Peter I took an ad out in one of our local papers here about 6 years ago… It called the Advertiser. I have been in it every week sense then… It works great and its well worth the $…
If I was you I would give a call to a handful of trades that advertise in it… See what they say about it.
I encourage anyone to advertise their services in the “local” paper. We have been doing it for 30 years and will continue. We advertise in a local newspaper that goes to 5 different towns. It comes out on Thursdays. We pay for 13 weeks at a time and it costs $755.00. customers have told me that they called because we were in the local paper and they like to hire local companies. where we live people either ask friends and neighbors for referalls or go to the local newspaper. Recently I have started advertising in more “local” papers targeting other areas and have had great success. usually 1 job frrm the ad pays for the advertising. I have never advertised in a local paper and not gotten at least 1 job.
I suggest you make your own news-letters & put some local news in etc. Drop a bundle off at different areas. I’m sure you could make it more interesting than some of the others out there?
My wife suggested the same thing. I called a few, but only got a real person at a floor store. They told me that for the first two months they didn’t get a response.
After that, it started working, and now they get about 4 good sales a month.
The salesman for the paper told me that it typically takes about 7 weeks for name recognition to kick in. That’s why they encourage a minimum of 17-week runs.
Also, the paper is broken up into four editions for my county. That explains the lower price.
A nice feature is that only one of each trade can advertise. So, I would be the only window cleaner in the paper.