Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Start locally - focusing on one of your niches - perhaps a local senior/community center, senior gyms, etc. Don't try to be all things to everyone (just yet).

Yes, definitely focus your sales promotion efforts with a segment or niche of the marketplace. For the busy professionals, you might look into - real estate agents, bank loan officers, auto dealers, law firms and any professional services likely to need a high volume of errand services on an ongoing basis.

Marketing is something that always changes. What you have today will have changed by next month. That is because you are always learning about your customers and what you can do for the best ones.

Is it possible for you to set up a landing page on your website* and use Google Adwords? Start with a basic keyword and see how the responses go. If you keep it very local, it need not be so expensive. Perhaps this is something for when your business is generating the necessary cash flow - only if you can do this and make a sensible profit on those who do click, you will have something that is tangible.

My other thought is do you have a mobile smartphone (or something like that) because then someone could get in touch and tell you where they are on Google maps (or something of the sort) - and you could offer a super-fast service that you could charge a premium for (say within the hour or your money back - for a charge some 10-20x your normal rate). With this idea you will quickly find the quality end of your market, and the one you could reasonably target with paid advertising.

Hope this helps and I wish you luck in delivering. I have set up several businesses on my own, and it is hard work at first.

Moriarty

*You should find enough information on this site - or just ask questions here if you need.