[ianharper]

Guys

has you spend gone down or up over the years you have been in business? would you like to spend more?

what type of return do you expect to get on each pound spent?

What media has given you the best return

respect

Ian Harper

[Mike Halliday]

so who's going to admit to spending 40k on marketing per year (£800 a week)

Mike

[Ian Rochester]

My spend has increased in £'s but decreased as a percentage of turnover.

My first year full year (2003-2004) it was 9.16%, it is now down to 6.42% for last year.  However, in monetary terms it has more than doubled.

I think that you need to budget each year how much you intend to spend on your marketing and also monitor it's effectiveness. 

I realised just last month that an advert I had in a monthly magazine for the past year, costing £47/month, had not returned a single direct response!  Dropped!!

[*paul_moss]

Mine is between 5 and 10k but increases each year as the business grows.
Im just hoping in a few years I will be able to cut back and make loads of Dosh like the Boltons and Wainrites of this world  was going to include Haliday but I know he is still skint 

[D woods]

I voted over 40k, I always hoped I would be able to reduce marketing costs after so many years, but in my experiance if you want the business
to keep coming you have to keep spending.

[*paul_moss]

I voted over 40k, I always hoped I would be able to reduce marketing costs after so many years, but in my experiance if you want the business
to keep coming you have to keep spending.

Wow thats what you call mega marketing budget.Is it all windows or is carpet cleaning included?

[D woods]

Hi Paul
That is mostly window cleaning.

[*paul_moss]

Thats a lot of windows to clean.

[Mike Halliday]

what you need to know before making a comment on how much someone spends on marketing is how many men must it keep in work Mr D wood spends over 40k but if he has 20 men working for him its only £2k per man which isn't alot compared to me who spends between £5k-£10k.


Ian  you always ask questions like this,  please set an example, & answer your own question 


Mike

[Mike Osbourne]

I have a long way to go then.

My leaflets work out at £60 a month and I have to by a new pair of trainers from Matalan every 3 months

[ianharper]

paul

dont you remember last time we where at solution and nick showed us those numbers from a past FT guy. his spend was £40k

Respect

Ian Harper

[Shaun_Ashmore]

If you have a budget of £40k and got £400K back would it not be worth it?

We are assuming number based on our own turnover, if you were inumdated with work wouldn't you stop to think that you could get in another worker or raise your prices because you could afford to turn the work you don't want or price you won't work for away?

Even at £40k budget you could still make a cool profit.

Shaun

[jeff1966]

I think it makes more sense asking what % of their turnover they spend on marketing.£5000 £10000 means nothing if you don't know what their turnover is.

[ianharper]

jeff

your right, its an interesting subject as you could also ask how long have you been trading as this might have a refection on the profitability of a business.

profit as shaun has pointed out is key. if you could make any amount of investment and get you money back plus, then it got to be worth it no mater how much you spend.

no different to what the stock market does.

respect

Ian Harper

[Londoner]

Jeff 1996 is right. Its the percentage figure that counts. Lionheart has the right idea and can quote figures down to two decimal places. Thats impressive.

Another question is how you factor your time into the equation. Mike Osbourne gets through trainers in three months but makes no comment about what percentage of his time he spends delivering leaflets in relation to his working week.

Also, how about time spent doing quotes and phoning people back?

[Ian Gourlay]

Interesting D Woods spending £750  a week attracting new window clean customers.

Window cleaning in away is a better income bet than carpet cleaning as your aim is to retain customers and have steady income flow.

Do mot know D Woods operation  perhaps he builds rounds and then sells them on.

[D woods]

Hi Ian
You are right window cleaning is a better proposition than carpet cleaning
for the simple reason all (commercial) window cleaning is on a regular
contract, whereas carpet cleaning is mostly once only.