5 Most Successful Marketing Techniques

kam

Can you all let me know what the 5 best marketing techniques you are using are. In other words...the 5 best ways that you get business. Thanks everyone. :Thumbs:

shimmerl

internet is the best but we need 4 more.....

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http://www.shimmerlighting.com

hauoli63

Word of mouth, internet (search engines, links on other sites, lead sites, yellow pages online), local newspaper ads ... that's all we do. Tried Valpak, The Merchandiser ... didn't work for us!

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~~ Lisa ~~

www.chantillyplumbing.com

Grumpy

Almost all of my advertising is Internet. I use a variety of different methods. ALL of my advertising worth keeping is internet. I have yellow pages. Blah! I have a church bulletin add. Blah! I will be cancelling both with the contracts are up.

Yellow pages just came out and I did get a few calls when a storm hit but nothing since then. Actually the true test if something is working is in the spring, for me. But chances are likley I will be ditching alot of my offline advertising.

Teetorbilt

I usually keep an ad running someplace, most have little effect. My #1 is in the archives. Scroll to the bottom of the page.

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You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Albert Einstein

s_roofing

We use yard signs with a business reply mailer thing (sort of like real estate agents do for new house listings)...that way the customer can get a brochure w/o having to talk to the crew. This seems to work pretty well for us.

skatchmo

Grumpy:
I'm a gas piping contractor, and I must say I am blown away when I hear that a plumber can get most of its advertising off the internet. Do you mean you have a website and people go to it, or are you set up with contractor referral sites? My yellow pages ads pay the bills and everything (most of the year), but I could really use that extra kick in the pants. What kinds of sources are you guys signed up with?

Kevin

Grumpy doesn't do plumbing.

skatchmo

My Fault. I see that now. Never-the-less, I'm impressed all the same that the internet could be that helpful in advertising.

Humble Abode

A lot of the contractors on this site, and more and more all over the country, are getting more leads from the internet than anywhere else. Check out the Computer forum and the archives of the marketing forum. There is much talk of internet marketing being more important than most other things.

That said...

Most of the above mentioned "techniques" aren't stricktly "marketing techniques" they are advertiseing strategies. I think one of the most important '"marketing techniques" you could employ is your image I/E how you market yourself/company to prospective customers.

This isn't just your sales pitch and how you act, it's the whole package. Everything you do has to convey that image, flyers, yard sign, jobsite, the way you dress and act on a estimate, etc.

Another good one, one that has been talked about a lot on these forums is; setting yourself apart from your competition.

In my area almost every painter has a silly cartoon paint bucket and brush or a guy in painters whites on a ladder, in all their advertiseing. One of our marketing strategies from the begining was to not look like a traditional painting company. Looking like a traditional painting company makes people think of all the bad stereotypes they know about painters.

You need to think of the "core concept" of your business, why you started it, your goals, what the end result will be, etc. and design your entire business and the way you do business around that core concept.

anyway... sorry for the long post

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Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe. Kurt Vonnegut, (1922 - 2007) from the Novel 'Hocus Pocus'
The NAPP
Milwaukee Painting Contractor

skatchmo

no need to apologize, those are great principles. I'll look at the archived links, however, if anyone has anything else to add about advertising, I'd love to hear it. I've saved this link for my VP to read, because I think these are some good things to think about when presenting our company. Thanks.

Grumpy

I say if you are a business and you do not have a website then you are wanting to fail. I also say if you are a business and you have a poorly designed website then you are an ammateur, or at least that's what your customers will think when they see it.

To me a website is AS important as a phone number. In the spring months I can get 90 hits a day on my two most popular websites listed in my signature on every post. Of those 90 hits I will get at least 3 estimate requests per day easy. At this time of the year I average 1.5 requests for estimates through my website per day.

In addition I have top listing in many of the online yellow pages, which have also really worked out for me. I have found that even though there is a web site link over very few people link over... but I get alot of direct phone calls from those adds. They are a fraction of the cost of the book adds and yield a much larger return. Go figure. I think the yellow page companies are still in denial and wondering why their books keep getting thinner every year.

Question? How do I know where my leads come from? I track everything and ask every customer who calls me how they heard about me.

Crawdad

How do you advertise your website? How do people find it?
Crawdad

Teetorbilt

I let my website and domain go a while back. All that it did for me was generate a bunch of false leads from people who thought that they new what custom work cost.

__________________
You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Albert Einstein

Humble Abode

It takes months, sometijmes years to get your website to the top of search engine pages, unless you pay for it of course. There are entire industries built around the answer to your question.

__________________
Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe. Kurt Vonnegut, (1922 - 2007) from the Novel 'Hocus Pocus'
The NAPP
Milwaukee Painting Contractor

AAPaint

Do a search for "search engine optimization" and you'll see just how many businesses there are formed around that concept! BTW, if you're going to use on...pick one at the top of the results, LOL!!

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-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

George Z

"It takes months, sometijmes years to get your website
to the top of search engine pages"


Not really.
We were first page on yahoo and MSN in less than a week,
First page Google within a month.
Paint Contracting and contracting in general is not as competitive
as other industries.
Find a very good SEO professional that doesn't cheat, pay them
what they are worth to you and watch the leads come in.
Why are we all spending so much time learning how to do a website
and market it and at the same time complain about home owners doing
their own renovations, painting etc?
We spend thousands on yellow pages, direct marketing etc and don't like
to spend one or two thousand to bring way more targeted leads than the above.
We have been getting about 10-12 good leads weekly for months now.
The cost is nothing compared to the "words on paper" methods.
We have a great SEO person that has earned every cent we invested.

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Toronto Painters Commercial Painting Commercial Painting Toronto Toronto Office Painters
Painting Toronto Blog

Humble Abode

I meant if you wanted to do it for free. All the things that a hired SEO pro can do for you in a matter of weeks you can do on your own in a matter of months/years. I agree, probably not as effectively.

__________________
Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe. Kurt Vonnegut, (1922 - 2007) from the Novel 'Hocus Pocus'
The NAPP
Milwaukee Painting Contractor

soldiermccoy

getting out of my truck and ringing a door bell tends to work the best for me. newspaper ads have been a waste of money for our company. Yellow page ads work as well. But nothing beats referals, and simply being face to face with a customer

greenpastureslc

The last contractor I worked for never put an ad in the yellow pages. Only had his name in the White pages and on the side of his truck. Hes probably still working off leads from 20 yrs ago and never goes a day without work.