Is Advertising Your Business On Samui Pointless

[ksamuicom]

I look through some of the forums just curious to see what other people have thought on the matter, I run a small business here nothing big but I tend to notice and it may just be me that advertising with certain companies / brochures / etc seems useless and expensive, as most are placed in most places that most people won't see them, most brochures I found are all in travel agencies and lets be real it would seem like most of the big travel agencies already make sure there customers go through with them, maybe do to a lack of foreign language or something similiar. Let me know what your opinion is on this as to me it seems like advertising with magazine's here are pointless and don't reach many people

[lazeeboy]

you never know if it works or not,if youre offering some thing different then yes you need to advertise,if its a bar or a restaurant then spend the money on extra staff to hand out flyers to attract the customers,this works for me .

[ksamuicom]

I think I worded this wrong to me advertising here on samui doesn't seem like it makes sense, most magazines, brochures are not in any good places that would catch people's attention, yes I know I can hire people to hand out fliers true but I really was trying to bring this topic more in a general senses as prices seem high like for example a samui guide book I saw in a hotel advertising with them cost $500 dollars a month and require 1 year contract to me seems like a waste though. Also note seems like your business does well with certain locations

[george]

Have you tried on-line advertising? Maybe you should try advertise in the Thaivisa Samui sub forum, for example?

http://marketing.thaivisa.com

[mattias33]

Without knowing what kind of buisness you do, i could say about for instans brochures that the inportant thing is the delevery of those brochures.

As an example pizzahut and kfc, mc donald, all have full colour brochures that comes ones a week. I been looking to print similar stuff myself and the price for these things are about 25 baht/paper. (A4 paper,two sides full colour print). When i get these pizza prints i usually end up seing at least 5 of them thrown on my poarch. Even if it´s raining. That cost the pizza company 125 baht plus delivery (ok, they probably have way better printing-price than i would ever get, but still). I bet that´s not how the original thought was. Problem is they hired a thaiboy and said probably "go home when all these papers are out) and the boy is creative enough to find out that the more he throws in each house, the faster he finish.

My point being that with that kind of commersial, you have to be selective with who you use for delivery or it will turn out to be a real waste of money. Printers there are a fair selection of good ones, but delivery seems to be the hard part.

As george suggested: Online advertisment is a great source for some kind of buisness. In many cases it is easy to follow up how many have watched it and so on.

Messageboards. Some things are good to promote even on the board around. (tesco,big c and so on). They clean them often so you have to go there every second day and put up a new one. But they get viewed by alot of people.

All depending on what kind of buisness you run.

Edited October 19, 2008 by mattias33

[SamuiBond]

I look through some of the forums just curious to see what other people have thought on the matter, I run a small business here nothing big but I tend to notice and it may just be me that advertising with certain companies / brochures / etc seems useless and expensive, as most are placed in most places that most people won't see them, most brochures I found are all in travel agencies and lets be real it would seem like most of the big travel agencies already make sure there customers go through with them, maybe do to a lack of foreign language or something similiar. Let me know what your opinion is on this as to me it seems like advertising with magazine's here are pointless and don't reach many people

As you might see already it isnt...? surely is getting hits already

[Samui Coconut]

Without knowing what kind of buisness you do, i could say about for instans brochures that the inportant thing is the delevery of those brochures.

As an example pizzahut and kfc, mc donald, all have full colour brochures that comes ones a week. I been looking to print similar stuff myself and the price for these things are about 25 baht/paper. (A4 paper,two sides full colour print). When i get these pizza prints i usually end up seing at least 5 of them thrown on my poarch. Even if it´s raining. That cost the pizza company 125 baht plus delivery (ok, they probably have way better printing-price than i would ever get, but still). I bet that´s not how the original thought was. Problem is they hired a thaiboy and said probably "go home when all these papers are out) and the boy is creative enough to find out that the more he throws in each house, the faster he finish.

My point being that with that kind of commersial, you have to be selective with who you use for delivery or it will turn out to be a real waste of money. Printers there are a fair selection of good ones, but delivery seems to be the hard part.

As george suggested: Online advertisment is a great source for some kind of buisness. In many cases it is easy to follow up how many have watched it and so on.

Messageboards. Some things are good to promote even on the board around. (tesco,big c and so on). They clean them often so you have to go there every second day and put up a new one. But they get viewed by alot of people.

All depending on what kind of buisness you run.

I guess it's abot 2-3 Baht per leaflet....

The problem with advertising is that it's difficult to measure what produces and what not.

For a hotel of reasonable size 50,000 Baht is peanuts. For a small business usually unaffordable.

Best (and cheapest) advertisement is still word of mouth......

[Cuban]

Let me know what your opinion is on this as to me it seems like advertising with magazine's here are pointless and don't reach many people.

