Direct Mail

Ditto. The graphics are so vibrant, with the right copy it could be fantastic.

Great 1-2 punch.

copy refers to…?

remember, I’m still a rookie.

Text/message/words.

Yup. Words.

Think “copywriting”.

200 out of 1000?(I guess 50 from referrals. which in and of itself is beyond amazing) From that flier? I have never heard of anybody generating anything close to that. In any business

I think you should be the Window Cleaning Business Coach and you would win marketer of the year at the Direct Marketer conference.

Do you know what triggered such an absolute anomaly with this ad? Price point? Pretty? hmm… I don’t know

this flier goes against all I know as to what should be effective. Good for you for duping us “know it alls”

wow!.. according to your stats you passed out about $85 worth of fliers and averaged $140 per house and 2 @ $750…

that means you made about $29,220 from $85 dollars worth of ads…

Not bad for a few hours work :wink:

I have an idea for a info product…

[COLOR=“Red”]How I Got $29,297 Worth Of Work For $85[/COLOR]

who is not interested in that?

I believe the reason for my success with this flier in my town last summer was the fact that it was beyond simple, (people are busy and they want to know what your selling right from the get go). It was printed on very high quality paper, and gloss, it was vibrant, and to top it all off, nobody had EVER had a flier like it delivered to their door by ANY company around here. We’ll see this spring if the competition has caught up or not.
I would pass out say 3 hrs worth, or a couple streets, and have at least 4 calls on my machine by end of the day…it was ridiculous! Many held onto the flier (one BIG mistake i made was not having a closing date) so the calls were coming in right till fall for the same flier.
Call me greedy, but i still didn’t think i had enough work last spring summer fall, and so because the remainder of my fliers …about 7000, are still good, im dumping them all off this spring and hopefully work my butt off all summer and stock some $$ aside to carry me through the winter months.
I used the same flier with tear off numbers in grocery stores, and got decent response from that also.
this summer i want to average 3 houses a day, for at least 3 to 4 days a week. In this town alot of houses i clean windows on take me 2-3 hrs each. so 3 houses is not too hard to fit in.
My goal is to TRY and knock off about 340-400 homes from April to November. So im hoping for huge response again this year. I get way more calls than jobs i land, but still im astounded with my results.
I actually thought my numbers were low until i read how many some of you pass out, like 10 000 or more easily and only 3% return. But with tons of competition doing the same its understandable. If my competition steps it up a bit, my numbers may slowly go down. This is my last year with this exact flier, I want to improve it for next year.
I think Kevin would agree here, you have to stand out in the crowd…that is what i did and with great results.

only a 3% return?!.. hahahaha

you say the flier got you a 20% response and you want to ax it?.. er, ok

$85 for $29,000 worth of work and it is not good enough?.. :wink:

why did I come back on here lol

The design works, but I am not going to re-use the same design over and over and over in this small town. I want to make some minor changes to it.
for next year. Mainly price increase, and deadline for the offer.

don’t worry CFP, sometimes we wonder why you come back to this forum too…

well, it is extra amazing considering you made this comment-

[B]“because the market isn’t the greatest in this small town”[/B]

So, somehow in a “bad” market you manage to do what [B]no[/B] company can do in a great market. You say this is because of some pretty colors and “Professional Window Cleaning”?

Somehow you manage to get 200 jobs done rather quick, because as most of us know, dropping an ad and saying “we’re booked out 2 months” and have people still get on the list is unlikely.

Of course I do not believe one word of this whole tale. Surely the way you are playing it down like it still is not good enough makes me giggle.

[B]I challenge anyone, anywhere to duplicate this flier and get more than a 2% response[/B] Prove me wrong and gain a bonanza of new customers and a bank full of cash. (you also prove me wrong, but who cares. Your business just exploded with new money)

Sure the CFP haters will gather against me, but not one will prove me wrong.

CFP>> its is easy to have 200 jobs over a period of 7 months, i did not say the jobs all were booked at once, some kept the flier until fall and then called me…
Also my market is tough, its hard to book jobs for prices that are anything over $60/hr, on residential. Yes the odd one does, but very rarely. You usually have to hussle to make a good rate. people just do not have the money.

Until now i never realized the gold mine i am sitting on, but it wont last long if the competition starts up fiercely. As far as I know i as the only window cleaner in town to target residential last year.

Also the reason i thought i wasn’t doing so well was the fact that It didn’t feel like as many calls as i should have been getting, but once the year was over and i counted my clients, and made a list for letter writing nad making calls…it was pretty long, i was impressed. I have no idea the exact amount of filers i put out, but im guess at around 1000.

All i know is that it triggered the wow effect in me. If I would consider having my windows cleaned, i would’ve called him. Maybe thats just me?

Steve

Things do not need to be complicated to win clients. I would however make the following changes to my copy…change the starting price, and i would add a deadline date for the special offer, and add my website address. I also do not want my logo so big anymore on my stuff. Otherwise it was easy to understand, and didn’t take people long to read.

But I will always say this: different measure work for different markets. Do what works for you.

One design that CFP would tear apart for a post card i did with some inspiration from Kevin got me %10 response the first day they were out, for storefront this winter. I only put out 40 and got 4 new regular jobs from it.

Maybe im greedy…maybe i expect too much, maybe i should be happy with the response i get, and keep my mouth shut.

10% the first day?..

I am out of this

Yes i worked 2 blocks of down town and got 4 jobs the first day… I waited to put them out on days when my competitor for storefront was not around, and just went out and landed them. The design was partly mine and i had some help with it. (many thx to Kevin!) 4 jobs out of 40 cards is not much for me considering there aren’t that many businesses with windows in this town, some places had dirty enough windows that i felt i should have gotten at least 20 jobs from those cards.

The reason i get down is its sooo slow in winter here. I want more more more, i want to be busy every single day. People are cheap here, and i won’t generally get as much as my counterparts in the GTA will. But im offering this town something they are not used to. Also many of my clients have been previous clients of “the other guy”

[B]Eric:[/B] Man - you are being extremely generous in offering so many of your ideas and suggestions for free to all of the members here, especially considering all the time and effort you and your talented wife invest in all of your marketing materials.

I have never personally seen any competitors materials that look this good in my local market (Toronto) where around 440 “other” window cleaning companies operate.

I think it’s head and shoulders above the vast majority.

Congrats on the 10% return on the “40 test” too!

[B]CFP:[/B] Why not take this flier and tweak it to look the way you believe it should look to be improved, and to be more profitable, to show everyone on here the points you’re making?

thanks kevin

Some folks dont want to spend the cash on color printing. Another mistake to think that black on colored paper is a close alternative. Thanks for sharing that flier with us Eric.

Steve

Kevin, this flier would do me no good here brother. Believe me on that. You work with it and let us know. I am still trying to maintain my little crappy 3-4% response…

By the way Kevin, what kind of response do you average?

as a side note-

For those thinking full color is out of reach, it is not. I have had a real good experience with this company-

it costs money to make money, but we might as well get the best deal we can.

Check out the prices on 8 1/2 x 11 gloss text… SMOKIN!

Wow, CFP.

Great printing find number two. Awesome. Thx.

As regards the response rates question, it varies. I’ve tried a few different approaches with different response rates.

I’m trying several new things this year, and will be definitely letting everyone know how it all shakes down.

I didn’t mean to irritate you either, Paul. Just giving you as shot to display some prowess. Quite honestly.

Tearing apart is easy. Build something and show it off. I think that a lot will learn from it.