Marketing And Advertising Budget....

jlomama

Just curious if any of you want to share how much your advertising/marketing budget is for 2008? If you don't want to share dollar amounts, how about percentage of your overall budget?

rbsremodeling

It varies from 3-10% of my gross. Probably be on the higher side this year to make up for the market down turn and new programs I will have to implement

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threaderman

It wound up being around 8% of the gross for me .I hope to do a lot better than that this year.It will be better!

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Joe ---International Code Council Member

Your plumbing & gas specialist proudly serving Oklahoma City OK, Moore, Warr-acres, Norman, Midwest City, Edmond, Bethany, Forest Park

HomeGuard

8% of gross

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Mike Finley

2007 was 2% of gross.

I plan on doubling it for 2008 to feed the ever hungrier system.

vinylguy

between 10-15%

Jake Stevens

We try to buget at 2.5% of gross, but in most years it end up about 3%. 2008 I think we will just buget for 3%.

marc

We have been as high as 11%
Last year we were at 6%
We budgeted 6.5% for 2008

We have lowered it by doing a lot more face to face marketing............
Home shows
craft shows
flower shows
boat shows
seafood festivals
fairs


We have our salesmen work these shows.
The insentive they have for working the show is if they set a lead, it's theirs and does not get distributed to other salesmen. They also get a $50 gas card for every sale they make from a show lead that they set. Other than that they are straight commision and don't get paid for working the show. Helps keep our costs down. Last year we did 51 shows. This year the shows start on 1/18 and we have a show every weekend for the next 9 weeks before we get a weekend off.

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Marc

silvertree

3% last year. Plan on going to about 5% this year. Home shows plus print ads and will start an adword campaign whenever it slows down. I have been very busy just with referrals this year. I do a lot of networking and don't know what that costs except for the time involved.

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Vote for Pedro
Kitchen, bath, St Paul remodeling
Minneapolis Remodel Blog
203K Loan Consultant Minnesota

nlgutters

15-18% of gross sales

SelfContract

For the guys who have said only 3% gross maintained but still doing OK with this bad economy, I say your business is already rock solid foundation, well-established, with a stable client-base.

nlgutters

coca cola spends over 10% of gross sales om advertising and im pretty sure they have a strong client base

boman47k

Little confused here. Do your percentages take into account the cost of doing the shows and all that involves?

marc

Yes they do. The guys working the show don't cost us anything except an additional $50 gas card if they sell a job.
The $50 is factored into the percentage.

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Marc

vinylguy

and any good sa;esperson knows the home shows are their ticket to an easy life after the pain of being there for ever and a day as it seems sometimes!

silvertree

I feel I need to qualify 3% for marketing. That is what I spent, but as I'm looking to raise the bar price wise and job quality wise, I figure I will be spending close to double or 5 to 6%. Since my business is remodels, I don't need a lot of calls, and qualifying is the most important part when I do get the call. But I am booked solid till May, and except for my website(which isn't even finished) I expect more referral type calls. Home shows are OK, but networking is King with me. Networking with appliance people, my bank and even my competitors has been my best source of business.

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Vote for Pedro
Kitchen, bath, St Paul remodeling
Minneapolis Remodel Blog
203K Loan Consultant Minnesota

Carport King

We spent $188,000 last year on $10.5 million in sales.Our budget this year we added $100,000 to it.We worked our existing customer base to death and we continue to do so.Our customer is mostly remodel because of the market and we expect it to get much worse in the 3rd-4th quarters.So we are spending most of our money in the 1st-2nd quarters this year.As the banks start rolling out there losses in the sub-prime mess we fell our customers will tighten up with spending and with election crap going on we think we are rolling the dice in the right direction.The newspapers and the news will make this a big media event and this will make Enron and World Com look like chump change.

Tiger

Only 4% of income. I should be spending 10% and some say 10% of where you want to be, not where you are.

Dave

Publisher1

I linked this Contractortalk.com thread on the Construction Marketing Ideas blog thinking it to be a useful outline of industry standards and practices that will help contractors determine if their marketing budget is in line.

Sonny Lykos responded with this inspiring and somewhat provocative comment:

Something rather important to think about, I think.

RizzoMaryland

Interesting food for thought. I'm strangely comfortable with it. However I can see how returning to a job 18mos later can be potentially opening up a can of worms.

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