I think this year I am going to change that and actually try some advertising.

Should be an interesting pursuit.

how well has 5k in 9y been working for you?

Honestly, until just this year we were pretty busy and growing at a decent pace.

This year, maybe 14 months or so; things have been very slow. Slower then we like. So it's time to look into attracting fresh blood!

Nearly all of our business is/has been word of mouth referral stuff.

Honestly, until just this year we were pretty busy and growing at a decent pace.

This year, maybe 14 months or so; things have been very slow. Slower then we like. So it's time to look into attracting fresh blood!

Nearly all of our business is/has been word of mouth referral stuff.

Yeah the problem is if you stop acquiring new customers your word of mouth effects will slowly start to die out. After all, you can only give recommendations to your friends so many times. And how many of your friends do you know are serious about starting websites? Maybe a few...

So the same can be said about all of your clients.

Yup, pretty much. I think we've just about dried up all the word of mouth stuff right now. This year, I can think of only 1 signup that wasn't a direct referral.

Time to build a few new pages, target some ad campaigns, try out some brochures/direct mail stuff.

Wonder what works the best...

That's quite impressive if it has brought in a decent stream of clients for you! When trying out new advertising, make sure you diverse in your test period. Don't "throw your eggs all in one basket", and then as you discover what works best, focus on that area. :)

Hello,
If you dont mind me asking, what medium were you using when you were advertising (Adsence, etc)?

Very impressive. You've obviously done a good job of optimising your advertising. Many will spend double, triple that and still be unsuccessful with regards to bringing in new clients or as you put "fresh blood".

Congrats on getting nine years out of little advertising , its the sign of a good well run company providing a good service. But every brand even the googles and coca colas of this world need to freshen their brands up every few years , otherwise you become stale in peoples eyes.

The only advertising we did was to put banners on a webmaster forum many years ago. At least 8 years ago.

We did "freshen" our brand up about 9 months ago and with zero advertising, sales went up. I think our clients were impressed with the new look and feel. Of course, we weren't offering anything new, just tidied it up and made it look prettier.

Right now we are investing heavily in bringing some new products out and plan to market to some niches we've identified.

We'll be doing a mix of advertising. I'm hoping to get some direct mail campaigns going as well as play with Google's ads and maybe see if we can't find some resource sites to advertise on.

We aren't the cheapest provider and don't ever plan to be. Of course, this will hurt our sales as people love to save money.... but I hope the clients we do manage to attract will become long term clients and salespeople for our brand like most of our current clients are.