Whats your Marketing Plans for this year?

T

Tim Smith

Member
I plan to do mail-outs.

I plan to hit the newspapers pretty heavy-basically a standard ad that will stay the same format and location in the paper (each time its ran).


Theres a local Realtor Magazine - I may run an add targeting house & roof cleaning, and decks.


I'm going to focus on the high dollar homes (sub divisions). I plan to push maintenance contracts. Basically act as a Home Maintenance Contractor (One Call Shop) and sub landscaping, gardening, cleaning swimming pools, raking leaves, etc. I've been working on a referral group in my area for this purpose. I sub the presssure washing portion to TIDALWAVE (thats me). Get individuals on a Home Maintenance Program - where There home is washed once a year, roof washed every 2 years, deck restored every 3 - 4 yrs, etc.... as well as landscaping maintained and minor to meduim repairs. I plan to advertise in local medical journals and law journals. Theres one medical journal that goes to over 125 medical offices and approx. 257 doctors at their home.



Whats your plans?
 
the medical journal thing sounds like a good idea. The home maint. program is a good idea, but sounds like the potential for a real headache. Good luck with it.
 
I plan to do the same thing I've done for years, ad in the service directory of the newspaper every day all year around, large phonebook ad, flyers distributed quarterly in targeted neighborhoods. For me, those three along with attractively lettered vehicles and word-of-mouth give almost unbeatable ROI.
 
Brian

I havn't advertise in the newspaper on a regular basis.

What kind of response do you get?
What you average cost per week?
 
Tim,

Our local newspaper charges $104.90 per month to run it every day, and we've run it every day for over five years. The last six months of 2003, we were able to directly attribute an average of over $10,000 gross dollars per month to the newspaper by asking everyone who called where they heard about us, over $16,000 in October alone. Now, obviously, many of those saw us in the phonebook as well, and have seen our trucks, and yard signs, and flyers. It was the combination of all those things that pulled the call, I think the paper was just the first thing that popped in their mind.

I can't overstate the importance of the five year lead time, though, because it sure didn't always pull like that. For our type of business, I don't think a newspaper ad is useful for a quick burst of income, unless you're offering sales or discounts, something I never do. It's for selling name recognition, competence and stability.

A long-time rule of advertising is that a potential customer must come in contact with your name nine times before they remember it, and they will only see it one of every three times you put it in front of them. So, it takes about twenty-seven contacts before you get a response. That only comes with time.
 
Brian

Your exactly right. I plan to run the ad everyday. I too, do not run a lot of discount ads or price ads. I prefer information ads.

Another advantage to running an add that often is Customer Perception - meaning this - A potential customer see your ad on a regular basis, they think: Stable Company (not fly by night), Quality, Reputable, etc.

When I started my Home Inspection business - I ran commercials on both radio and tv, had a billboard, Ran a full page ad in our local Realtor Magazine, did three mail-outs to home owners selling their homes in a 12 month period, Delivered donuts to the top seven agencies sales meeting each month for those 12 months, and did mail-outs to realtors every other months. This was extremely expensive-I did all the art work and design, but still cost a pretty penny. After my first year of business, I was rank #1 home inspector company in both gross and referrals by the local board of realtors. Marketing and Advertising is the difference. I also network like crazy.
 
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Were set up to run a radio ad on 98.3 Star FM which is a Southern Maryland top hits radio station. The cost was rather high but we will be running the 30 spot every day three times a day for 30 days.

We have never tried this and for the cost, I hope it works.

Have any of you tried radio advertisement ? And if so, did it work ?
 
Bill,

I've attached a jpeg of the Service Directory, my ad is in the top row, third from left, but placement is random from day to day. As you can see, I don't go in for much "white space." The PennySaver ad at the bottom may be confusing, that's another publication of the Herald, this jpeg is actually what runs in the daily local newspaper. The directory as a whole takes about 1/2 page in the classified ad section and the individuals ads are a bit small, only about 1x2 inches, kind of a hybrid between a display and a classified.

We used to do almost every type of cleaning except KEC, but now we only do residential window cleaning, residential power washing and wood restoration. It's all we have time for, it's what we like doing best, and I think the money's better, but mostly because we can. In fact, I need to change that ad and take out some of the things we've stopped offering. Like roofs(yecchh!).

One Call,

I've never tried radio, I've always thought that I could get my name out more effectively and for less money. Of course, I've been wrong on things before, and there's every possibility I'm wrong on this one too! :)
 

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Radio is very expensive. As with any advertisement, you have to stick with it and that can cost. If you have a catchy name or slogan or gingle, etc - the radio spot (if ran on a regular basis) can be very effective. Also, the time they run you spot is very important.

