Following on from the last general meeting when we highlighted the sizeable number of home based businesses in the town, we have a proposal to place some adverts in the Signal with a view to:
- Raising awareness of the Chamber with home based businesses
- Attracting more home based-businesses as members
- Increasing the number of home-based businesses on our mailing list
The proposal is to book 1 x quarter page ad in each of the next 4 issues, in B&W.
Costs are :
- space=£288.23
- artwork=4x£75 = £300
- Total £588.23
There would be 4 different adverts, each targeting a different sector and featuring a real home based business such as:
Oct 2014: Professions – Coralline Health
Jan 2015: Art & Craft – Lynne Peets or Chris Slack
April 2015: Building/Trades – TBD
Jul 2015: Marine – possibly Devon Scallops – or tourism
Arguments for:
There are 1000+ home-based businesses in Brixham which represents around 55% of our target market and we currently have 11 members who are home-based (excluding B&Bs and market trades), 10.5% of membership
If we are serious about the chamber being relevant to all businesses and continuing to grow the membership, we need to be carrying out this kind of segmentation and targeted campaign. Whilst it may not appear to benefit the existing membership in the short term it benefits the chamber as a whole in the longer term through increased membership and fees.
A bit of further explanation as to why the proposal was for a testimonial type ad. In this type of ad the ‘carrier’ company is being used as a vehicle to put forward an objective/impartial message about the seller i.e the primary goal is to promote the seller. That message…
- carries more credibility
- has greater impact and
- higher conversion rates
…if it comes from a satisfied customer in a similar circumstance to the reader rather than from the seller itself. Quite simply referrals from happy customers have always been the best method for generating new customers as can be seen from the rise of Trip Advisor, Reevoo and Amazon on the back of its comprehensive customer reviews. And that’s why the proposal was for a series of ads with different types of home worker – professions, trades, art and craft – each giving their own overview of the benefits of joining the chamber. If we can illustrate that there are a a sufficient number of tourism businesses operating from home, then they should be included too.
As for Coralline Health as the first carrier vehicle, while it would be a very small reward for the huge effort Jacqui and Pauline have put in to the chamber if they get a bit of free extra publicity as a by-product (just as many others benefit for lesser/no input through the chamber PR, website and social media), the reason I chose them to represent home based professions was that we already have their glowing testimonial. It was one of only 2 returned a year ago when I asked the membership for testimonials for the website and leaflet. The other one was unusable.
Arguments against:
1) does not apply to tourism businesses on any of the planned occasions
2) Promoting specific chamber businesses – surely promoting specific businesses is the job of the business not the chamber.
3) it should be more general rather than four specific businesses – other home based businesses may feel overlooked.
4) no member should be given the impression that we are in any way promoting an individual business.
VOTE NOW!
A copy of the first ad is alongside. If we are going ahead, I need to book the October issue very soon, so please vote in the right hand column ASAP.
We will also be writing a Chamber news/update slot for the Signal but this has to be more informational and less sales oriented.