What do you consider an acceptable return on advertising?

[Corabar Entertainment]

When do you consider an advertising outlay a success?

How much do you think is a reasonable amount to spend (per gig) on advertising? - eg, if you spend £100 and get 5 gigs, then that's £20 per gig.

[DJWilson]

If your making a healthly profit from each £20 you spend then if you can handle the amoount of gigs, put up to £30 for a bigger return and growth in business.

[Corabar Entertainment]

No, Nathan, I think you've misread: the question is how much per gig

[wensleydale]

Really depends on the value of the gig.
As a % I'd say up to 5%.

[Corabar Entertainment]

I talking acceptable 'averages' here. (ie your average gig)

[leelive]

A friend was thinking of booking a wedding fair for £500 and thought he only had to get 1 bookings to make it worthwhile. I had to remind him that he would only just break even if he got one booking and might as well do a gig for free!
I think this poll is a good idea. Though, I wonder if it would give a more interesting benchmark if it polled the percentage rather than the amount as we all charge different fees.
I have spent upto £4000 per year on advertising. I have wasted money on yell.com and newspapers in years gone by. I now spend upto £2,500 per year. Luckily I have found that wedding fairs are best value for me - £500 spent will bring in an average of 8 bookings. So that costs me £62.50 per booking. But as I currently earn an average of £400 per gig that is just under 16% per gig. I don't think 16% is a high fee but I am in the highest bracket on this poll. I am keen to know what others think is an acceptable amount as a percentage of average booking fee.
I cancel any adverting that cost more than 20% of the fee.
Having said all that, thankfully I get lots of work from other sources that don't cost me anything (ie. Google and Word-of-mouth) so on the whole my advertising costs for the whole year will be about 10% of income.
Lee

[DeckstarDeluxe]

i put a tenner but maybe a percentage rather than a set figure might of be easier?

[Corabar Entertainment]

I deliberately chose figures rather than percentages for this poll. It's not giving anything away for those people who don't like talking about how much they charge, and I think we've done the 'percentage of annual turnover on advertising' question before :)

[ppentertainments]

I have put £30 as basically for a £150 wedding fayre, I would expect at least 5 bookings. TBH do not spend much more on advertising to hard to tell.

*Where is Rob to tell us that his bookings mainly come from his website which is ridiculously cheap to run and he can gain bookings without clients asking any questions :D :p :p :p :D

[wensleydale]

It's a strange one this- when I thought about it I initially thought £5 to £10, but then I thought that if I were to pay a referral fee it would be 10% and therefore most likely be more than that.

I guess the difference is psychological and that when a referral fee is involved you know its guaranteed whereas very few types of advertising I have come across have been pay on booking.

[rob1963]

When do you consider an advertising outlay a success?

How much do you think is a reasonable amount to spend (per gig) on advertising? - eg, if you spend £100 and get 5 gigs, then that's £20 per gig.

My advertising cost equates to just under £20 per gig. This excludes the gigs I do for people I know...as I'd still get those without advertising.

To answer your question, for what I charge & my total expenses per gig, I think I'd call an outlay of anything up to about £30 a success.

[ppentertainments]

My advertising cost equates to just under £20 per gig. This excludes the gigs I do for people I know...as I'd still get those without advertising.

To answer your question, for what I charge & my total expenses per gig, I think I'd call an outlay of anything up to about £30 a success.
Well you have me stumped there :confused: :D :D

I thought nearly all your bookings came direct from your website :confused:

[rob1963]

Well you have me stumped there :confused: :D :D

I thought nearly all your bookings came direct from your website :confused:

The vast majority do, but I also do a fair number each year for people I know (mainly through my pub quiz nights).

:)

[ppentertainments]

The vast majority do, but I also do a fair number each year for people I know (mainly through my pub quiz nights).

:)
So how the high advertising / gig ??
If you do say 40 gigs a year, that would be £800 a year on advertising. Having a succesful website, I would have thought would cut this dramatically.

[Corabar Entertainment]

So how the high advertising / gig ??
If you do say 40 gigs a year, that would be £800 a year on advertising. Having a succesful website, I would have thought would cut this dramatically.
But we are looking at campaigns here!

ie: If only 4 gigs per year came from an advert which cost £200, then the cost would be £50 per gig for that campaign/advert...

This thread isn't about how much you pay on advertising each year divided by the total number of gigs you do each year.