Don't think of the advertising in terms of the number of 'people' that see it - but whether potential customers see it or not. I like to use the roaming sellers on a beach example, it is my firm belief that the person selling ice creams will get more sales that the person selling novelty elephant book-ends. If you are running a hotel targeting overseas tourists a local circulation monthly magazine will probably only be seen once the potential customer is on the island and unlikely to change hotel mid holiday, maybe next holiday - but then you are fighting to take an existing customer from another hotel. Places to eat and services or activities are ideal for magazines read by tourists in hotels looking for something to do - otherwise it's down to location they go to what they see.

Also note seems like your business does well with certain locations...

Clearly if you take money from people in the flesh you need to be where they are. Location is all unless your sales are mobile and you can follow the customer. Look at time-share home sales, you can set up an office but there is unlikely to be a queue of customers waiting for you to invite them in - hence you need to go out canvassing.

Is it not best to profile your ideal customer, consider if they are the people that you need to attract more of or if they are assured to be a customer in any case in which case you might spend the advertising money on fringe customers (signs in other langauges?).

The urinals at gas stations are great, you know that you will have a steady stream of male customers, probably with a disposable income to spend (they are likely to have a car - and probably be the driver). So if you place a poster here your message will be viewed to the exclusion of other messages for about 30 seconds - that is a long time to hold someone's attention. That's why you see cars/trucks and engine oil advertised in such places. Probably not ideal for communicating a health spa location - unless you use man-man humor as sell to the man as a gift for the wife. Too easy to backfire as the connection with "urinal" is not a positive one.

If you don't want to reveal your business here, who is your target customer?

Are they backpackers looking for a motorbike or 5 star hotel guests looking for a tour?

[ham]

Have you tried on-line advertising? Maybe you should try advertise in the Thaivisa Samui sub forum, for example?

http://marketing.thaivisa.com

George, this is what I get when open your link?? I use google chrome

[Jiu-Jitsu]

you never know if it works or not,if youre offering some thing different then yes you need to advertise,if its a bar or a restaurant then spend the money on extra staff to hand out flyers to attract the customers,this works for me .

That's amusing. I've seen these girls wandering around with flyers in hand. There are one or two who are effective and enthusiastic at their jobs. But in the main, they are lacklustre in their attempts to hand out leaflets.

I often feel sorry for some of the businesspeople on Samui when I see the kind of staff they have at hand.

[SamuiRes]

On Island magazine advertising I have found to be pointless. I track everyone who contacts us as to where they heard about us. Up to the middle of last year 80% were internet contacts and the balance a combination of referrrals, drive by and casual meetings in and around town. I was spending thousands of Baht in the magazines and in a twelve month period could only identify two enquiries which could be traced to a magazine. Consequently I pulled all my island magazine advertising and spend the money on promoting the web site and direct email contact with contacts on a regular basis. Much more cost effective.

[highdiver]

On Island magazine advertising I have found to be pointless. I track everyone who contacts us as to where they heard about us. Up to the middle of last year 80% were internet contacts and the balance a combination of referrrals, drive by and casual meetings in and around town. I was spending thousands of Baht in the magazines and in a twelve month period could only identify two enquiries which could be traced to a magazine. Consequently I pulled all my island magazine advertising and spend the money on promoting the web site and direct email contact with contacts on a regular basis. Much more cost effective.

total agree with you.

every few months a new Samui magazine goes out and recruits advertisers with promises of huge distribution.

there are so many advertising signs, posters magazines etc... that a small posting gets lost and is unnoticed.

online marketing is cheaper and has a greater conversion ratio.

maybe that why so many posts in Thai visa are actually promoting business.

[Samuian]

I look through some of the forums just curious to see what other people have thought on the matter, I run a small business here nothing big but I tend to notice and it may just be me that advertising with certain companies / brochures / etc seems useless and expensive, as most are placed in most places that most people won't see them, most brochures I found are all in travel agencies and lets be real it would seem like most of the big travel agencies already make sure there customers go through with them, maybe do to a lack of foreign language or something similiar. Let me know what your opinion is on this as to me it seems like advertising with magazine's here are pointless and don't reach many people

My personal opinion is: USELESS, not entirely but, as most of this advertising is targeting clients which ARE ON Samui already, it depends very much what you're offering, if it's Bar, Pub, Restaurant Service related yes, ok, might work.

I did run a business for 12 years WITHOUT any adverts... only mouth to mouth recommendations...it did work and the client knew what they could expect... much better to actually WORK and AIM towards "branding" and REPUTATION then spending money for Advertising Agencies which usually do not much more then cash in on design/layout and printing.

A difference would be a genuine MARKETING Company, but as you write your business is small scale, follow my previous advice!

Next is that every business needs a different approach for advert./marketing depends on what you do....

cheers