I have recently started 2 party plan businesses and would appreciate any help and advise on marketing my business and getting Party bookings. I have used the obvious routes of friends and family but with being new to Australia my contact base is limited! I am in the Melbourne area Many thanks for reading
Local print advertising (newspapers, magazines), putting up flyers around your area, online classified ads (many of them are free), MySpace and Facebook (set up good profile pages showing the visitors who you are, then do some advertising for your parties - market yourself first), YouTube.com videos. Best wishes
Hi Kerry, Here are a few suggestions that you may find helpful... 1. Make up a flyer and go around asking if you can post it in places like the local libraries, shopping centre notice boards, RSL, Leagues Clubs, etc. I live in rural Australia and here even local shops are often willing to post them in their windows. 2. Your local school might be willing for you to leave a few books in their staff lounge for the teachers to view on breaks. Same with hospitals, nursing homes, etc., particularly if you know someone in the different fields. 3. Set up a stall at your local markets. You can set up a small display and have books and/or flyers available to encourage party bookings. 4. Look for some retirement communities in your area that have a clubhouse, etc. They usually have some type of activities coordinator who you could approach and offer to do a party presentation for the residents in the clubhouse. 5. Do you have any friends who are involved in "play groups?" They might be willing to ask if the other mums would be interested in having you come and host a party one morning. Well, that might give you some fresh ideas or trigger some more ideas of your own. Wishing you all the best in your new businesses. Blessings, Angie
Start up a blog and provide value to your clients. Have pictures, benefits, articles and "how to" posts all over your blog. Make sure some of your posts are keyword loaded so they will show up in the search engines. Make sure you have a contact tab so people know where they can get a hold of you. Use facebook and twitter to make new friends and contacts in your area. Promote your site to your twitter and facebook friends if they are curious about what you do. This should help you get some visits to your site. - Lark Miller
Dani Johnson has a CD series titled "Instant Customer Goldmine" that gives lots of tips about home parties and retailing any product. It has some really good tips in it. She gives ideas about positioning yourself as an expert in your chosen party plan and how to get referrals and lots of yeses.
Hi partygirl! (1) A great way to get started is to create an account with Squidoo.com. Much like a blog, it gives you a great way to network with a lot of different people and even generate a lot of traffic to your business as long as you have keyword rich content on your pages. It's free to use and lots of fun to work on. (2) Besides marketing in your neighborhood and on the internet, perhaps you might want to approach office managers of small to medium sized businesses? Maybe even large companies? With the holidays coming up, I'm sure there are companies that are planning to throw some parties. Starting off, I would definitely try to get in touch with office managers and set up teleconferences or face-to-face meetings about the services you offer. Good luck!
If you want to do parties, my advice to you is to get some momentum and don't stop! It's difficult to create momentum, especially if you have already approached your warm market, but you need to. You will need to find several people to host for you and then entice people to book from those parties with giveaways, etc. If you think it will be too hard to get bookings, then it will. You have to believe that people will host for you. Working on your personal growth through trainings, books, cd's, etc. is the best thing you can do for your business. Once you've got momentum, keep it. The minute you stop working, your business dies a slow death.
As well as the advice above. If you are looking for local business. Create and claim your Google Places page. Optimize it to get one of the Top 7 Spots. This is better than PPC and even Organic Listings. http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter
