Is It The Advertising Or The Ad

woodmagman

Advertising is a must when building a company and maintaining working conditions when things slow down.
Throwing dollars at proven methods does not always work.
Is the type of advertising the problem or is it the advertisement?

silvertree

What came first, the chicken or the egg?
I have spent a lot of time these last couple of years wondering about that.
Ads are cliqued. Experienced workers, quality products, we want to exceed your expectations blah, blah. You open the paper or Yellow Pages they are pretty much alike. Change the company name from one ad to another and no one would notice. People and times have changed and maybe it's time for guerrilla marketing, and that's what I'm doing now for my print ads. I am working with another guy to trying a new approach. So far so good.

Ed the Roofer

I too have tried the new approach to Head Line attention getters and content based infomercial ads. It did not generate an increase in calls, even though it had first placement.

Yesterday, I met with my ad rep and downsized, and used some additional attention getting problems and solutions and will wait and see. Photos of work is also beneficial.

Ed

silvertree

I'm trying new headlines.
A Kitchen Called Desire
You Desire a new kitchen, we desire for you to have it.
And then the old
3 things you need to know---------
Then
Someones in the kitchen with Dinah---------
I'm no ad genious but I couldn't do worse than my ad rep.

woodmagman

Bob would love for you to give him a new kitchen once he caught you in there with his wife Dinah....He would have the a nice new place to wine and dine his new wife Candy..

Putty Truck

I called my y.p. salesrep and tried to renegoiate the price of an ad that's been out for 4 months. I was bored and in a foul mood and I wanted to cause him some grief.

After he stammered about a bit, he said, "Your ad is the problem, that's why it's not selling". Well, he and his design department took my outline and made some changes, so basically it was their ad, too. Man, I fired him on the spot.

All marketing is good if it is targeting to the correct audience. People may not need a plumber right now, but a few months or years down the way, they will. Branding your potential customers is always a winner.

What's bad is advertising plumbing to apartment dwellers---that is so far away from my high-end customer that I would consider it a waste.

Consider the **targeted** ads a long term investment and stay in it for the long haul in some form, anyway.

Grumpy

The answer is yes and yes.

A fancy add will grab people's attention but if there is no substance to the add is wothless.

Proven methods must constantly be re-proven. Things change, markets change, customers change. For example yellow pages used to be the go-to method of advertising and now are a dinosaur. When a competitor sees you constantly advertising for years in a coupon-mailer type advertisement they are going to want to try it. Eventually what once worked becomes saturated and thus less effective.

You have to constantly change what you do or become stagnant because the world around us changes. The bottom line is if something once worked and no longer does, it's time to change it. If changing the add to something new and more "Grabby" is enough then go for it! However if you've lost faith in the advertising outlet all together then funnel your dollars elsewhere.

Maybe you need larger adds, maybe you need several smaller adds.
Maybe you should sped a few extra for color instead of black print. There are too many variables to determine why something that once worked no longer does.

charles_tx

For me the advertising that works the best is putting out flyers, my partner and I put them out ourselves around mid afternoon we wear white painter pants and white T shirts and we take our time and if we see any HO'ers outside we stop and talk to them and we have recieved quite a bit of business, and repeat business and when we do a project we talk to the neighbors and even have wound up doing some projects for them too.

We have even got calls, done estimates and nailed down the job before we were even done passing out the flyers. On about 100 flyers (about $7 dollars) in our best neighborhood, we got thousands of dollars worth of work and repeat business from a handful of HO'ers.

We even had someone who didn't need any work pass our flyer to their friend and when they called I said " I don't remember putting flyers in your neighborhood" and they said "yeah so and so over in (their area) gave it to me"

I would like to add, we have had people call us up to 3 months later referring to the flyer we gave them and were amazed that they held on to them for so long.

One another note, our flyers are b/w with just a small list of our services, our names and contact numbers, very plain and simple. (Maybe I'm old fashioned, but to me, flashy ads= higher prices for services)

PS: Prayer helps alot too!

Charles

buildenterprise

I usually pass out flyers on the way to the job in the morning in whatever area we happen to be working in, and I'll write on the flyer "Check out our work at 123 main street". In developments I'll just drive through and tuck folded-up flyers behind the red flag on the mail box, or toss it into the newspaper box. It's not illegal since it's not IN the mail box, and the people see it when they get their mail since it's bright yellow. We've gotten quite a few leads that way, and the ones that do turn into jobs end up getting us referral jobs as well. In the shore towns I go door-to-door in the morning on the way to the job, tucking the flyers into the storm door or entry door. I usually can pass out 40-50 flyers this way on a good morning, and it only requires leaving for work about half an hour early.

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RizzoMaryland

I got a call from the post office last week telling me that putting flyers on the flag is against the law. I have been doing this for over 10 years and have gotten about 3 calls in the last 2-3 years saying the same thing. I thought the mailman was having a bad day and needed to let loose on someone (i.e. me) Appearantly in my area (maryland) its illegal although everyone and their mother does it.

Illegal anywhere else?

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"An idea is salvation by imagination"
Frank LLoyd Wright

buildenterprise

Well if it's illegal in MD then it's illegal everywhere since the USPS is federal.....I guess some carriers don't really care though, or I would've gotten a call by now.

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