Good Day Business Builder and good holiday wishes!,
Our Lives Are Based On Comparison
In just 4-minutes you’ll know why advertising here is your best investment.
Your question might be: “I’m listed in Trip Advisor so why should I pay to advertise with Singapore Shopper Magazine?
There’s an old saying in this business. “Advertisers advertise.” What does that mean? It means, they have proven to themselves that advertising works and DOES bring them more business, so they continue advertising. That’s why I am comparing Trip Adviser to Singapore Shopper Magazine. I know advertising with SgShopper.me/ is GOING to make money for you! Well done advertising does not cost anything. It brings you a profit. It Pays You Back with your investment money and profit too!
If it cannot do that; if it’s clever for the sake of cleverness but doesn’t sell for you; it’s a waste of your money.
Trip Advisor lists everyone. They claim over 9,700 listings. Who will read all of that? What’s the point of looking when there’s so much variety? SgShopper seeks to display the best in town and hold the number of listings to under 126 at most. If you’re comparing carefully you see my approach is different.
Trip Advisor and Sg Shopper approach the work differently. Sg Shopper creates a landing page for you, and several pointer ads, AND a blog that leads to more ads for you for weekly specials and weekend specials. Trip Advisor does not do these things and cannot because it’s too expensive for them. They could for a few but won’t for over 4,000 Singapore F&B businesses!
SgShopper does not allow any commentary. I don’t allow the public to list and comment on a restaurant. The truth is, some nasty people might want to hurt you and once their comment is listed on Trip Advisor or one of the online travel agencies, it generally remains there for years! Why should one bad moment with a waiter be listed to sully your reputation for years? Is that fair?!?
Trip Advisor has a slogan about “People helping people.” But sometimes people are not altruistic and don’t want to help you because the waitress was rude. I have seen a water side hotel on a Philippine island go out of business because of one bad customer experience and a long story about it. The next year, they were gone! I won’t promote nasty commentary.
SgShopper produces advertising for you on a landing page. Any communication is better than none. If you have a website, that’s very good. If you don’t, I’ll request information and do my best to make more of it to attract more customers. My concept differs compared to Trip Advisor. They’re not “bad,” We differ and that also helps create more of a market-place.
With me, you have control and can set up specials, Holiday Notices, A Sale Each Week, a sale for the weekend, a free drink or free dessert with dinner for two; anything you can dream up is alright. I’ll improve advertising phrases, and specific words, to help you get more response on your landing page in proper English and with changed photos. You Have Control over the message. You can change it for special events.
Trip Advisor doesn’t do that. They have a standard method. With over 9,700 ads spanning over 400 pages they cannot and never will write ads for each restaurant. They will not produce 3-page websites for you either, and I will, and I’ll host the website dramatically reducing your cost and problems.
Meantime, the potential customer scrolling through Trip Advisor is asking, “Why am I doing this? I’m not going to read through hundreds of ads.”
So I’m asking, “What’s the point of making up a listing this way? How does this really benefit the restaurant owner and how can he count to know if it is or is not benefitting him enough?” There’s no way for you to count the number of visitors to your ad or your website. So, it’s a nice, colorful catalog, but how many readers are looking seriously? Who knows? You get what you pay for. If it’s free, don’t expect much.
Trip Advisor is a very long list of ads with no index or alphabetization to help you find a business and find it again. This is not helpful! I think it’s frustrating. If you want a list of exclusively Cantonese restaurants, Trip Advisor doesn’t have it. I am planning for it in my work.
Nothing is stable. Trip Advisor will often refresh pages and your one ad might never be found again. That only causes further readers’ distress. Your customer may have a distant memory about your place and want to find it, but s/he cannot.
On SgShopper.me/ the names are listed in roughly Alphabetical order and also in a grid with photos so, (also in roughly category and alpha order once it gets growing) like a telephone directory, it’s intentionally easy for a past customer or interested new one to find you.
Your ad also will appear on other pages in a side column or at the bottom under “Other Places You Might Like” so you’ll get a lot of exposure. And, if you get in early in 2021 you’ll also discover I will place your ad in the blog Weekly Sales section, so you’ll be getting much more exposure than you’re paying for.
Trip Advisor does not have a magazine format. They run an article-promise headline through Google as for example “Top Restaurants In Singapore” and then you find yourself into the full listing again. Well, all 9,700 of them cannot be the best.
My plan for SgShopper.me/ is for 125 cafe’s and restaurants and we’re looking for the best of them.
Singapore Shopper Magazine reaches an audience that has an interest and their interest (and audience size) grows with use of social media, google search, and the Blog , PLUS other e-mailings to those who have “raised their hand” and in effect said, “I’m subscribing. I want you to send me notices each week about special events on weekends and special sales through the week.”
This combination is developing more notably as we develop your interest and more customer readership. This method creates a very strong market place for a small group of better restaurants and cafes. I know because I worked in the Advertising and Ad Sales divisions for similar magazines in the U.S.
