l do property maintenance services.

Whatever you do, do NOT litter your advertising all over the place.
This sort of thing tends to alienate people.

Approach building managers in person and when you have earned their business encourage them to tell their friends, the very best advertising you can get is by way of recommendation of a present customer.

l agree with the previous answerer in that the best free advertising is by recommendation. Why not give a small flyer to anyone you work for with a 10 percent introductory discount for new customers. This may encourage them to recommend you to a friend

Advertising is only one of the ways in which u can get business - & whilst it has a value it is not as good as the advertising sales people will tell u it is.

The first thing l would do is look at networking effectively - there r plenty of groups of property investors out there who need good maintenance people that they can trust. Examples include http://propertyinvestorsnetwork.co.uk, http://propertynetworkingclub.co.uk/, http://propertynetworkingclub.com/, & other such groups. That gets u in front of people who have regular work that needs doing, which is always a good foundation for a strong business.

Then u need to think about how u can help people in the current housing market & how u can target them. For instance, selling a house nowadays is quite hard - so how about advertising/marketing a 'house doctoring' service to help bring their properties up to scratch? This can be done quite cheaply through leaflet drops. As for target properties, simply look round for people with for sale or to let boards up! Also, talk to estate agents - if they cant sell houses, they dont earn money, so potentially u could have a valuable source of referrals there.

After that, how about looking at some of the business networking groups such as BRX http://brxnet.co.uk/portal.html. BN l http://bni.co.uk/default.htm, or local groups like http://daventrybreakfastclub.co.uk/ or http://rugbybreakfast.wordpress.com/. These groups r often crying out for good maintenance people - & in ur trade, word of mouth is probably one of the greatest (and most cost effectivce) adverts there is.

l would then look at 'advertising' in the likes of yellow pages/thompson - but here u r one amongst a range of others all saying the same thing so it wont be as cost effective as the methods l mention above but they will almost certainly generate some business over time.

Finally, for more ideas, l do recommend the Get Clients Now system http://mcssl.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=693451 - whilst American & aimed at coaches & consultants, it does work very well in the UK & is very effective for anyone providing personal services like you.

Hope this helps.

David Nicoll FCIM Chartered Marketer

l also agree with suggestions in already. Here r a few practical suggestions:

1. Place classified advertisements in real estate megazines or news papers relevant section
2. Place poster/banner outside/near the real estate registration office (s)
3. If u have not done already, have a website & market ur website
4. Participate in real estate shows as a visitor. Collect leads and/or distribute ur flyers.
5. Visit local real estate agents & make them ur commission agents.
6. Ask u satisfied clients to provide leads.
7. Not to forget, ask ur dis-satisfied clients about the feedback on improvement areas in ur service model.
8. Have commission based sales staff for yourself.

All the best!

advertising is one of the most important aspects of business.

my dad owns a sign shop & spends about 2000 a year in advertising just for yellow pages, but in return gets about 16-20000 in sales from people who used the yellow pages to find them.

i would highly suggest spending money on advertising & keep track of how u get ur customers. u will see that paying for ur advertising does actually help u in the long run.

it does always help to be extremely nice to ur clients & to make sure to do a great job. then they will surely pass u on to their friends & other business partners.

Treat your customers very well let them advertise for you

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