ForumsAdvertising, Sales and Marketing

There is a blog called Duct Tape Marketing - it's actually a group of blogs that is geared more toward service businesses such as yours. Do a search - I have it as part of MyYahoo feeds and find some very useful articles there.

There is no magic bullet - and even if there were you might not want it. (What would happen to your business if the bullet disappeared?). Marketing is usually a lot of little things that add up - word of mouth, a growing web presence, selective advertising, target solicitation, blogs and other online publications, client newsletters, etc.

What are you currently doing now to market your business? Now what can you add - either new marketing activities or increasing your current efforts?

Are there business partnerships you could form that would bring in new clients?

Can you expand your service offerings to your current client base?

Just a few general thoughts that might help.

Cliff Ennico's Book " Small Business Survival Guide" has been an invaluable resource. Also you can print up cards and hire people that will put these cards on doors. It works.

How about providing service to schools? you never know when a service contract will be up for renewal in a school district.

Interesting that your business has stalled around 8 months after the Vista launch. I am wondering if new product offerings affect your part of the business as much as the retailing end?

How about putting up marketing materials in office buildings...lawyers and doctors have huge amouonts of money invested in technology these days.

You have gotten some great answers and I have another.
Have you been to the SCORE web site.
They have FREE Business Training Workshops and Seminars on
Marketing, Advertising, Public Relations, Sales Strategies, Customer Service
and many more. SCORE is a great ASSET.
Finally maybe you can find a friendly newspaper reporter who can write
an article about you and your business and how you are helping ________.
Good luck, LUCKIEST

A lot of great advice has been given here and I agree with a lot of what has been said in terms of focusing on local school systems. They will ALWAYS look for the better deal when it is time to renew a contract and they are ALWAYS long-term contracts (I know a company here that has 2+ year contracts with our local school system.) Chamber of Commerce meetings and other networking events are good, however, maybe you need to differentiate your business a bit more and offer some sort of additional service that catches the eyes and ears of potential customers.

I'm talking about Value Added Services. You are in the perfect industry for adding additional, small-cost services that can bring you BIG business with additional customers. Do some research and see what are the major problems plaguing PC users today (especially in a business environment) and offer an additional service focused on solving these problems! Even though this new service will be just a low-cost additional service to your normal service offerings, it has the potential of bringing you new customers who then might start using your regular services.

Value Addes Services give you potentially new offerings that can grab new customers who then in turn could become repeat customers!

Hope this helps!

Brian