when the word investment enters the room, backs subconsciously straighten, shoulders unslouch themselves, and throats can’t help but to clear. investment is a word that invokes the contrasting imagery of either tailored suits in the fast lane or pleated khakis and monotonous diatribes about responsibility. wolf of wall street but on one side, ben stein on the other. but regardless of bias toward a vision of success or stodginess, the word investment most often makes people think of money (although too often, people like to skip over the money and work that goes in and think immediately of the returns on investment).
money is an integral component of investment. it takes money to acquire the equipment that can help us achieve our ends, whether that equipment be some tool of trade, knowledge of a process, or just more money that we intend to turn into even more money. it’s easy to want to scrimp on investment, to try and reach the goal with the least amount of capital expenditure. it’s important to be a good steward so that’s totally valid. but there are some things you just can’t cut corners on.
one form of investment that i’m currently experimenting with is advertising. i am working with yelp to promote my photography business so that i can grow my client base and accumulate positive reviews that will propel my listing to the top of the results so that i hopefully no longer need to advertise in six months or so. as it stands, i’ll be putting in about $300 per month to push my listing to the top of the search results. and to be completely honest, that number makes me nervous.
in the hours and days after i agreed to try out the program, my mind was running through a loop of “what if i don’t book any clients and i just end up wasting $300+ trying this out” and “what if i only book enough clients to cover the cost of the advertising program and essentially working for free to put money into yelp’s pockets?” my other concern has been that the amount of money i have to pay per ad click is pretty high and there’s no guarantee that i’ll even get a booking or serious inquiry out of each engagement.
one week after signing up, the advertising program cost tally is at $92. of that, $27 was attributable to a concentrated effort to get my page out there in the final days of november, and $65 has been racked up so far in december. as a new joiner, i also have a $100 free ad budget per month for six months, and so far, yelp has debited $34 from that balance this month.
so where does that leave me?
well, from the period running november 28 through december 4, my ad has been clicked 11 times, with a total of 1,495 impressions. from those clicks and impressions, i’ve received messages from nine potential clients, and from that, i’ve secured two bookings, which together will represent $375 of revenue, essentially covering all the cost of my december advertising budget plus a bit of cushion. if both photo shoots go well, and both clients post positive reviews, that will be a really big win. why? because at the end of the day, i’m not paying for advertising, i’m paying for access to clients that will review my work so that my listing appears higher in the organic listings on yelp and i can book more business.
when i spoke on the phone with my account representative, who was super cool and definitely knew how to butter me up to feel good about myself, she was surprised that i was so willing to invest and didn’t put up a fight. she said that most of the people she talks to don’t understand how investing a bit extra upfront on yelp goes a long way toward ensuring long-term success on the platform. and while i haven’t proven the concept out just yet, i can’t argue with her logic.
when i break out the cost per click on my ad versus the revenue per client on a purely right now basis, the profit margin is dismally low. but taking into consideration that every booking now is getting me one step closer to an organic search-based booking in the future, that margin becomes a lot more attractive. let’s just say for example that i book two more gigs this month - completely reasonable at this rate - bringing total revenue for the month to $700 versus total investment of $300. that’s a $400 profit now. and let’s just say for example that during the next six months, i continue at the same run rate, booking four clients per month and bringing in $400 in profit. if even half of those clients leave positive reviews - or any reviews at all - i will end the six-month period with 24 reviews (or as many as 48 if i can inspire all of my clients to leave a review). when i browse yelp for photographers in queens, ny, where i am based, there is not a single one who has anywhere near that many reviews. even for the entire new york city area, 48 reviews will boost me to a very comfortable position in the organic search results. so for a total of $1,800, all of which should be covered by my revenues, i will reach a position where advertisement and solicitation is completely unnecessary.
for $1,800, i could be in a position that 100% of my revenues (minus tax) from inbound inquiries become profit. revenues that i would have had to scramble and fight for otherwise. and what’s more, the $1,800 should be tax deductible, and therefore the real money investment will be even less than that.
so the lesson here is, yes, it’s hard to part with my dollars. but instead of being nervous that i made the wrong call, like i was a week ago when i agreed to try this program out, i am confident that i am making the right decisions to establish myself for the long haul.
and that right there is the heart of it: the point of my foray into advertising as an investment. getting a gig here and there is essential for where i am today, but establishing a pipeline of gigs is what gets me where i want to be tomorrow.