How Many Different Forms Of Advertising Do You Do?

ruskent

How many different types of advertising do you do? If you really think about it there is almost a endless # of ways you could advertise. Truck lettering, direct mail, newspaper display, newspaper service directories, radio, tv, door hangers, fliers, billboards, magazines, home shows, fairs, team sponsership, job site signs, web site, online lead services and alot more.

In my first 2 years of business i have used direct mail, newspaper service directories and of course truck lettering and job site signs.

I am interested to know how many different types of advertising make up your marketing plan?

I'm am trying to come up with a good marketing plan for 07' with a budget of around 25000-30000. I have a basic idea of what i am going to do.

So how many different things do you guys do?

Matt

mdshunk

Did I read that right? 25 - 30 thousand dollars? Holy smokes. Seems like you should hire a consultant, with that sort of dough being considered.

ruskent

Md- I am being real conservative with my closing rate and # of leads i will need. I may end up having a much heigher closing percentage then i had in previous years now that i know how not to advertise.

Basically i have a basic 'marketing outline' which is a basic outline of what i think i will need. I'm planning my marketing plan out 2 months at a time. So i can increase or decrease my advertising depending on reponse and closing rate.

Since i am moving into a new market (landscape construction into fiberglass pools + completly landscaping) i am little unsure how i will do.

Matt

Mike Finley

Let's see...

What I've tried so far : service directories, yard signs, door hangers, direct mail, direct links to our website from BBB and NKBA.

What's been sucessful : Service directories, door hangers, direct links to our website. Done only a tiny bit of direct mail started doing the yard signs late last year. Still need to get a new truck and get it logo'd up, a trailer and get it logo'd up.

For 2007 I want to get an ad into one of our 2 big local glossy magazines, I'm about to get real serious about the door hangers and get about 50,000 of my new ones printed up pretty soon. Also want to get serious with hitting new home buyers, and getting onto a local referal list that is supposed to be very lucrative.

Don't have any thoughts of doing any home shows, for me one problem is being able to target demographically, a home show would hit so many people out of our area we work in that it would water down the results too much. The red circled area is where we work out of, so you can see we would get so many leads out of our area I can't see it being worth it.

My ultimate goal is to concentrate on radio advertising one day, once we cover the entire area.

What is your marketing plan for 2007 matt?

Richard

I usually just do billboards

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Rich

ruskent

Mike- I'm starting my advertising Feb 1st. I'm buying a mailing list of 5000 names and i am planning on doing 4 mailings to the list. I am going to mail 4 times to the list in 16 weeks. I was going to mail 4 times in 12 weeks, but i think that might be to much. I'm doing a Letter, oversided trifold, 1/2 page post card, and then most likely another Letter.

I might do 2 4x6 post card mailings between June 1st and Labor day and then i will do another 3 peice mailing campain (maybe to a new list) to give me work going into winter.

I love mailings because it allows me to target the exact people i want to.

In the past i ran ads in the service directory. I did pull out atleast 15k worth of work from each ad, each year. The number of bad leads and price shoppers killed my closing rate. I think if i screen the calls a little better, the adds could still work for me. I'm still not sure if i want to run any of the service directory ads this year.

I wanted to run display ads in the newspapers, but the cost seems pretty high. I don't just want to run 1 ad 1 time. I want to run the ad once or twice a week for the year. Running a ad once is a waste of money.

I might do 1 or 2 fall home shows. I'm not doing the spring shows since i want to go and check them out and see what type of displays and booths my competitors are running.

Magazines- I am real interested in magazines. There are a couple nice local magazines. For one i would be looking at $410 a month, if i commit to 6 months.

I'm going to have a website made by footbridge, and i am spending about 1500 getting my enclosed trailer lettered.

Oh yea, i am going to put doorhangers on the surrunding houses when ever i start a job.

Matt

Mike Finley

Sounds like you have a good mix going and a good plan to take you into 2007

I think it's important to have a expiremental advertising budget as a portion of your overall budget. I keep throwing some money into something new as I go along to see the results. That's the only way I can be sure what works for us. I did yellow page ads a year ago and they were a waste of money. Most people said they would be, but I'm the type that has to find out for himself.

ruskent

Mike- I think its always good to try different types of advertising. But i think it is neccessary to run a ad for several months before you cut it.

Matt

Mike Finley

Totally agree. Right now that is what is holding me back from trying out one of our local magazines. 90% of our business is woman driven, we have a magazine called Denver Woman, which you can imagine sounds like a perfect match for us. I want to try it out but in order to do a 6 month run it will cost about 10K for the size ad I want. The ad manager keeps telling us to try it for a month and see, but I'm like you, I have to run for a length of time in order to be able to judge it properly.

