I started an event hire business in a major city 10 years ago & I did that just through SEO. 4 years ago I moved to a regional town of 40K people & started the same business. My initial thought was since I had virtually no online competition I would be able to do well. I have been able to dominate Google search no problem but it hasn't translated well into sales. I probably get about 2 days a week of work. 2 possibilities came to mind:
1. There simply isn't enough demand in a town this size OR
2. I'm just not marketed well enough.
#1 Size of Demand
-I looked at other towns around my state & it looks like you need a population of about 20K to sustain a decent event hire business i.e. one with premises & a couple of staff. The guy in the next town about 40 minutes away actually has 10 staff & it's the same sized town. They do have a national car race there each year (Bathurst) & they do some work here as well as travelling to other car races around the state so he's a bit of an exception but still it gives some insight. In summary then it looks like there should easily be enough demand in my town for my type of business.
#2 Marketing Exposure
-I get the distinct feeling that online search isn't as big in the country. A number of customers have said they didn't know about me despite them seeming quite tech savvy.
-Word of mouth seems to be a big thing in the country. There's a strong community Facebook group & people are always asking for recommendations & people seem to love to recommend their favorite supplier. For example recent requests for the following got this many responses: electrician 24, removalist 21, handyman 16, wedding photographer 31, carpet cleaner 12 etc. As an experiment I got someone to ask about my type of business. There was only one response! (a past customer) - fortunately they did recommend me but that's an extreme difference in the number of recommendations. I guess that means that there's not much awareness in the general community.
In the past I've always dismissed brand type advertising as only being for large companies with a mass market product e.g. Coke or McDonalds. I've tended to lean more towards direct response ideas instead. Perhaps in a small town where you could afford to get your brand out to everyone, maybe branding ads would make sense. I could probably show ads to everyone on Facebook for under $500.
I might address this more in another post but there are 2 other factors that might come into play:
3. Personal network &
4. Playing bigger.
#3 Networking. I've noticed something with a lot of successful local businesses. They have a lot of followers on Facebook i.e in the hundreds or thousands whilst I only have 32! I know people are happy with my service & I have way more Google reviews but I'm a bit of an introvert.
#4 Playing Bigger.
I currently operate from my garage at home. About 30% of customers visit me in person. I wonder if not having proper premises is preventing me from getting the bigger clients. I'm loathed to get a warehouse though & I have capacity to 3x my business still working from home.
Anyway I'd love to hear people's ideas on all this.
Thanks.
1. There simply isn't enough demand in a town this size OR
2. I'm just not marketed well enough.
#1 Size of Demand
-I looked at other towns around my state & it looks like you need a population of about 20K to sustain a decent event hire business i.e. one with premises & a couple of staff. The guy in the next town about 40 minutes away actually has 10 staff & it's the same sized town. They do have a national car race there each year (Bathurst) & they do some work here as well as travelling to other car races around the state so he's a bit of an exception but still it gives some insight. In summary then it looks like there should easily be enough demand in my town for my type of business.
#2 Marketing Exposure
-I get the distinct feeling that online search isn't as big in the country. A number of customers have said they didn't know about me despite them seeming quite tech savvy.
-Word of mouth seems to be a big thing in the country. There's a strong community Facebook group & people are always asking for recommendations & people seem to love to recommend their favorite supplier. For example recent requests for the following got this many responses: electrician 24, removalist 21, handyman 16, wedding photographer 31, carpet cleaner 12 etc. As an experiment I got someone to ask about my type of business. There was only one response! (a past customer) - fortunately they did recommend me but that's an extreme difference in the number of recommendations. I guess that means that there's not much awareness in the general community.
In the past I've always dismissed brand type advertising as only being for large companies with a mass market product e.g. Coke or McDonalds. I've tended to lean more towards direct response ideas instead. Perhaps in a small town where you could afford to get your brand out to everyone, maybe branding ads would make sense. I could probably show ads to everyone on Facebook for under $500.
I might address this more in another post but there are 2 other factors that might come into play:
3. Personal network &
4. Playing bigger.
#3 Networking. I've noticed something with a lot of successful local businesses. They have a lot of followers on Facebook i.e in the hundreds or thousands whilst I only have 32! I know people are happy with my service & I have way more Google reviews but I'm a bit of an introvert.
#4 Playing Bigger.
I currently operate from my garage at home. About 30% of customers visit me in person. I wonder if not having proper premises is preventing me from getting the bigger clients. I'm loathed to get a warehouse though & I have capacity to 3x my business still working from home.
Anyway I'd love to hear people's ideas on all this.
Thanks.
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