small business marketing ideas

[Matt Keys]

[Mechcommander]

Well, what I've heard people have had luck doing, is printing out flyers of their computer repair business and posting them on neighborhood residential mailboxes. Mailboxes in neighborhoods is a nice place to pick up a little business. People (Especially the elderly) always have computer troubles. Remember, don't just stick to one particular area, either. Spread out. I'll bet that would be an excellent start. But hey, what the hell do I know...

[Matt Keys]

No, that's a good idea. Please keep them coming.

[chuck]

ads in the newspaper of course. make a super professional website and put that in the ad. then you'll look more reputable, it's all about reputation and how you present yourself.

[Brig]

Call up local businesses and offer your services. Tell everyone you know and hand out business cards.

[jadam-]

[Matt Keys]

[Chef]

[James S]

A professionally designed ad in the newspaper with a link to a professional website is the best way to go, in my opinion. The cheapest, and the most trust worthy. Fliers on a mailbox will probably get you a very low ratio of fliers to customer, so it may not be the best bang for your buck. Newspapers have the widest audience and you simply pay the newspaper to put the ad in and they print it and distribute it for you. You could even go with an ad in the classified section if you want to keep the cost really low. It's like 8 cents a word or something extremely cheap like that.

I'd suggest calling the telephone book company and getting your company in the book as soon as possible, too.

Be sure you don't have to change zoning permits to run this repair business out of your apartment/home.

If you live in a complex of some kind, or have a local community college nearby, I suggest printing out fliers that have several columns with your phone number on the bottom that people can pull off and take with them. Pin that up near the mailroom/entrance of your complex or on a bulletin board in a prominent place in the college such as admissions or the cafeteria. That way everyone sees your ad, and the people that are really interested can just grab a clip of your phone number or whatever off of the ad to take with them. When all of those clips are gone your advertisement is still there, too. College students ALWAYS need a cheap repair job, and are much more trusting of other college age students than someone that might be reading the newspaper would be.

[tomdon]

I dont know about where you live, but in my area there are a lot of people offering pc repairs. You need to come up with things to make them pick you. EG
*say you dont use computer jargon
*maybe say flexible call out times, maybe evenings when people get back from work
*um no call out costs?
etc etc

[James S]

In house repair is a good one, too, so they don't have to unplug their comp and drag it to you. But that would bring up wear and tear on your car, and gas costs.

[(TSC)Bender @ Home]

[tomdon]

[Matt Keys]

No, we do not plan to provide any phone support. We can answer quick questions on a call per call basis if we decide to.

Tomdon, thanks for the suggestion about "no computer jargon" I think people will like that.

I was thinking about offering free computer diagnostics just to get in the door.

I am under the impression that alot of people have computers that are running much slower than they could, but they don't do anything about it. So I am looking for some marketing tag lines or ideas that would inspire people to finally get it taken care of. any ideas?

[Chad]