Newpaper Ads?

Flimmer

Hello Everyone,

Hope things are going well for everyone this building season. I have been coming on this board for the last 4 years with the goal of starting my own Home Improvement business. At the time I started coming here I had been working in the business for 6 years. I was going to start it then but reading on here and other places I figured I better get to work and study relentlessly about being a business owner. I read books, as well as this and other sites all the time. I felt it was time to take the knowledge not only from my experience in the contracting business but the knowledge from books like Mark up and Profit and these sites.

Things I have learned since I started my business:

I have found though that no matter the knowledge you think you have nothing can take the place of the actual experience of running your own business. Getting my licenses was a nightmare in one state, and a piece of cake in the other. The government has there hand out looking for money at every turn. The insurance companies charge more for a contractor like me who uses a lot of subs, some don't even want to insure a company like mine.

There are alot of little materials in jobs that you forget about(once!!) and they add up quickly! LOL

Anyway, I have rambled on enough about my start.

The reason I am writing is because I am trying to get some advertising out there and I am just not sold on newspaper yet. I think it is too expensive and I don't know that it's as effective as it use to be.

What is your opinions on newspaper ads?

Do the ads work for you?

What type of ads do you run?

Thanks for coming to this site and sharing your business experiences!!

Look forward to hearing your opinions.

Mark

Home Solutions Pro Inc

ABC_Engineer

I can appreciate what you’re saying about nothing beats the experience of running your own business. After more than 20 years working for large companies as temperature controls designer I started my own company earlier this year. I don’t think I learned as much in the first few months of running my own as I did the first few years of working for a big company.
As far as your advertising there is nothing that beats a personal referral from some of trust. There are two ways of going about that, one is get referral and references from those you’ve done work for. The second is to join a professional networking group. While I was in sales I found that a group called BNI is an excellent place to pick up personal referrals. It’s a bit pricey but you’ll make back quickly if you find a good group. They will let you visit the group to see how it operates and if you think it would work for you. I recommend visiting a couple of different groups to see which one has the right chemistry for you. You can find the BNI chapters closest to you at bni dot com, (they say I haven't posted enough to post URL's). Keep in mind that they are not the only ones that have professional networking, but that is the one I belonged to and has success with.

pcplumber

Sometimes, display ads work great. Lateley, newspapers have not been pulling well, but we advertise in the Rafu Shimpo a Japanese newspaper. They have an English publication. We pay about $800 per month for the ad and we get about $40,000 per year in copper repipes. The nice thing about this paper is most of the jobs are $10,000 to over $20,000, so we don't waste a lot of time with hundreds of small calls. But, the Rafu Shimp exceeds our goal of a 10% advertising budget.

We ran display ads in the Daily Breeze in Torrance California for the past year. The ads were about 3 x 5 inches, ran twice a week, had a circulation of about 100,000 and we got a discount rate of about $300 per week. We got a few calls and then it dropped off.

I think it is interesting how many people will tell you they saw your ad in a newspaper compared to the number of customers who actually call. I will alternate my ads and skip weeks.

From 1973 to 1983 we ran 1/8 to full page ads in the PennySaver. The PennySaver was owned by a different company, the pages were larger, and the print was clean. We used to pay $600 to $1500 per month and get $70,000 to $100,000 per month in copper re-piping business. Then, the paper sold out to the new rag and business dropped to zero. I spent a couple thousand dollars a few times and did not get one lead.

Next week, I am going to call a few newspapers and run a few display ads. I always sign a contract to get the lowest rate. When the ads don't generate leads I always cancelled the ad and never had a newspaper company charge me the short rate, nor the difference in the discounted price. Maybe, an exception to that last statement is; I think the greedy Pennysaver charged me the difference when I cancelled.

I would try running some display ads. Set a budget you can afford that won't hurt. You never know. You may run the ad for one week and not get one lead. You may get 3 leads on the 2nd or 3rd week.

You need to do a lot of thinking before you design your ad. A headline that makes the customer want to read the ad is the most important. Then, you need to give the customer a reason to call soon. Take every word out of the ad that is not critical.

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