When I ran my radio spots, it appeared to pay off. It help establish name recognition.
 
our local paper cost $200 a month,and the popular radio station charges $1500-$2000 week for 15-25 30 second ads in a weeks time frame various times from 9am-12am.
 
Tim


Just a suggestion - I wouldn't do the radio spots.
For $1500 - $ 2000 a week, you can run a massive ad campaign.


You can run your ad daily in the newspaper. $2400.00 per year
You can do target mail-outs ever 4 months. $3000.00 per year
You can get "gift give-aways": Calenders, Magnets, Pens, etc


and so much more for the cost of a radio spot.
 
Tim,

Thanks for the input. Although it is too late due to we signed this promotion deal back in November. Well what the he.. Hopefully it will pay off. The county that has most of the listeners for this radio station we have no had much luck in. We have advertised to no end in this certain county and with not much competition, I do not understand. This is why we tried this method. I will let you all know how it turned out. I am big on tracking how potential customers hear of us and we track this year round. Again, by mid April, we should have some numbers to provide. The cost ran us $2400 for the entire month, three 30 second spots per day during peak hours they consider between 6:00am-6:00pm.

Again, thanks for the input.
 
Good Luck.

Radio is a good form of advertising.
 
we already have 1 yellow page ad $308 month,1 bold listing in other book $20 mo.,send out 1500 postcards every mo.,and do 1000 flyers at the mid month,i agree the radio ad is expensive,but it may be worth a try several times a year for exposure and credibility. we are placing ad in paper first of march for remainder of year,and for the remainder of the year we are advertising to meet all competitors advertised rates.
 
Tim

Sound like you have a great marketing plan. The one thing I like about your plan: You are not putting all your eggs in one basket. With an aggressive marketing plan like yours, your sales should be great.

Do you send your mail-out to the same addresses?

Do you do follow-up your mail-out with cold calling? This will increase your sales.

Hows your return on the Yellow Page ad? I feel that yellow page ad is very important. I bet you get great results.

Have you thought about a web site? You can only put so much on a mail-out and more times than often - we tend to put too much information on mail-outs or flyers. If you can put a web site address on your advertisement - potential customers can go to the site and read about "what they want to read". Pictures are worth a thousand words.

Also with a web site, you can build a email customer list. Basically add a page to your site, where the customer can request additional info -- in the questionair, have a section for them to list their email. Theres others ways. Once you build the list - shooting emails out are cheap. Also ask for fax numbers, etc.

A web page main purpose should be to educate and get the customer to contact you. Your web site should have some tool so that a customer target list can be built.

Another tool for building a email target list: Have a page, where viewers can ask questions. Example: "Ask the Expert" - a page where viewers can email you questions, and you reply.

I'll stop - sorry for all the questions. I could go on for ever, its a passion.
 
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i like the ask the expert idea. i have not tried the web page route one because i dont have time and i dont want the customer directed somewhere else other than my phoneline when they are about to make an impulse decision.

our mail outs are to the same targeted list every month. the lists we create in house.

i havent followed up on any of the lists yet for two reasons, the first is i want them to get a few mailings first,the second reason i am waiting for prime season before i go for the jugular.

The yellow page ad is not very successful in the winter only from april to november maybe december,during those months we average $800-4000 in sales from that one book. we consider the yello ad as an anchor mainly and would keep it if not generating any sales.

i am doing a lot of experimenting with our advertising design and i am starting to see a repeatable pattern for pulling results.
 
TimHays

Do you have a logo?

Whats the name of your business?
 
i do not have a logo,the name of our company is Charlotte Pressure Washing.

i like it plain simple,easy to read easy to understand,and nothing to distract potential customers from what we do and who we are.

i do understand the basics behind branding and logos,and dont dispute they work,i just like a different approach.

i am working on integrating a slogan into our advertising though,for our Branding.
 
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Just my two cents... Any advertising is better then not any at all, but if you choose radio make sure it's at the top of the hour before or after news slots or during rush hours, so many radio slots run in non peak times and thats where yours will be if you don't specify when you want it played. Also that it markets to the listeners and geographic areas that would most benefit your type of service you provide. I think print ads have a better chance of being seen vs the small time frame radio offers, I mean once it's played it's over, with the paper if they don't read it until the next day or week your ads still there!
 
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