November 10, 2010
By Khalid
Posted In
Advertising, Affiliates, Business, My Life, News, Projects
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Marketing a taxi company
It has been a while since my last post, and that’s really been for two reason; 1. I’ve not had much to report and 2. I don’t want to report what I’ve been doing. As some of your may know from the pages of Ethan Hardy Ltd, I own Edinburgh Taxi and Glasgow Taxi (.co.uk and .org.uk).
I have agreements setup with companies in both cities to accept and complete work that come through the telephone numbers on the sites in return for a referall fee, a new kind of affiliate marketing. I am fortunate enough to have Mark Boyd working as an affiliate for me and promoting a companies on his Aberdeen Taxi site.
Things are progessing well with us racking up in excess of 1,000 calls per month. Mark and I are constantly competing between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, however he has a sub-affiliate promoting his number so qudos to him!
I’ve been trialling new marketing methods, including pairing up with local companies to co-promote each other’s services. I’ve also paid for adverts on student radio and Spotify, which I hope will spread the word about the number. I’ll let you know how that goes at the end of the month!
Like Rob, who is pushing some promotional items for his Claims site, I’ve got a giveaway in the pipeline that my friend Frank and a few others voted as a great idea.
I’m cautious about publishing every step I am taking as the taxi trade is particularly competative and it is difficult to comment on what worked and what didn’t as promoting a taxi number does not guarantee instant results – people may not use one for months to come and there’s no cookies tracking the booking!
Expansion online is one thing I’m focusing on as I’m fortunate enough to benefit from good positions within the SERPs and I’ve built up a small yet growing fan base on Facebook and Twitter.
Things are going well so my head is down and I’m working this idea until those 1,000 calls turn into 10,000!
Good luck with your pursuits,
Khalid.
