Time to start advertising, but one small annoyance ...

[Centre Stage Discos]

I've decided Google is going to be my initial platform for advertising and I've been setting up an account with them. I may pay for advertising with them as I've heard they are THE platform to advertise with. I'm just awaiting my confirmation postcard to arrive. It seems Yell and especially Yellow Pages are has-beens now.

I've been reading through a few posts here regarding which is the best platform to advertise on and Google seems to be the way forward. A DJ friend also thoroughly recommended them.

I may advertise on Facebook, possibly even paid advertising as that helped me with my web design business. It was also suggested to me that I might advertise my disco services on Facebook Marketplace, even though a few advertise on there already at around half the price of my show, so I set out to do this yesterday, but no matter what advert I place, it gets rejected by Facebook as it violates their advertising policies'. I really cannot see what I am doing wrong. Everything in the advert DOES seem to be in EXACT accordance with their advertising policies.

Has anybody else had this problem? Did you find a way around it? Curious to know. Did Facebook advertising work for you? Paid or Marketplace listings?

Thanks.

John.

[Imagine]

I've decided Google is going to be my initial platform for advertising and I've been setting up an account with them. I may pay for advertising with them as I've heard they are THE platform to advertise with. I'm just awaiting my confirmation postcard to arrive. It seems Yell and especially Yellow Pages are has-beens now.

I've been reading through a few posts here regarding which is the best platform to advertise on and Google seems to be the way forward. A DJ friend also thoroughly recommended them.

I may advertise on Facebook, possibly even paid advertising as that helped me with my web design business. It was also suggested to me that I might advertise my disco services on Facebook Marketplace, even though a few advertise on there already at around half the price of my show, so I set out to do this yesterday, but no matter what advert I place, it gets rejected by Facebook as it violates their advertising policies'. I really cannot see what I am doing wrong. Everything in the advert DOES seem to be in EXACT accordance with their advertising policies.

Has anybody else had this problem? Did you find a way around it? Curious to know. Did Facebook advertising work for you? Paid or Marketplace listings?

Thanks.

John.

If I'm completely honest...NO PAID ADVERTISING has ever worked for me, and I've done it all from online to bridal magazines to the local county newspaper.

* Google, if done correctly can be blimmin' expensive. I've always avoided that option because I think like a customer. I personally won't click on the paid links because....well they've paid for them for a reason!
* Facebook....forget it (been there, got the bills, ain't going back!)
* Marketplace....shudder. I actually get nervous when people tag me on FB because someone's "looking for a reasonably priced DJ".

Don't get me wrong, I HAVE a Facebook business page and Instagram page which are regularly updated and shared to local wedding groups, but that's more for "social proof" than anything. I rarely take bookings from either of them. Facebook in particular from experience contains a lot of brides/grooms looking for the best and cheapest deal possible.

I now rely very heavily on my own website SEO and it works very well for me. Couples find me, they book me, they pay my wages. It costs nothing more than a LOT of my time to implement and a monthly subscription to an SEO expert, but it works. It's the solution I'm now planning on sticking with.

My website is Wordpress based, and I use TWO tools to get the SEO pretty much spot on (and big warning here....it's a full time job!)

* Niel Patel's Ubersuggest is used for the "technical SEO" side of things (it's helped me to get on page one of the mighty Google for a LOT of things)
* Rank Math SEO plugin for Wordpress for the content side of things has helped a lot as well.

You also need to monitor Google Analytics, Google PageSpeed and Google Search Console for what people are searching for and how your site is performing.
Get the SEO side of things right, and customers will find you without you having to spend piles of cash advertising.

The other obvious one is do a good job on the night (goes without saying). Word of Mouth is by far the best advertising you'll ever get!

[rth_discos]

* Google, if done correctly can be blimmin' expensive. I've always avoided that option because I think like a customer. I personally won't click on the paid links because....well they've paid for them for a reason!

65% of users click on the Google Ads for commercial search terms, so they are highly effective.

However... when you're paying up to £5 per client, it's really important that you only attract clicks from highly targeted traffic, that can convert on your website, and there's a strong follow up process in place to get the booking. Whilst I know you have that in place, I've seen many others thinking it is the holy grail and will solve all their booking problems, without realising all it achieves is a click to your website. Without everything else in place, it's typically doomed to fail, with only Google being the winners when you pay the bill!

* Facebook....forget it (been there, got the bills, ain't going back!)

Facebook is for awareness - it's reaching people who aren't actively looking. Has to be done consistently, and not expect immediate results. I've been doing a lot of testing recently on Facebook for a client of mine in a non DJ industry, and I've found that there's a maximum spend per day before results diminish. £150 of spend over 3 days rarely brought in the same results as £150 over a 2 week period. I've got their 'cost per enquiry' down from £30 per enquiry to £5 per enquiry (again caveating that this isn't in the DJ industry!). Equally, too small a daily budget and the reach is too low, so there's a 'sweet spot' to be found.

[Benny Smyth]

Social media is sexy at the moment, but regardless as to what is popular now or in five years time, SEO will always be your bread and butter.

But SEO takes time to bed in, and you obviously want the leads to start churning in now. Google ads, if done right, will get you your leads quicker and that could keep you ticking over until your SEO is ready to take the baton.

Remember what we said about zeroing in on your ideal customer?

The more specific you can be with your search terms and area, the more cost effective your Google ads will be. If you try to do a catch all approach for keywords and areas, you'll be spending a whole lot of green and probably won't get a worthwhile return on it.

