear if it's a bug or intentional.