What form of advertising should I use?

September 3, 2006 6:39 PM

I am 19 and starting a small IT business in orange county, CA. I have 3 medium size clients that use me regularly, and I've taken on my first employee part time recently. But I just had my first month where no one needed IT work done, because I'm too good of a job! And this indicates to me that I need to do some proactive advertising. What is the best method of advertising to get my company's name out there?

I've thought of doing door-to-door soliciting, or even hiring someone to do it for me. I go to school mondays and wednesdays, so most of my available working time is taken up by administrative work and actual IT work, since I only have 1 part time employee. To justify a second or full time employee I would also need more clients. My main IT focus is offering all you can eat tech support at a fixed monthly cost, but we do still do hourly work for smaller clients who don't use us as often. I have also considered hiring a salesman who is paid mostly on commission, any thoughts? My current amount I can spend on any kind of ad campaign is limited to about $2000.

posted by thegmann to work & money (10 comments total)

Doing too good of a job*, hah
posted by thegmann at 6:41 PM on September 3, 2006

Ask your existing clients to refer to you friends / family / other businesses. I have a small web design business and pretty much all my new work comes from personal referrals. Sending your existing clients a letter along the lines of "we're seeking to grow our business, if you like what we do, please consider telling others' is quite acceptable. If you get new business this way, be sure to thank whoever gets that business for you.
posted by valleys at 6:44 PM on September 3, 2006

What about calling your local chamber of commerce or small business forum and asking them if they have a newsletter you could place a small ad in or a monthly forum you can speak at?

You may also want to consider local churches - when I pick up our weekly bulletin at my church, there are a few advertisements for IT/help desk type services and, while I'm not religious, I would probably patronize those folks before going to the phone book. Those ads are very inexpensive; when I had to solicit for them in high school, a 1" x 3" ad was $50.

Which leads me to another venue - perhaps a bolded or even 1" block in the yellow pages might be another avenue. Be careful with this line, though, because there are a zillion companies soliciting for "yellow book" "yellow pages" "yellow phone" and such - look for the one that is actually used by most of your potential market - not the one that comes to you asking you to place an ad.
posted by MeetMegan at 6:46 PM on September 3, 2006

By the way, congratulations on your flourishing business! Best of luck!
posted by MeetMegan at 6:47 PM on September 3, 2006

First off, congratulations on you new venture. I do a lot of freelance web design and most of my work comes from personal referrals. In the beginning it was mainly 2 clients that were very social and introduced me to a lot of people. From then on, I've been quite busy and do very little advertising myself.

If you don't have one already I would get a web site as well as a bunch of business cards. Then when your telling people about your new business you can give them a card and/ or refer them to your site.
posted by savagecorp at 7:20 PM on September 3, 2006

Ditto on the business cards, give one to everyone you meet at one of your customers, people change jobs and you want them to have you on the rolodex when they leave.
Find out what bussiness's in your area might use your service and who would be the person to see and try and get an appointment, afterwards go over the whole thing and decide what went right and wrong. You might make your trial run at a B-list company to get your sales talk down before you try your best prospects.
posted by Iron Rat at 7:42 PM on September 3, 2006

Google adwords are risk-free and you only pay when someone clicks on the link to your site. Geo-targeting available.
posted by UncleHornHead at 8:15 PM on September 3, 2006

Word of mouth referrals are the best advertising there is. They also cost the least. Prime them by leaving a handful of business cards with each of your customers and asking them to pass them on; if you're as good as you say you are, your customers will be more than happy to do this.
posted by flabdablet at 9:26 PM on September 3, 2006

What about providing some sort of regular maintenance program for your current clients, to encourage prevention of problems, and bring in repeat business? Eg. monthly virus, spam, & spyware check, and a defrag, for a fixed monthly fee?

Much like they do at the mechanics, you could do a Bronze, Silver or Gold plan, offering different levels of service on a price scale to suit their budget.
posted by girlgeeknz at 10:03 PM on September 3, 2006

Offer discounts with a referral, perhaps?
Depending on where you live, you can probably put $20 or $30 in for a small ad in a "Pennysaver"-esque (free) newspaper for your area.
I like girlgeeknz's idea.
posted by itchie at 5:42 AM on September 4, 2006