What's the best way to market a business computer consulting/support business?

Question

The business does onsite and remote support, software sales, printer & accessory sales, security product sales. What's the most effective way to get the attention of businesses.

Answer 1

Have you thought about pay per click programs? The two biggest, I think, are Yahoo! and Google



A few free resources – check out the sources box for links:



1) Create a blog pertaining to your field



2) Use Yahoo! Local & Yahoo! Groups – Be sure to read the TOS for each one!



3) Write articles pertaining to your field and/or expertise.



4) Advertise on Craiglist



Also, consider signing up for an affiliate program. These programs enable you to advertise on other's sites (your affiliates) and once a sale is made to you, your affiliates & the program are paid a commission.



I listed a few handy sites & articles relating to marketing, promotion & advertising. Here are some book titles that are relevant:



* The Complete Idiot's Guide to Marketing Basics by Sarah White

* The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries, Jack Trout

* Creative Advertising: Ideas and Techniques from the World's Best Campaigns by Mario Pricken

* Entrepreneur Magazine's Ultimate Small Business Marketing Guide: Over 1500 Great Marketing Tricks That Will Drive Your Business Through the Roof by James Stephenson

* 301 Do-It-Yourself Marketing Ideas: From America's Most Innovative Small Companies by Sam Decker



Hope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

You could start by googling "computer consulting marketing" and reading a few of the web pages.



Some of them will be ads for "kits" which sell for anywhere from $297 up to $3000. These are usually a pretty solid system, they come with step by step instructions, ad templates, support, the works. All you have to do is follow the instructions. Most of these folks are following the "Dan Kennedy / Jeff Paul" model; if you go to www.dankennedy.com and check out his Magnetic Marketing kit, you'll see they are simply industry-specific versions of that.



I'm a customer of Dan's but have no profit from endorsing him. I do, however, have lots of profits from using his advice. I also happen to be an independent IT consultant.

Answer 4

The pitch is that writing on the net is in big demand and you can earn up to $30 per site submit, up to $200 day for proofreading, and so forth. In addition, when you join, you get an automatic novel author as effectively as an automatic notion generator and automatic post writer so is not possible not to do this work.

Answer 5

There are several different ways to advertise to advertise your computer consulting and support business on Yahoo as well as Google. However, for small to mid-sized business that need to keep their advertising costs as economical as possible the best ways are through A) search engine optimization B) Sponsored Link / Pay Per Click advertisements and C) Professional Online Marketing Companies



search engine optimization:

Search engine optimization is the process of getting your website better ranking without actually having to pay for placement. With nearly 85% of all web page traffic coming from search engine listings, web site owners are realizing that it is important to be positioned well within the engines, otherwise they may never be found. The top 10 search engine companies, including yahoo, update their rankings about once each month by sending out web crawlers that aim to index and improve search rankings for the webpages that are most relevant to the keywords searched for according to the algorithm (set of rules) use dby each search engine, however this can take up to 3 months. IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER: Algorithms are evolutionary and are being developed and changed on a daily basis by the world's top search engine companies in an attempt to provide the most relevant & useful pages to the users and strike out the websites that trick them and attain higher positions for a while by using unethical methods.



Sponsored Link / Pay Per Click advertisements

Pay per click, or PPC, is an advertising technique used on websites, advertising networks, and search engines. With search engines, pay per click advertisements are usually text ads placed near search results; when a site visitor clicks on the advertisement, the advertiser is charged a small amount. Variants include pay for placement and pay for ranking. Pay per click is also sometimes known as Cost Per Click (CPC). While many companies exist in this space, Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing, which was formerly Overture, are the largest network operators as of 2006. MSN has started beta testing with their own PPC services MSN adCenter. Depending on the search engine, minimum prices per click start at US$0.01 (up to US$0.50). Very popular search terms can cost much more on popular engines.



Professional Online Marketing Companies:



There are companies out there that are making online advertising completely turnkey so they can worry about getting the right visitors to your site while you ensure you are making sales, collecting leads, and provide value to your customers.



Some of the better companies are:

http://www.valueweb.com/

http://www.gate.com

Answer 6

Post notices at schools and colleges. Be sure to ask first. Also try to get a contract to repair their computers.

Answer 7

Not on here. Advertising comes to mind.

Answer 8

Ride around in a little car with "Geek" on the side of it and go door-to-door.

Answer 9

tell them you are not AOL, and dont use ph banks ;o)