[rob1963]

So how the high advertising / gig ??
If you do say 40 gigs a year, that would be £800 a year on advertising. Having a succesful website, I would have thought would cut this dramatically.

I disagree that £20 per gig on advertising is high.

My charge for the average gig is about £400, and my expenses are around £100, leaving me with £300...which I think is very good, unless I'm missing something.

For the record, I do up to 10 functions each year for people I know, so I haven't included these in the figures.

[Corabar Entertainment]

Surprised this thread didn't get more replies.

Do some of you not monitor your advertising responses then?

[Vectis]

Apart from a couple of hours of my own time tweaking with the website and directory entries, I haven't spent a penny on advertising per se in over two years.

Although I did order up some free :o vistaprint stationery about a year ago and paid about £40 altogether in postage charges. And I'll probably be doing a similar thing this year. Oh, and I bought a couple of PVC banners for outdoor events in December 08 for about £70 total.

So, about £50 a year on average and running at about 100-110 gigs on average = about 50p per gig :thumbsup: Even if I added the time spent on the website I'd still be under £1 per gig.


To answer the OP, I'd suggest it depends where you are on establishing your business, the market sector that you operate in and therefore the amount of viable competition you're up against. I'd expect a figure of between £5 and £20 to be reasonable taking the above factors into account. I say a £20 ceiling because I'd guess this to be about 10% of your typical rate across all gig types and areas.

[Corabar Entertainment]

So, about £50 a year on average and running at about 100-110 gigs on average = about 50p per gig :thumbsup: Even if I added the time spent on the website I'd still be under £1 per gig.Again, you're dividing the amount of money you've spent by the number of gigs you do!

I'm assuming that 100-110 gigs you speak of didn't all come via the advertising of £50? How many came from the advertising? If it was 10 gigs, then the cost was £5 per gig for that campaign.

In any event, the question was 'How much do you think is reasonable to expend per gig?'

[Vectis]

Again, you're dividing the amount of money you've spent by the number of gigs you do!

I'm assuming that 100-110 gigs you speak of didn't all come via the advertising of £50? How many came from the advertising? If it was 10 gigs, then the cost was £5 per gig for that campaign.


The majority of them. About 15-20% of my work comes from recommendation, the remainder from the web. Or at least that's what the ticks in boxes on the booking forms reflect :)



In any event, the question was 'How much do you think is reasonable to expend per gig?'


I did go on to add...


To answer the OP, I'd suggest it depends where you are on establishing your business, the market sector that you operate in and therefore the amount of viable competition you're up against. I'd expect a figure of between £5 and £20 to be reasonable taking the above factors into account. I say a £20 ceiling because I'd guess this to be about 10% of your typical rate across all gig types and areas.

[Corabar Entertainment]

I did go on to add...I think I'm going mad :daft: Martin! ... I didn't notice that the first time I read your post! :sorry: I must have been sidetracked whilst I was reading (I'm doing several things at once, as per usual!)

[rob1963]

Do some of you not monitor your advertising responses then?

I do...big time, as I think it's vital.

I have a document listing all the sites where I advertise, advertising costs & renewal dates...as well as the total number of hits to my website, the total number of enquiries & the total number of bookings for every single one!

:D

[Excalibur]

Again, you're dividing the amount of money you've spent by the number of gigs you do!

I'm assuming that 100-110 gigs you speak of didn't all come via the advertising of £50? How many came from the advertising? If it was 10 gigs, then the cost was £5 per gig for that campaign.

In any event, the question was 'How much do you think is reasonable to expend per gig?'

Then I shall answer. I have been giving the matter much serious thought. I believe I would be prepared to expend Ten, twenty, thirty, maybe even fifty























pence per gig. Sorry Angela. :o :sofa:

[Corabar Entertainment]

:lol: You're getting predictable Peter (I guessed the punchline before I saw it :p )

[Excalibur]

:lol: You're getting predictable Peter (I guessed the punchline before I saw it :p )

:o :o :( :( :( Must try harder.

[DazzyD]

Because on my business-orientated mindset (or because I'm sad!), I do monitor such figures as my philosophy is stats are king.

I had several advertising campaigns in 2008/2009 which provided varying results. For example, my best campaign came in at a cost of £2.26 per gig whereas my worst came in at £135 per gig (a wedding fayre where I got only 1 booking!). These figures are based on the actual costs of initial advertising and don't include any follow-up costs (maybe they should).

Based on my prices, I feel a reasonable figure would be around £20-£30 per gig.