What Would You Like Most?

If you could improve a certain part (or many parts) of your marketing, what would it/they be?

Feel free to talk about it if you wish.

This past spring I suffered from the worst thing a new business can go through. I got real lucky and was busy like heck for 2 months straight but when it came to my whole marketing plan, I got lazy.

Lesson learned? Don’t wait until the phones stops ringing to crank up the marketing machine. The machine’s gotta be running non stop, everyday.

I learned this the hard way once as well. Always advertise heavy when your super busy. (If you wish to stay that way)

I know very few companies that keep advertising hard when they are busy. HUGE MISTAKE

I am in the same boat. My problem is finding effective ways to advertise on a budget. I put out door hangers and fliers but they don’t seem to bring the work when I need it.

You need to figure out if your hangers/fliers are sending the right message. Do you have something I can see?

What other advertising do you do? (free or paid)

Other than the door hangers and fliers we mainly just advertise in the yellow pages. We are the only window company that has coupons in there which help a ton. other than that we attend two BNI groups. The best advertising so far has been word of mouth. I would have to say we get about 20 jobs a month just from word of mouth. Our door hangers are fairly simple. they have the name, logo, and phone number and a brief statement about what we do along with a cheesy slogan. I have put out about 3000 door hangers and have had 27 call me back. 2 were to complain that I put them on their door. We have two people in the office that call repeats and cold call. I hand out a ton of buisness cards which works but its always someone asking for them. I have looked at billboards but they are expensive. I have done radio but only got back what I put in. just looking for more ideas. I am really interested in how to get people to book in the winter. Most of my clients are worried I will be two cold but I would rather have food on the table. The work I can do. my talents lack when it comes down to advertising.

Advertising attributes are not something we are born with, you will learn.

I noticed something that tells me how little you think about this stuff. You said you use a “cheesy slogan”… kill it. Slogans do nothing to grow your business and you can’t afford to use it as a branding device.

If your skills are modest at marketing, your offers need to be stronger. Do you offer anything now? a freebie?

Word of mouth is great, but to get enough new business to stay in business is not going to happen.

If you had 25 calls (minus the 2 complaints) from 3000 door hangers, that is great! How many did you convert into customers?

NEVER, EVER use billboards. Radio sucks as you need lots of repetition and the right radio station for your target customer (do you know what they listen to? how about when?)

I had my busiest January this year with fliers. I had a 3% response… not everyone cares if you are cold and you have next to 0 competition. I don’t mean window cleaners, hardly anybody fliers anything in the winter. You can stand out easier.

I talked with a yellow pages rep and he told me straight out. Coupons in the book are the biggest waste for most companies. Their own study showed an extremely low redemption rate. However, if you get it free with your ad, do it.

If I were getting 25 sales for every 3000 door-hangers, I would be putting out 10s of thousands as often as I could.

Wow! I thought the 25/3000 ratio was rather poor. Guess I was wrong. Where do you hand out fliers? I always thought putting them under the wipers on cars in the mall was tacky but for the work I guess it really doesn’t matter. I have been thinking of direct mailings and the coupon mailings but its a gamble. I have never been much for gambling.

The 25 is good. Consider what it costs for that type of advertising… it is CHEAP. For me to get that many jobs on say a Google Adwords campaign, it would cost me a $1000+

PPC will rape us and use sand for lube… .but that is for another topic.

Sooooooooooooo many guys on here gripe when they get a good return. To get 1 or 2% in this fearsome economy is GREAT! When and if you ever start to study marketing you will quickly see how good that return is (great if the ad stinks all-together)

So you made up 3000 little hangers, had them delivered and it cost what, a couple/few hundred? Meanwhile you may have received 25 lifelong customers (not including any referrals)

Let’s average them at $150 a house. You will have grossed $3750 (for every year you can keep these people coming back add another $3750, and if you get them to go twice $7500! (I’m still not including any referrals!)

You spend a few hundred and potentially will make $20-30,000 off of them.

Marketing is about tomorrows money.

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