How have you done with the 4x6 post cards? Around here so many people use post cards we have had to move up to the 8x12s to get noticed.

dougchips

This can be painful but the wait can be worth it. I've been quilty of pulling ads to soon.

PressurePros

Gross sales in a young business are directly proportionate to its marketing budget. Twenty percent of a company's budget can go towards marketing in the beginning, so spending $30k can possibly only yield $150k in gross sales (less if the company is all over the place with advertising). After a company is established and has a reputation, the marketing budget should represent 7%-10% of gross sales.

The most effective ways to establish market presence, in my opinion would be local trade shows (The Philly Home Show can cost about $10k with space fee, booth, staffing etc) I have yet to do one because of what services I offer but a remodeling guy I talked to landed 160 hot leads. He picked and chose for whom his company did work and grossed $1m worth of work from that show. Not a bad return.

My second choice would be targeted cable TV ads. These aren't as expensive as one would think unless you target high profile channels during prime time. Pick a weekday afternoon to advertise during a scrapbooking show on HGTV and your phone is going to ring. Advertise a handyman service during Trading Spaces and you have a winner. Like any media you want to be sure you are targeting the right audience.

If you supplement these two arenas with nicely lettered trucks, supplemental advertising in the business classifieds, church bulletins, lawn signs, etc and implement a PPC campaign guiding to a professionally designed website, you will dominate your marketplace in a very short time period.

I think 30k is a great number to work with and not high at all if you are looking to grow big.

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Ken Fenner
Pressure Washing PA
Roof Cleaning Services PA

dougchips

We do: lettered trucks, lettered trailer, site signs, door hangers, direct mail, pay per click, pay per call, web-site, referal program, no more val-pak, small newspapers, and trade shows starting in a month.

I am still thinking of doing a Senior's paper that also has a radio show. $850 a month for a 4x10 ad a bunch of spots on the radio. I try to ask seniors if they listen to the show not much feedback yet.

ruskent

The only thing holding me back from doing the spring homeshows is not having anyone besides myself to work the booth and not knowing what kind of booths the compeititon runs. I am going to go to the 3 spring home shows in a 60 miles area of my house to get ideas for a fall homeshow booth.

Mike- I have yet to try a 4x6 post card. All i did last year was letters. I'm not sure what size post cards i'll acctually go with. Whatever the size the postage is the same when you mail the way i do.

I am looking to grow alot this year. My first year in business i was solo. Last year i had a helper here and there but no one full time. I'm looking to hire two full time guys this year and sub out some parts of the projects i can't do efficently.

Matt

dougchips

Matt, I just spent the last day planning a show in Early Feb. The show will last for 3 days and I want to staff it with 2 people at all times. Since I want alert and fresh staff, I broke each day into 3-4 hour shifts, total of 18 slots. I am only left with one open slot. Time to look for treats for the kids.

Grumpy

MD, based on the size of the company that really isn't alot at all. I spent that last year and the year before and this year I plan to spend $36,000.

I've tried just about everything BUT what you try should be based on your target market. Do you target commercial, residential, property managers, builders etc?

Ed the Roofer

A certain portion of the marketing budget is for continuous year round marketing, but I need to be in control of the quantity of leads coming in as well. I like to do estimates in the same neighborhood where we are already working to ease the travel and increase the job profile visibility of our signage, which makes the next sale a little more credible.

Also, by using Targeted Direct Mail, you can increase or decrease the amount of leads at will.

My goal is to keep the marketing annual cost in the 10 % range, but at times it goes significantly higher. You know all of those advertising reps have to eat too.

Ed

ruskent

Grumpy- I am trying to target customers who want high end pools. My smallest pools start around 35k for the simpliest pool. So i am going after customers who are going to spend alot of money.

I plan on approaching each job the same way a GC approaches a addition.

I'm planning on doing the pool, all landscaping, deck, irrigation, fencing, outdoor lighting, cabanas, etc. By controlling the whole process i think i can get jobs done alot faster then most people.

IF the average consumer highers a pool co, then a paver guy, then a plant guy, then a irrigation guy......... it takes them atleast 1 or 2 seasons to get the whole job done and fix the rest of the mess that takes place when a pool is installed.

Matt

Mike Finley

Believe it or not, running the numbers in quick books shows my total advertising costs were just a tad over 2% of sales. That is a scary ROI if I do say so myself!

dougchips

2%, buy yourself a crown and celebrate! The average for my industry is 10% and I am worst than average.

George Z

I have about the same budget.
My monthly budget for 2007:

Pay Per Click $800
SEO $400
Internet Directories $200
Lawn, Vehicle signs $150
Proximity mail-Doorhangers $400
Newspaper service directories $450
Some Yellow Pages $400

I just ran my numbers, and Internet new sales were 62% of the total.

Average sale $2,300
Average Internet sale $2,930

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