Advertise On This Site!

Over the last couple of months, with the site gaining more momentum and the readership expanding, I have been considering the viability of placing some carefully arranged adverts on this site!

So, this is your opportunity to get your company on a site that is growing at a fast pace. Why not advertise on a site that is averaging over 3,500 visitors per month and nearly 11,000 page views a month? Figures based on current rates of traffic.

The IT guys we use are currently organizing me a package for the site domain to be bought and transferred from Google onto their own servers. This should be completed shortly.

The site is updated with posts on a very regular basis, so you can be sure of strong, steady traffic ensuring maximum exposure for your ads.

I'm only going to be placing a few ads on the site. So if your ad is placed on here then it won't face much competition from many others.

Looking to give your business some extra online presence on a site with plenty of traffic and increasing all the time?

If you're interested in placing an advert on this site, email me at glazingblogger@googlemail.com to discuss further details.

Are Double Glazing Adverts Getting Better?

Is it me, or do window TV ads seem to be getting better? I used to be of the opinion that a classy double glazing advert on the TV was an impossibility. Take this infamous example:

With tacky, and unfortunately memorable ads like this one plaguing our TV screens, was the classy window ad completely out of reach?

Maybe not, over the last couple of years Everest and Anglian Home Improvements have cleverly used the push on energy efficiency to improve the image of double glazing, doors and conservatories on the telly. Anglian has just launched a new one with Laurence Llwellan Bowen (hope I've spelled that right!), which I think is quite classy. It's got a recognizable but respected voice, the imagery is slick and professional (unlike some of our industry fitters!). Unfortunately YouTube won't let me embed the video of the new ad here, but if you click this, then it'll take you straight to Anglian's YouTube channel where you can see it there.


Everest have brought out some rather slick ads out in the last couple of years, using Craig Doyle, an experienced and suave Irish TV presenter to front them. Again, their use of the push on energy efficiency and A rated windows has helped drag PVCu windows out from the tacky room and into the 'important for your carbon footprint' room. Here's a short example:

I also like the way 'sales' and 'discounts' aren't being pushed in this ad - it's clever in a subtle way. Everyone knows that a sale and discount comes with a cheap and tacky background. Everest are trying to create a luxurious and quality feel in the ad, banging a big old SALE sign in the top right hand corner is going to totally ruin that.


Maybe if all those other companies thinking of going on TV were to take a little hint from these guys, public perception of our industry might change for the better.

It's Only A Theory!

My post about Why Advertising Does Not Work, seemed to cause a bit of a stir.


The whole point of that post was just to convey another way of looking at advertising and the effects of it. Personally I can see how the theory works, and that we probably should factor it in when we consider advertising campaigns. However I was not saying that no one should be advertising altogether. 


The theory was established back in 1944. The original Game Theory was created to try to explain how a game could end in different ways depending what decisions were made at the beginning. This same theory was then applied to other areas of life.


The problem is though that this theory is nearly 70 years old, and was diluted somewhat when it was applied to other examples. However I do still believe there is a degree of logic in what is being said. 


I'm still all for advertising, but just for it to be done properly. If the company I work for came up to me and said that we were not going to do any form of advertising at all, I would say they were being reckless and over the top. 


For advertising to work, it needs to be appealing to the customer visually and audibly. With something in it that will make customers want to get of their arse and buy whatever it is you're selling. At the moment, I think double glazing ads are lacking a little bit. Though to be honest, I've always thought that you can never make a decent advert about double glazing anyway! 

Why Advertising Does Not Work

Flicking through the TV channels last night, I heard a rather interesting theory which went on to explain that advertising may not actually work.


I forget exactly how the explanation of that theory goes (think it's called Game Theory, created by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in 1944), but I do know how it was applied to advertising. The theory goes; if two companies were advertising at the same time (which a lot of windows companies are), spending roughly the same amount of money (which will be relevant as most go on ITV from our sector), any advantage gained from that advertising will cancel each other's out. If that company had never advertised in the first place, the market would remain unchanged - no worse off, and that company would have saved all that extra cash, and their business would be in roughly the same place anyway.


Most businesses probably haven't considered this theory. The thinking of business has always been that advertising has been beneficial. During the recession businesses were urged to increase advertising to boost revenues and exposure. But very few would have considered that if other businesses in their sector advertised at the same time, the effect of their advertising campaign would have been nullified - therefore a waste of time and money.


