Is It A Good Idea To Advertise In Newspapers?

lusori

Anyone ever done it? Im considering putting a ad in the local gazette. which goes around to the area i want to target. But its expensive. about 400$ for 1 week.

Im just not sure it will generate any leads. I have never advertised in a paper before. It's all been in on the internet, and its all been free.

Will i see a boost in estimates and jobs?

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Lusori Construction - Concrete/Brick/Stone/Pavers contractor
www.lusori.com

the_turd_man

Thats alot of dough. Im paying 240 a week for a 4x4 incher 150,000 distribution. For me it has one of the best returns going

woodmagman

Is it a print ad or a feature. Is you competition advirtising there? If they are then you need to.

lusori

Its a print ad. Pretty small in the service section of the gazette. There are other concrete contractors there as well.

Sometimes I read through alot of the posts here and some are spending 5,000 a month on marketing. I have a way small budget. 1000$ a year is already pushing it. And in order to spend that, i would like to see some results.

With the internet, do people even look through papers anymore?

__________________
Lusori Construction - Concrete/Brick/Stone/Pavers contractor
www.lusori.com

the_turd_man

holy cow! its a little print ad? not display for that price?
they must be smoking something! whats your population?
must be darn high for those rates

dirt diggler

lusori ... are you talkin the Post?

woodmagman

That seems high to me too. You had better be able to bring in some big bags of beans for those prices, and forget about missing a call, I would sleep with the phone in my ear.....Then again your pricing would have to reflect the cost of advertising. That trickel down effect that keeps turd man in buisness......

dirt diggler

judging by his location ... and where i think he's looking at ...no those rates are not high at all ... in fact ... pretty low

lusori

This will run in the D.C. metro area. Around Montgomery county, howard etc.. In montgomery county maryland mostly.

It's for the gazette and not the post. It's a pretty wealthy area.

http://www.gazette.net/montgomery/

__________________
Lusori Construction - Concrete/Brick/Stone/Pavers contractor
www.lusori.com

Ed the Roofer

Lusori,

For that kind of dough, I think higher end post card direct mail would prove more effective. Why get clumped together with all of the other guys competing for the same business.

Any venue you utilize for advertising is only one piece of the marketing pie. Establish a targeted zone rather than broadcasting your services from here to timbuktoo. Maintain a more localized profile so your personal top of mind awareness, (TOMA), and branding becomes more recognized.

Rather than a competing ad in the service directory, is their smaller more localized distributed newspapers where you can command just a fraction of the marketplaces attention?

The local envelope stuffing combination direct mailers which get combined with other trades and restaurants have been successful for me. The cost is less than .02 cent per household distributed to.

Since you say you have a small marketing budget, you MUST utilize your job signs and truck signage to their fullest extent. Also, after completion of each project, provide an end of job evaluation for customer satisfaction form for each homeowner, and request referral contacts from each successfully completed project. All that costs you is 5 minutes of your time, each and every time you complete a job.

Ed

HepaCore

Northern Va is crazy expensive when it comes to newspaper ads. Even the free papers (Express) on the metro lines are not cheap. However, Fairfax County has one of the largest populations in America at 1.2 million people. You could do pretty well as a company in just a few zip codes.

lusori

One of the good things I see about advertising on a newspaper or gazette, is that you put the ad up and that is pretty much it. The mailers require alot more work of course, and its something I want to do.

But I dont quite know how to do the mailers yet. I just might make some postcards, and then on my spare time drive around and put them in peoples mailboxes(is this illegal to do? I can imagine some people not liking this tactic).

I still don't have any graphics on my truck, but im waiting for a warmer day to stick the info on there. I just bought some drop boxes so I can put it on the job sites I am working. Problem.. I dont have any brochures.

its quite alot of work..

__________________
Lusori Construction - Concrete/Brick/Stone/Pavers contractor
www.lusori.com

lusori

It's really good that alot of Northern Virginians have really high paying jobs that can really help my company.

__________________
Lusori Construction - Concrete/Brick/Stone/Pavers contractor
www.lusori.com

Ed the Roofer

Proficiency and creativity comes with time.

A favorite saying of mine is; "plagiarism is copying from one source but research is copying from many".

To that end, view other contractors envelope stuffer direct mail ads and be liberal at making changes to someone elses ad to fit your companys' positioning statement or marketing announcement.

Val-pak is somewhere around 2 cent to 2 1/2 cents per household mailed to, with minimum quantities per mailing of about 10,000. So for $ 250.00 you have reached a one time target of 10,000 potential prospects. But remember, repetition is key for success.

Ed

Mud Master

I'm from Maryland to and though I have never advertised in any respect, I have many friends in the industry that spend thousands on it. JUST to advertise in our local "pennysaver" is around $1800.00-$2000.00 a month. It is outrageous. And in an industry that overpowers the yellowpages and others alike, it should not be that high. I believe to advertise in our yellowpages is around $6000.00 a year. Now just to have a listing(name,number,address) is free, but any type of "ad" is very expensive. I guess it's just our state.

Always finding ways to grab an extra dollar, and yet they can't pass the slot law? Never ceases to amaze me.

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lusori

Definatly makes you think. Advertising online for example the gazette.net is still about the same price as the print.

I managed to add gazette.net on my adwords campaign, but i dont know exactly where they are coming up on the site.

6000 a year for advertising on the yellow pages is completly insane.

Im small potatos.. Can't do that. lol

I looked at val-pak, never heard of them. But all these coupons come in an envelope?

__________________
Lusori Construction - Concrete/Brick/Stone/Pavers contractor
www.lusori.com

Mud Master

CRAIGSLIST CRAIGSLIST CRAIGSLIST!!!

Free advertisting, list whatever you want,whenever you want, name, phone,email,website etc... you can just ask them to reply to the message and it will forward it to the email you give them. You can only have one ad that has the same writing in it on one page, but so many people advertise you could proboly post everyday. I read it just to listen to the hacks try to lour customers.

I gotta call today from a woman wanting an estimate to hang and finish a house in hamilton, I told her I would go look at it friday, she kept pushing and pushing for thursday and I just chocked it up to being in a hurry..I was reading craigslist and it said "drywaller and finish carpenter needed in hamilton, i will be accepting bids thursday afternoon". Now I know. I intend to call her back and let her know that I will not be giving a price with the rest of the state of Maryland, but thanks anyway.

But anyway, if you want free advertisment that hits ALOT of people, there ya go.

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lusori

Mud, I have been using craigslist for the last month or so. It's pretty good advertising. Another one you should look at is the pennysaver which lets you list for free online!!

__________________
Lusori Construction - Concrete/Brick/Stone/Pavers contractor
www.lusori.com

Mud Master

Yeah,not in thier books!

I would if I needed to but I can't keep up with what I got now. I am pretty established with a good group of builders and trying to accomodate all the jobs they throw at me is enough.

Another thing is I don't do ANY home improvement work. I can't stand it and I don't have the knack for dealing with homeowners. And it's not worth my time to do a $100.00 repair or a 20 sheet bathroom. So to advertise in a public paper would not do me any good. But if it works for you go for it, I say if it's free you can't beat the price.

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lusori

How did you find those builders? Im not trying to get in on your secrets. But eventually i would like to do work for larger builders, maybe do the concrete work such as foundations, sidewalks and driveways.

__________________
Lusori Construction - Concrete/Brick/Stone/Pavers contractor
www.lusori.com