Advertising? Best Bang for your buck?

I'd love to hear what is working best for you in terms of advertising. I have Yahoo Adwords, Google Adwords (which is currently doing my head in, having a phone hookup with my web guy today), a couple of local Adelaide Mum sites (some free), Bubhub and Kidspot. Have looked into the Baby Expo, has anyone done that? Hire For Baby are all over it, but wasn't sure I could justify the cost at about $2k. I am also going to look into the Baby Bounty Bags (handed out by GP's, Obs), assume all states have them? Also, need to contact Tourism SA and a few others.

Has anyone listed in Yellow Pages online, is it worthwhile?

Also, how effective do you find Kidspot? I am an unpaid advertiser at this stage, although they have a current special of 14mths advertising for the cost of 12.

Of course. I've also been running around leaving my brochures with car rental coys, hotels/motels, relocation businesses etc!

Had a win today - called on a local holiday/relocation agent today who refer all their business to Hire For Baby. They told me the woman at HFB wasn't particularly friendly or prompt at returning calls and they have no loyalties to her. Hopefully they're going to send some business my way. They have 90 properties in Adelaide on their books.

Sorry, hope I haven't bored you all - just thought you could appreciate my excitement! Feeling pumped!

Most of my business so far has been short term holiday hire so my advertising strategy may be different to yours. The return on short term is so much better than long term so Im concentrating on getting as much of that as I can.

For me it would seem most holidayers are finding me through google so Im not to concerned with print advertising or markets, expos etc as this obviously isnt my market so much. Print can cost a fair bit and I dont think you can get into the baby bounty bags?? not 100% on that one.

The way im going is more toward focussing on internet advertising - (google ads, improving website seo, facebook, etc etc) and approaching hotels, car hire etc.

The only 'paid' advertising Ive done so far is Google Ads, and my ad is down now while I prepare for my new bub. I listed it just before xmas and it worked incredibly well till i took it down a couple of weeks ago.
I had a few issues with getting it working effectively as I was initially wasting money on aspects of it that I didnt need to - happy to share that with you rather than you pay someone else to do it!
Apparently you should have a click though rate of at least 5% and mine was around 17-20% once I tweeked it.

Im only listed on google maps and through the standard free sites like truelocal, startlocal, hotfrog, and bub hub etc. which is fine at the mo cause Im still getting an enquiry here and there and that suits me rather than being inundated! (im not ranking highly on the search engines as Ive only just started too)

Im also in the online yellow pages but just a basic free listing and a basic listing when it goes into print in june.

So like I said, personally I think print advertising, expos and paying other sites to be listed are not my market and are too expensive for me at this stage. The others girls may have some other opinions.

Thats great you may get business from the holiday agent. Good luck!

I've had very hit and miss results - I am listed everywhere I can find that's free, my best results are from Google (organic), Babyology who are very very good to me and give me loads of editorial for free!, BubHub is a paid at that really works for me too. I was on Kidspot but found the clickthrough not = to the money at all, it got lots of lookers but not many takers so I tossed that. I've done print ads in Cosmo etc, the editor there is also very good to me and gives me a full page for $1,000 rather than 7K - I went begging which I do often, that gets some results. I've also got flyers in a few hospitals and I have TV ads in hospital waiting rooms - they're not worth it but I'm stuck in a contract so have to wear that one.
I've really been quite random and hit and miss but I do think that is somewhat the nature of advertising, some things look great but you don't get any ROI, others get lots.
I think the key is a couple of listings in big parenting websites, but pick your animal carefully and focus the rest on getting up in google rankings.
Flyers to the right places etc are all good because its so cheap.
I do have a PR agent, we've only worked with her for 2 months so far and she's gotten a couple of small articles in two magazines - that's a slow build thing apparently. I do wonder for $700 a month if I'd just be better doing more Google ads but .... I'll give her a few more months to see.

Its hard to quantify isn't it, what works and what doesn't? I agree that the short term hires are where the money is. I wonder if that's how hire for baby make all their money? Do they have big turnovers - their regions for each franchise are so small.... I wonder if its just Marina who is making all the $ there....
Sorry I'm a bit obsessed with them, I want to know everything! lol.

Our biggest advertising spend is google ad words and like Quai it the best way for travelling families to find us. We are spending between $350 to $400 a month (how does that compare to you?)

Coming up to the end of our 12 month contract with Kidsspot and not sure if we will renew. Like Danni lots of traffic but not alot of hires from it. Having said that I wonder sometimes if people have found us through the site but when asked they reply google search as that is where they started!

On alot of the other free websites as you have all mentioned.

Danni - I did come across a site you are advertising the other day "Take the Kids" - I was a bit freaked out when I say their website given how similar our business names are. I was worried that our 2 biggest competitors in Melb are on there and that if people dont get our full name correct and come across their website they will be directed to our competitors. They have no contact details on their website for me to apprach them. It raised another question of trademarks and if there is anything that can be done with a business name so similar. While they are not a direct competitor they are promoting our direct competitors.

We also have our flyers at the Travel Services desk at the airport and they tell us they direct people our way if they have any enquires. In almost 12 months we have had 1 booking! For $750 this was not worth it but seemed like a good idea at the time.

Another failed one for us was in hospitals. There is a lady in Melbourne that has gone up against the bounty pages. We thouught it was a great way to promote out hospital bassinets while mums are still in hospitals. We stopped after 4 momths and $4000 later! people just werent looking at them until they were home and was then too late.

So I then thought we need mums before they go to hospitals and sent off lots of brochures to Obstetrician offices - again only a few bookings.

For us it is all about google - for both short and long term hires and we are just focusing on this. Another reason why I just want someone to review of site.

Quai - what tricks did you use to get your click through rates up? I found listing other cities in the negative words cut out the people searching of other states.