Our research indicates those who do advertise in magazines similar to Singapore Shopper get lots of views. Customers come in, saying, “I saw your ad for the free dessert for one of us and decided to come to try your cooking.” Comments like that allow a waiter to make a check mark. You count up the check marks at the end of the night and you’ll see immediately that your ad is making a profit for you. More customers are coming in and mentioning the magazine and your special offer! No other medium is doing that for you!
So, in various ways, it all brings in money, and it is proven to bring you much more than you invest for the advertising. For about S$2.54/day you can reach a broad audience that said, “I’m interested! Send information to me!” That always translates to More Customer Traffic.
Trip Advisor does not have a landing page written for you by a well trained “advertising copy writer.” They don’t have a page counter to show you how the visit count is improving. They have a listing and a bigger page with photos, but beyond the standardized listing, there’s nothing more.
I have an alphabetical listing page as in a phone directory…
and a developing advertising grid HERE (Come back and see these later. Don’t get lost here.)
Trip Advisor cannot afford to write advertising for each listed restaurant. They are listing over 9,700 of them! It’s too expensive to write advertising for all of them. Whatever you write is what shows up there. But, you’re not a salesman or an advertising writer. You could create a disaster. If English is your 2nd or 3rd language you may embarrass yourself! Once its in Trip Advisor you’ll embarrass yourself FOREVER!
One of Trip Advisor’s biggest issues is that anyone can submit a listing which may include wrong spelling of the name (Is it Meating House or Meeting House?) wrong or no phone number, wrong or no email address. I would want my business to be represented with all the right details. So would you.
The pages I produce make for a quicker search of what is offered, allowing your potential customers to decide where they’ll look further. Of course you and I will go over all details to be sure everything meets your requirements. I’m custom making advertising for you. In the case of Trip Advisor, a customer might want to submit an ad for you and he thinks he’s doing a big favor to you. Maybe not so!
It takes years to develop the skills to write copy to the point a writer has a good reputation. I have a good reputation, and the proof is with past clients who were guided by me, and saw a big profit in return for their investment. That is my intention for YOU too, because if I bring you good results I feel confident you’ll return year after year. I’ll show you a bit of my writing when you get to the end of this note.
You probably don’t want to pay ad agency prices to do this, and there are precious few ad agencies that are effective! I am effective and I’m …. I’m giving the rewriting away to help you. What else can anyone ask for?
Permit me to remind you, I made my living walking in and out of small businesses, selling for magazines like this and for phone directories. I know this business. The reality of real life is, if a community has two or three reference magazines (something like the old-fashioned printed telephone directories) the general audience uses all of them according to their preference! So, the effort is never wasted. Again I’m not saying Trip Advisor is wrong or bad. It’s simply a different approach.
There’s a strong “self-pride” factor involved here for both you and the reader. You want to be seen among the best in the community. Those that don’t have a website or don’t provide an email address are already saying they are not trying to be the best. They’re saying, “I do an adequate job, feed my neighbors, get a modest weekly income, and I’m satisfied with that.” I’m sure some shop owners want only to serve their local neighbors and for them, that’s enough!
The general readers population that wants to gravitate to the very best will come to Singapore Shopper Magazine. They don’t want to read the general selection. They want “the best,” just as there is always a public that wants better quality of anything you can name.
There is that “public” that wants to and can afford to dine out, and wants to select through the best restaurants, cafes, and bars that are willing to pay to be in a more exclusive magazine like Singapore Shopper. They will subscribe and come to you. Your investment will bring you many readers and many visitors and earn a profit. It won’t “cost” anything. It will PAY!!!
As for the sample ads I’ve shown as I got the magazine started, they are being eliminated a little at a time, and what we’ll have left is paying clients with big photos, beautiful pages, and instant easy search information.
If you are right now thinking, “I know I am among the best. I want to tell the world that this is the truth!” then you deserve to benefit yourself, your family, and your business for about S$2.54/day. and….You Deserve To Have Control over changes on your landing page for holidays and special events. You deserve to have the ability to send notices to all the interested public with my blog and email about weekly and holiday sales and Weekend Specials!
Here we are rushing into Christmas 2020 and Chinese New Year 2021, and you have no way to reach masses of potential customers for a very low price. Wouldn’t it be great if you could? You can next year and that’s why I’m writing to you repeatedly this year!
- Get into Singapore Shopper Magazine,
- get shown in the Weekly Specials
- and Weekend Edition blog
- and E-mailings,
- All of this effort DOES bring in higher paying customers, and more of them!.
Give yourself and your business a new start for New Year 2021. Better Days Are Ahead For Those Who Advertise Wisely.
This is like giving yourself a gift that will keep giving all through the year. There’s no better gift than more customer traffic. Send a note to me. Get serious and let’s get your fully operating promotion program operating right where more potential customers will see it!
Better Days Ahead!
I promised earlier a piece of my writing to demonstrate better advertising copy. This is written in a “writer’s voice” for those of higher education, interest in culture and British history, and the means to afford a stay at Raffles Hotel https://sgshopper2030.com/the-grand-lobby-at-raffles/
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The start of this advertising and marketing article series is HERE