From previous experience, advertising hasn't always been beneficial. Yes it increases exposure, but if the economic conditions aren't right and people are not in the mood to spend, it's doesn't matter how many times you tell them these deals will end at the end of the week, people just won't spend. No matter how effective you think your ad campaign is. 


Perhaps it's a theory worth considering now. Times are hard and set to get harder. Maybe it's high time we took a long, hard, critical look at advertising and work out whether it really is one of the necessary tools that businesses need to use to boost revenues.

I'm Adding A Few Ads

I've been toying with the idea of putting adverts on my site for a while now. The traffic to my site has been steadily building over the last few months, and with me being lucky enough to be writing in a couple of magazines now, I would like to think that traffic will improve further through being in the magazines. 


I've asked the question on Twitter before about whether I should put adverts up, a few said no. But when there is an opportunity to make a little extra cash out of something I've put a lot of effort into, I don't see the harm.


The adverts are of course going to be related to what this blog is about. I'm also going to make sure that they are placed in and around the site in a way which doesn't detract from my articles and postings. There's nothing worse than going on to a blog which has loads of ads and makes it hard to read the main body of text.


I'm thinking of only putting three adverts up at the moment. Nothing massive in size, but big enough to have the desired impact and something that people will notice and click on. If the adverts don't work for me, or I find that traffic drops and I get negative feedback, then I will take the adverts down. For now this is a sort of experiment, but if it works, it will stay in place.


You should be seeing the adverts later on tonight, once I have got to grips with Google Adsense!

Advertising

Advertising. The selling of a dream or idea. One of the most important parts of a business.

Advertising can be split into two different types. The first is the typical direct advertising. TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, leaflets and now the internet. These are the most upfront ways of getting across whatever message or idea your trying to push. They can be as basic, or as elaborate, depending on what is being sold. More specifically to the double glazing industry, advertising tends to focus more on the cheaper end of the market. The BOGOF's and the 'Free Fitting' offers have cheapened what could have been a market which could have had a more revered image, possibly commanding more sensible, higher prices. However, business's egos to undercut and win every order has had a detrimental effect on this industry.

The second form of advertising is a bit more subtle. Presentation. And not just how you present the product, but how you present the business, the environment in the building, how you present yourself. Everything you have and everything you do is advertising. All the time you are creating an image and impression for your customers. For example, we wear suits to work. We want to create the most professional image the second we walk into someone's home or when someone visits us at our showroom. And because we represent the business and the product we sell, our image is advertising our business and product.


We don't carry around sample windows. How can you tell how that product is going to transform someone's home from a small sample window, which probably isn't going to be in that sample style anyway? All our windows and doors in the showroom are fitted into mock brickwork to show off how they would look fitted. A more subtle form of advertising which works subconsciously. All our offices are clean and organised, every customer gets a welcome the second they come in from our reception staff, all to make sure we give the best impression of ourselves. A lot of the above seems quite simple stuff, but yet some or all of it is ignored by a lot of companies, and not just in double glazing.


Advertising is both in your face and subtle. Use the 'in your face' marketing to pull people in. Use the subtle ways, the things you say, the way you present yourself and your company, and the way you act to cement a sale. Sometimes that works better than the direct approach.  

Advertising

We received the latest edition of the Wakefield and Leeds Yellow Pages last week and we were astounded how depleted the 'Double Glazing Installers' section has become. The recession has really hit the advertising budgets for double glazing companies hard. The question that then springs to mind is how many of these companies not advertising have gone bust? For those still in business this is all good news. The less there are advertising, the more leads are going to go their way, less choice means more business for the few that remain.


When the economy starts to recover properly, those left in our industry are going to make a killing. I think this time round though, we are not going to see the saturation of our market place like in the past, this owing to the fact that banks are now very selective on who they give loans to now.

New Month, Great Start

It's the first of May and we've started in great fashion, plenty of appointments booked and sales made. Were hoping that the beginning of summer, coupled with the forecast of a warm, dry summer, will bring a boost to the double glazing industry, and the signs are good. Were becoming busier month on month (which should be expected for the time of year) and conversion rates are up from last year. I think a lot of our activity can be explained by the fact that were pushing our energy rated products in all avenues : Internet, newspaper, leaflets, contacting all our previous customers and re-designing our road signs to get maximum exposure. As I've said, the more companies can do for themselves, the more likely they are to make through the tough times ahead.