[rth_discos]

Social media is sexy at the moment, but regardless as to what is popular now or in five years time, SEO will always be your bread and butter.

But SEO takes time to bed in, and you obviously want the leads to start churning in now. Google ads, if done right, will get you your leads quicker and that could keep you ticking over until your SEO is ready to take the baton.

This is absolutely spot on.

SEO is a great long term strategy, because you're not paying per click.

Bit it's important to not under-estimate the work that goes in to being number one for enough keywords to generate sufficient traffic. But the pay-off for that work is excellent.

[Marc J]

Claim your "Google My Business" listing, encourage reviews and reply to them (even if it's just a "thank-you").

Google Ads done right doesn't have to be expensive. Good SEO / quality landing pages will reduce your Google Ads bid costs, and reduce the geographic area right down to where you will service (factoring in the additional cost of the Google Ads) and no wider. Set a realistic daily limit.

[ppentertainments]

Replace the word ‘advertising’ for ‘marketing’

No single source of advertising will work on its own, results come from a marketing package. Most things are actually free or relatively cheap and once setup will bring in results for months/years to come, rather than an advertising strategy which is short lived.

As far as online goes you NEED :

Google My Business profile
Website
FB page
Other social media – Instagram, twitter etc

Takes a few hours (with exception of a website unless you know what you are doing) to set all this up.

BUT, the priority source of marketing will be how well you are known, and who knows you – ‘people buy people’

Don’t think simply having a good ranking website will bring in work as it simply doesn’t work like that, it helps but you need to be ‘known’.

[Centre Stage Discos]

Well, a big thank you to one and all once again for some very thorough information.

Haven't times changed? Years ago I would place an ad in the local weekly newspaper and that would usually generate a couple of bookings. The rest was word of mouth. As time progressed, I would ask potential new customers to come along and see the disco/me in action, were this appropriate/depending on the type of function, etc. and that always worked well.


Imagine:
I'm sure I can see exactly what you are saying regarding no paid advertising having ever really worked for you. I am so reluctant to pay MONEY on advertising. My recent paid advertising on Facebook had limited success but was worth doing. I might consider this at some point.

Google? Expensive? I dread to think but I have an idea. I had a brief chat with a Google representative this morning and I could immediately see that it was all about THEM making money. The guy even admitted it. Amazing!

Social Media is a great for having a presence. The website is now up and running but needs to be adjusted somewhat in the weeks ahead. I'm reasonably well up-to-date regarding S.E.O. and have had enormous success getting other businesses websites to the top of the listings. It is an ever-changing medium though, as I am sure you will know. What 'algorithms' apply today will be different tomorrow.

Thanks for the info on Niel Patel. I tend to avoid Wordpress as every page I have built - and every page I have known friends build on that platform has been hacked. Those widgets were always the culprits.


rth_discos
Google probably IS the way forward these days. I am also hearing this from people I know (different businesses).

I still think there is a big place for social media regarding awareness and you make this point too.


Benny Smyth
You are so right regarding S.E.O., but it's not the easiest of tasks to tackle. Since the algorithms used in S.E.O. change, there is always going to be fluctuation in your rankings and I have seen this, so keeping on top of things is never going to be easy. The thing about getting good rankings is quite simply standing the test of time. The longer your website has been there, the higher it will tend to rank anyway, but a little extra tweaking here and there should go a long way. BUT there are so many websites today that we may never achieve our goals regarding high rankings.

A thought ... Over the years I have built websites for different types of business and some have been successful regarding taking orders, bookings, etc. and others less so, but even where a site has had no S.E.O. there have still been a reasonable number of visitors and sales have been made. Some websites I have built were for customers who purely wanted to have a web presence, i.e. to prove the existence of their business and they did not actually expect to get any trade as a result due to the vast amount of competition. Only one of those websites, for a cosmetics company, failed to generate customers. I still got them close to the top of Google, but only briefly. (Mind you, they were ridiculously expensive!) My point being, if I'm completely honest, it's often a gamble. You just CANNOT guarantee high rankings for ever business.

Ramble over!


Marc J
I'm already on to the "Google My Business" listing. I am still awaiting the postcard delivery so I'm not even at the 'early days' stage yet. Is this the system which gives you a marker on Google Maps when you search for a business?


ppentertainments
Points taken. Having a presence on as many platforms as possible will help. I still need to complete a few platforms I started to set up the other week. LinkedIn is a must, as say people I know who use it. I never saw that as 'social media for businesses' until I took a closer look recently. My Facebook page was set up a few months ago but I haven't added a lot recently. Social media for business is a full time job!

Finding the time is not easy at the moment and right when I need that extra time I suddenly find work flooding in again. I'm not complaining but I really want to get this disco off the ground as soon as possible.

One thing I have already covered is the providing of a disco free of charge for a small local community group. This should hopefully generate some work. I might consider more of these as it's good publicity and also good for practice as I have been out of the business for a little while.


Thanks again all.

John.

[ppentertainments]

One thing I have already covered is the providing of a disco free of charge for a small local community group. This should hopefully generate some work. I might consider more of these as it's good publicity and also good for practice as I have been out of the business for a little while.

1000% a bad idea. This simply doesn't work.

All you get offering free discos is people asking for free discos.

[Marc J]

Marc J
I'm already on to the "Google My Business" listing. I am still awaiting the postcard delivery so I'm not even at the 'early days' stage yet. Is this the system which gives you a marker on Google Maps when you search for a business?

Yes, but more importantly it's the same system that lets people leave reviews. It may take a while, but lots of good reviews will do wonders.