Where do you get your best results from advertising?

Where do you get your best results from advertisement

  • Yellow Pages

    Votes: 23 18.0%

  • Local Newspaper

    Votes: 13 10.2%

  • Mail-out

    Votes: 22 17.2%

  • Radio

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Door hangers

    Votes: 19 14.8%

  • other

    Votes: 51 39.8%
  • Total voters
    128
dstowell said:
What type of response do you roof - "Bleach-Boys" get from web pages??? Lots of sales? Do you do more through direct contact or newspapers? or what???


Dan
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Dan,
Here in Florida, non pressure roof cleaning is well known, and people look for it.
In YOUR area, it isn't known, YET, like it is here.
Thus, you must CREATE a market.

For YOU, I suggest door hangers with the offer of a free, no obligation, demonstration.

This will be your best bet, IMHO.

Ads are fine IF people are looking for the service.

That there are FEW roof cleaners up your way TELLS you there is little demand for it, YET.

So, CREATE demand.
 
I work closely with other contractors, such as pool cleaners, screen room companies, paver installers. I am working diligently on my website to get that upand running as well.
 
For us word of mouth has worked the best so far. Second is yellow pages. I just put an order in for some rack cards and finally have a web site up. There have been no responses from recent flyers.
 
so far we have only had a budget for doorhangers and flyers. hit and miss response. looking to direct mail very soon. hopefully we can get some of these high class communities are in need of our service.

the best is when a H.O. has multiple homes and needs service for all of them.
 
Oooo! Marketing is my favorite part of the business! Eric leaves it totally up to me and I just run with it. It's part of what I am going to school for.

So here is my 2 cents...

Internet listings have been the best bet for us. It seems like more people are turning towards the Internet and search engines to find what they need.

When we started our business, I did Google searches for power washing services. Then, whatever site came up at the top (obviously the most "clicked on" sites), I listed with them. I pretty much listed us with every free directory I could find, and its paid off for us. We have paid for only one online listing- It is with PressureNet. It is $20 a year, but we are getting calls from it. We also get a lot of calls from our ads on Craigslist as well.
Of course our website is attached to all of the ads. Websites in my opinion are what people want to see nowadays.

Second is word of mouth.

Also, our truck is COVERED in graphics...even the hood! It definetely turns heads. Hey, its a mobile billboard.

I am always looking into new marketing avenues. And I would love to help out any fellow PW'rs so I'll keep you posted if I find something super cool that works really well for us. We are about to begin our direct mailing campaign, so we will see....

I know this thread is dated so has anything changed for you guys as far as your marketing strategies? Besides word of mouth, everyone seemed to have luck with the door hangers and newspapers. Is this still the case?

~Jen
 
I have been runing newspaper ad and magizen add also in google & yahoo maps location I also played with free internet site called weebly it is slow going but starting to learn I now need learn to write better proposals any one want help with that would be nice. 09 I am runing bisuness card size add in the phone book.
 
I started the year with a shotgun approach to advertising. 4 month ads running in all the free weekly papers, Money mailers (value packs), post cards, door hangers intruducing my service. They all went all over the area. I got some calls from each form of advertising except the free weekly papers, I got nothing from them and they were the most expensive.

As time went on I started to focus my advertising, I went from a shotgun approach to a sniper approach. I start with full page ads in a small paper along with the money mailers to that area and follow up with a door hanger on the streets I work on. The hanger says "we just washed a home in your neighborhood at this address"

The three together along with my web site and truck logos set me apart from the other hacks. I show up in uniform, clean shaven and I speak clearly asking the HO what they want from me. I DO NOT push any upsells but I do mention them in a way that requires the HO to ask for more details.

BTW, I learned this stuff from these sites. I really hates sales and needed to figure out a way to make it work for me. The HO may see a salesman when I drive up but they think of me as a freind helping them out by the time I leave. I like it that way.
 
just wondering?

You guys are talking about direct mailing. where do you get the adress info for the mailings?

and when you first got started what was the best way to make yourself known. remember I am on a Very limited budget.
 
I have had no luck with yellow pages at any time in 6 years. I feel that the only reason to have a phone book listing is to seperate yourself from some other contractors.

I have had good success with direct mailings this year, However, it is not a mail it today and they never forget you, you gotta stay on top of it continually.
 
Jonathan Ellis said:
you gotta stay on top of it continually.
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As with any other form of marketing.

I talked to Ron on the phone months ago and asked what the best form of advertizing was. He responded that "it is not one single thing, it is multiple". At the time, my thought was that was his easy way out of it. Now I understand. Until the past 6 months I had only done cold calls (still do now) and now with a larger budget, I do other forms of advertizing and although it is more expensive to do multiple forms of advertizing instead of just cold calling, I have found it to produce much better results and they seemingly come in faster.

Two weeks ago, I did a direct mailing that cost about $ 500 to do. They were sent out on a Friday and by the following Thursday (6 calendar days) I had closed out nearly $ 16,000 in new business for the year. And that was a response of only 1.64 % of the total sent out(based on amount of locations that received the material).
 
Jonathan Ellis said:
I have had no luck with yellow pages at any time in 6 years. I feel that the only reason to have a phone book listing is to seperate yourself from some other contractors.

I have had good success with direct mailings this year, However, it is not a mail it today and they never forget you, you gotta stay on top of it continually.
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After years of the yellow page stuff here is my conclusion.

1) If you want your share of the "quick look" shoppers go ahead and spend a little more and get the inline ad. Most shoppers go down the line and won't even notice your full page ad across on the facing page. Don't believe me? Try it. I have already.

2) If the more successful competitors in your field are NOT using bigger ads, don't bother trying it yourself. If they are very successful without wasting the money you can be too.

3) Don't listen to the ad salesman. He doesn't give a flying crap about how much business you get until it comes time for your to resign your contract. (And then all the sudden he's your best friend.)

I've been placing ads in the yellow pages and TEACHING franchisees (in another business) how to place yellow page ads since 1995 or 96. I don't know everything and to prove it I can show you a few years when I went against the three things I stated above and it cost me a lot of money for nothing.

Most people who would prefer to believe what they are taught in business schools are going to disagree with me. Take it or leave it. I'm just relaying what I've learned, sometimes the hard way.
 
ALL phone books they drop off at my driveway have been going STRAIGHT to the trash and have been for many years. Theres this little thing called the internet, most people have at least heard of it and I think quite a few actually use it.
 
Roger, I looked for you in Bama and missed you every time. We should meet up some time, we are after all in the same county.
 
Greasers were required to sit in the back of the room against the wall. Hood cleaning discussion was not allowed.
 
RMedbery said:
ALL phone books they drop off at my driveway have been going STRAIGHT to the trash and have been for many years. Theres this little thing called the internet, most people have at least heard of it and I think quite a few actually use it.
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Roger, what a waste. Didn't you know those things work great for getting the fireplace going?

And what about the emergency toilet paper potential?
 
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