Web Design Initial Advertising and Marketing Material Help. Please experienced person only....?

Hi





We're a new web design company and we're on a very tight budget. We can only afford $2000 for initial marketing material and advertising. Here are some of our ideas. Could you please help with your experience which methods works and which methods doesn't? And how should we allocate the $2000 that we have? Please bring new ideas if you have other method that works!





And what type of business have the most potential for webdesign and web development services?





Email Marketing - $.25 per email


Direct mail by Postcard - $.55 per postcard


Yahoo Yellow Pages - $125/month


Yahoo Local - $10/month


Pay Per Click - $1+ per click


Business Card (5000) - $100


Brochures (5000) - $550


Folder (2500) - $1430


Postcard (5000) - $330


Large Postcard (2500) - $390


Calendar (300) - $360


Bumper Sticker (500) - $800


Laptop Bags - $335

Web Design Initial Advertising and Marketing Material Help. Please experienced person only....?
As a web design company, more than other marketing campaigns, the best way to get new clients is to have an impressive portfolio to show them. Perhaps you can work for a discounted fee or even pro bono for some friends or close associates, just to have a portfolio of work to show.





What I see lacking in your list are press releases. Press releases have different uses: they can alert traditional media of your new business (and hopefully get talked about by the media -- which means you have to have a new spin or how different are you from the other web design firms). Press releases are also among the EASIEST way to get one way inbound links, and thereby helping you rank in the search engines. PRWeb http://www.prweb.com can send your release and get it through Yahoo and Google News for minimum of $80





The calendar, bumper stickers, laptop bags -- I'm not sure those are the most effective means of getting clients to your business especially considering that you have a tight budget.





One important marketing tool you are forgetting is networking. Networking allows you to meet people, other business people who may be interested to rework their websites or create websites. Join organizations and business associations in your area -- and budget for membership fees, if any. Talk about your business to them, and they may even refer you to other people who needs your services. Consider joining BNI http://www.bni.com/ (Business Network Int'l.) which is a "business and professional networking organization that offers members the opportunity to share ideas, contacts and most importantly, referrals." Chambers of commerce can also be a good source of referrals.





I would focus more on local marketing, but carefully carefully track your ROI. Yahoo Yellow pages is pricey - so check if it is actually bringing you traffic and customers.





Email marketing where you purchase an email for $0.25 cents is not a good idea. You will basically be spamming people, buying email lists yet these people may not have agreed or wanted to receive YOUR email. Be careful in using this approach as the last thing you want your business to be called is a spammer.





I know that you are just starting, but web designers often find greater success if they offer services beyond web designing. Diversify your services to include copywriting, search engine optimization, handling pay per clicks, or even just site maintenance.
Reply:I have used a company called intellicontact for almost a year. This is an e-mail marketing company. They don't charge per e-mail. They charge a very reasonable flat rate per month. The user interface is very user friendly and they provide detailed reports of each e-mail campaign. Take a look at their web-site, I think they could be of some use to you. Go to www.intellicontact.com
Reply:At this stage, I guess you must focus on networking...





The latest trend is to "blog"... Create a blog for your business... You can download a custom blog from http://www.s9y.com and install on your servers... This is more professional approach and one host who can help you on this is http://www.hostjack.co.uk whom you can contact at sales@hostjack.co.uk





Else, you can register a blog at http://www.blogger.com which offers totally free hosting...





With blogs, you can build the network and be visible on the web... Simultaneously, you can spend your advertising revenue to promote your blogs (to build relationships) and inturn your blog can promote your product...





Hope this helps
Reply:Personally, I can't stand any lame giveaways so ditch all of those. Your going to need some collateral so book the brochures and good business cards. Next, I'd pay for yellow pages and cost per click advertising. Finally, if anything is left over go for a targeted email blast.





In answer to your other question, I'd look at local retail. The money may not be a lot, but you may be able to make up for it on volume.
Reply:Also use ppc clicks from smaller engines. you'll get targeted traffic at a hugely cheaper price. Become a vendor on guru dot com, and other freelance type places so that you can offer hundreds or even thousands of people your services for a very low price. Also I would stick to online advertising, maybe try a banner on adbrite. And if you can try sticking to email advertising, or maybe try capturing some email addresses so you can send emails over and over. Write articles about yourself and place in every article directory.

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