Facebook are pulling the plug on free advertising

well not quite, but certainly has reduced the effectiveness of Pages Reach from 16% to less than 2%.

For many businesses that is quite a hammering.

Facebook being Facebook have offered a solution of paid advertising to replace this lost traffic and now many experts are suggesting businesses flood LI groups to continue their free advertising fix.

You can read more here:

http://topdogsocialmedia.com/facebook-organic-reach-dead/

I manage a number of LI groups and many are dead, a number of group owners will see this extra traffic as a boon, however, the challenge is this flood will look like a lot of spam.

I wonder how many other Group Owners and Managers are ready for this influx of unwanted traffic?

Separately, if you run a Facebook page, how will you counter this lost reach?

So what is your plan?

Blind Advertising versus Open Advertising

Blind Advertising versus Open Advertising.

Blind Advertising – no mention of company name
Open Advertising – company name is mentioned

I first started spending money on recruitment advertising in 1988, and that with a company called Encyclopaedia Britannica.

My budget was £100,000 per annum, so pretty decent amount to spend. I eventually moved to head office and my budget jumped to in excess of £2 million per annum.

One of the things I learnt were the benefits of both forms of advertising.

Open Adverts produced small numbers of responses, and the quality of the candidates were pretty fair. The number of responses though were just 10% of Blind Adverts.

Blind Adverts produced massive numbers of responses, and therefore our position became one of selection, sometimes self selection by putting people through training.

With lots of split testing, some 40 approved adverts of both types were approved, and they all created a ready stream of candidates.

I still split test today using various online media across different platforms and some work and some don’t. My lastest split test has so far produced seven responses in just under 10 minutes, at this rate, this is going to be one of my best tests for quite a while.

Double Dip Recession – land of opportunities

The headlines screamed out this week that the UK economy had re-entered recession after two negative quarters back to back.

There are many of us who believe the economy has been in recession constantly since early 2008.

It does however, throw up marvellous opportunities for those of us with large databases of customers and contacts built over previous years.

The key to any business success is keeping ahead of the game, and being aware of what is out there ……. newsletter subscriptions are a great way of learning more, and there are plenty of people offering them! Choose carefully.

Also why not consider Joint Ventures? There are loads of non-competing businesses, who would like to do so. Even Combyne Group do Joint Ventures.

Or how about adding an income stream by selling new services or products to your database of clients? Please do ask, since we have a scheme, which will do exactly that.

Or create a Plan B as an extra income stream over and above your salary, where you have not seen a pay rise in three years? Here is an example of one that works – please click here It is an award winning business, with full training and support, and five hours a week will be a great starting point. And it can be offered to existing customers too.

Your present customers and contacts already ….. Know, Like and Trust You, so why go through the hassle of finding new customers, when you already have them?

Many experts talk about re-inventing yourself and your business as a marketing ploy – you do not have to go that far, certainly freshen up your image, and keep your website (& blogs) updated, use all the tools to hand including twitter and other social media, plus regularly produce a newsletter, both as a thank you for customers and as a way of opening up new dialogue.

And even better, why not ask your customers, what they want to buy, and then source it for them? A simple survey via say surveymonkey will do the trick.

Both Jonathan Jay and Robert Craven promote this as a profitable way forward. What have you got to lose by trying this out at minimal risk?

Of course your systems are in place already to ensure you can handle the extra business. They are, aren’t they? If not, please address this issue, which is often the real cause of failure before progressing. Combyne Group provides UK based call handling solutions on a part time, some time or full time basis.

So here are a few ideas to help you grow your business, and I am happy to chew over others as and when.