KhalidsLife.com

I’m back and I’ve already been working hard to launch Bar Vacancy. After sending out a few hundred e-mails to bars, nightclubs and agencies, I’ve setup an Adwords Campaign covering a lot of keywords. I’ve decided to let it run for a few days and if it doesn’t work well then I’ll need to look at another form of advertising.

The site is simple, easy and best of all FREE. There should be no reason people don’t want to use the site, I just need to ensure an balanced number of visitors between employers and employees. Word of mouth will hopefully play a big part in ensuring people recommend the site and I intend to advertise privately across bar/nightclub/security forums.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions I’d love to hear them. Perhaps you have an idea or opinion that could help?

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

When I get back from Spain I’ll have a week to complete my “to do” list and relax further. Here’s whats on it so far…

• Girlfriend’s 21st Birthday Party - This is definately the first thing! We return in the early hours of the morning on the 30th and Christy’s birthday is on the 1st. After a few minor drama’s trying to sort a plan out, I’ve managed to get something together and fingers crossed it’ll go according to plan.

• Launch Bar Vacancy - I’m still waiting for the coder to fix two minor issues then the site is ready to launch! I’m really excited, with just a few postings the site is already getting enquiries from potential employees. Again, fingers crossed that’ll go to plan too! I have a number of e-mail lists ready to be used for bars and nightclubs across the UK. I also intend to run a few AdWords campaigns, seek partnerships from agencies and sponsorship from drinks wholesalers.

• Start Edinburgh Ironing - My best friend Stephen and I launched Edinburgh Clean not so long ago. After distributing 100 A4 flyers we managed to get a couple of clients. Through a family friend we’re also getting a free advert in a directory publication. Hoepfully the business will expand and we want to diversify into other areas. My father recently purchased a larger property and his partner has taken some time off work. With the staff and space we seize the moment.

We decided to this after a a few friends expressed the opinion that they may feel slightly uncomfortable having a cleaner enter their property but wouldn’t mind giving someone their ironing to do.

I think we’re going to order about 5000 flyers and test the water, perhaps hiring some equipment to begin with rather than. This seems more sensible as it is going to cost a lot more for the commercial ironing products than it was for the cleaning supplies.

Watch this space!

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

Marketing a product or service can be particularly difficult, especially if you have stiff, established competition. Introducing my latest site, www.BarVacancy.com

Bar Vacancy is a free classifieds site specifically geared towards the licensed trade. Bar Vacancy allows you to post free bar jobs and will make money through people paying for “featured ads” and banner adverts.

The site rivals Gumtree, BarZone and every other site because it is FREE! Gumtree charge £25 per ad and BarZone £34.

I need your help…

Marketing such a service may sound easy. People often say “Oh that’s a good idea and because it’s free everyone will probably use it” - In theory yes, if a vendor was handing out a product you’d check it out before paying for it elsehwere.

The problem is getting the message out.

I let Adwords run for a few hours, targetting keywords for employers only so I could get some more jobs posted on the site e.g. “bar staff required“. £14 later at a cost of £0.40 per click, I got nothing. Understandably campaigns like this take time and I can’t expect immediate results, but just how far do you go before you try something else?

I’ve been looking at magazine specifically for the licensed trade, such as bar owner magazines and websites. For a good quarter page magazine ad I am looking at £1400 and there are no decent websites I have found so far.

I was thinking of doing down the route of business cards but they would only cover my city and would involve a lot of legwork. Flyers and mailshots is another idea and I have an e-mail campaign ready to go but I need more ideas.

What do you think I should do?

Thanks, and good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.