About the author: Ellen Brown lives near Edinburgh, Scotland. She teaches Japanese to adults and also runs her own translation business Japanese2U. Although she regularly tackles a variety of projects, she prefers to focus on the Japanese entertainment scene, targetting her work towards TV, Manga, Anime, and Japanese Pop Culture.
In the UK the Yellow Pages runs a separate business-to-business directory,
Business Pages. The directory is free of charge to all businesses and covers a
larger area than the Yellow pages. The issue for my area will cover the whole
of Scotland rather than just the Edinburgh area. The directory is solely aimed
at businesses, and rates are similar to those for advertising in the Yellow
Pages, enabling a more targeted campaign and (hopefully) less nuisance contact
and marketing.
If you have a website, and don't want to/can't pay to have it optimised
and submitted to search engines, there is a lot of free information on the web
about doing so — it just takes time. Another avenue that is often overlooked
is using business listing pages (not search engines) on the Internet. The
"virtual" form of paper directories. These often cover your local area, two or
three that I've found so far are all Scotland directories. It's usually free
to place a small add with a link to your website, and even if it doesn't
generate a job in itself, it will help your site appear on search engines.
Reciprocal linking also helps with search engine placement, however, make sure
that you are happy with the links, and they are relevant to your business.
Consider low-cost pay-per-click advertising on the Internet. I believe
that most of the major search engines offer this. Some of them, like Google
Adwords, let you set your price.
Join your local chamber of commerce, interact with other small businesses
and use their services if it's cost-effective. They may one day decide to use
your services, or know someone who will.
PR is also important. Consider donating your services in return for
publicity. I'm not talking free translations here, but small things, like
community involvement, collecting for a local charity, sponsoring a local
event, or donating language books to a local school. For example, I've done
Japanese tutoring for adult learners with learning difficulties in the past,
if you can do something like this and get it in to your local newspaper, it
raises your profile.
Let everyone, and I mean everyone know what you do, they could mention it
to a potential client.
Try to win some direct clients, look through your local business
directories and send mailshots to those you think might want to use your
services. It doesn't cost that much.
You may have a local business advisory service that can help you with
issues such as tax, accounting, marketing, competition in your area etc. In
Scotland we have the Small Business Gateway, all their services are free, they
have lots of useful information and will even carry out analysis of your
potential market for you, you get a dedicated business advisor, can attend
workshops and networking events and apply for grants.
For women (sorry guys!), there are many business directories, mailing
lists and local groups aimed solely at businesswomen, these help with
publicity and networking.
Don't stop marketing just because you have a full workload, this may not
always be the case, especially in today's economic climate. Just as it takes
time to reap the benefits of any marketing strategy, it will take time for you
notice that you need to step up your efforts, and it is easier to carry on
slowly and steadily "feeding" yourself into the market than to keep stopping
and starting your promotional activity.
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