Blog
Looking ahead
Monday 30th May 2011
After a weekend off, Heritage Classic Cars is back in business and I am preparing for a busy few weeks ahead. I still haven't cleaned the cars since their last weddings and I know they are both festooned with confetti. Those little scraps of paper manage to find their way into every nook and cranny and it takes ages to hunt them all down; especially those that creep down behind the seats.
The ivory and black car is working next Saturday so that needs to be washed, polished and filled with petrol. With a bit of elbow grease, I'll have it gleaming for the occasion. The wedding will be at Redbourn Church, which is home territory for me. I am hoping it will be a brilliantly sunny day and I get some gorgeous photos of the car at the local Church.
Although it is only May, I must start thinking about promoting the business and attracting some bookings for next year. One customer has already booked for her wedding in 2012 but, obviously, more are needed. I have decided to cut back on wedding exhibitions and focus my marketing efforts instead, on the internet. The people who designed my website offer a 'search engine optimisation' service which aims to keep customers' websites high up on search reports; preferably on page 1 of Google searches. I signed up for this a month or two ago and it does seem to be doing the trick. The number of hits has risen significantly recently but will this be reflected in more bookings? Only time will tell.
Foolishly, I promised the lads at Webfactore (the website designers) a little bonus if we achieve over 300 unique visitors in any month between now and Christmas. At the time of writing, the number for May has reached 268. A case of wine may be on its way to them before long. Fortunately, Bulgarian merlot is quite cheap!
Being an old cynic, I can't help wondering whether they have asked their friends to visit my site in order to boost the numbers!