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Brick No115: How my last paycheque got me my first 500 subscribers
By Matt Weston, Friday 26 November 2004 This time last week 549 of you went - via brick No113 - to download Seth Godin's ebook, "The Bootstrapper's Bible". As Godin puts it: "There's never been a better time to start a business with no money." And that's what "The Bootstrapper's Bible" is all about. It proved so popular that Seth had problems with his site running slow or even crashing. Serves him right for giving it away. If you missed out on Friday, here's the link again. And I have an even better giveaway for you bootstrappers today. Only this time, instead of crashing Seth's site, I'm fully expecting you to blow my inbox off its hinges. You see, I'd be surprised if I don't get an immediate reply from every small business owner on this list who has a website they need to promote. How my last paycheque got me my first 500 subscribers At our reader meet-up last Friday, I got asked a lot of questions about business bricks. One that kept cropping up was"How did you get bb off the ground?" So today, before I cut to the chase and tell you why you need to send me a blank email carrying the subject line "Google AdWords Voucher", I'm going to answer that question. Business Bricks Ltd was - and is - a bootstrap business. In 9 months, we've bootstrapped our way to a remarkably loyal readership (yup, you chaps) of 8,798 and counting. Once we got to about 500 subscribers, the snowball started to gather pace. (If you've not yet introduced a fistful of other readers to it turns out you're in the minority.) But pre-500, it was a different story. You need to make a snowball before you can roll it. Like many of you, I put aside my last paycheque, a single day's consultancy for my former employer. And I used that paycheque to "buy" the first 500 subscribers to business bricks. I made my snowball using Google AdWords, the text-only ads you see to the right of the search results on Google. You only pay (as little as 5p) when somebody actually clicks on your ad, and you can advertise on terms as nichy as "self- employed start-up", "plumber bristol" or "kids toys bolton". With a bootstrap budget you can't afford to waste your money advertising to irrelevant prospects. Every last penny I spent on AdWords was invested in dead-cert search terms. And even now, after word-of-mouth, it is still our best way of finding new subscribers to business bricks. How to claim your £20 Google AdWords Voucher Because Google AdWords helped me build my "snowball", I approached the guys at Google to talk about helping you build yours. And as a result Google have given me the license to print money. (Or voucher codes at least). I've persuaded them to let me give away a £20 Google AdWords Voucher Code to any business bricks reader who hasn't used their service before. All you have to do is send me an email with "Google AdWords Voucher" in the subject line. Think of it this way: it costs as little a 5p per click. So that £20 voucher code could bring several hundred new prospects to your website this weekend. The only drawback is that I have a limited number of codes to send out. How it works: (1) To claim your voucher just email me putting"Google AdWords Voucher" in the subject line. (2) I'll then email you back your unique voucher code and easy instructions on how to redeem it. (3) If you follow the instructions, your ads will start appearing within fifteen (15) minutes this afternoon. And three important provisos: (a) Only one £20 voucher per reader. (b) Sorry, but the vouchers are only for business bricks readers who've NEVER advertised on Google AdWords before. (Sadly that rules me out too.) (c) Because I have a limited number of codes, please only ask for a voucher if you're DEFINITELY going to use it. Remember to sign up: back to top |
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