Top 5 Marketing Ideas That DO NOT WORK.

KG007

Publisher 1, I've got to disagree with your statement "Everyones right!"

Actually, most people are wrong about this.

(And yeah, I get your point, we actually are saying about the same thing.)

Most businesses, regardless of industry, are out of business in 5 years. Many of these provide a reasonable to excellent product or service, but the reason is lack of generating revenue. You might try a new restaurant and find it awlful and never go back, but mostly a business fails because it can't draw enough customers. So that means a failure of marketing/sales.

Most of what is done in the name of marketing is wrong, insufficient, and inconsistent. But because one company fails with a particular type of marketing doesn't mean that type is wrong for everyone, or they may have just done it badly.

I think you can learn a lot by reading all these marketing threads with an open mind and figure how to apply some of the methods to your own situation. Some are low yield in general - put them low on your try-out list. Some are labor intensive - having to train up teams of canvassing people in how to do canvassing well for your company. Do you have the resources to do that right now and is it appropriate for yor business? And so on, but I hope everyone gets my point dashing all over to try sone of "A" for a coule of days then some of B, C, and D each for a couple of weeks is almost guaranteed to fail.

AFOREMA1

I have found on average that on flyers we get between 3-5 calls per 1000 and gain 2-3 jobs from that. so that is 20-30 jobs for $300 in flyers not really a bad return when one call back takes care of your total cost. And if you do them yourself on down town or after finishing a job hit a neighborhood real quick you can get alot of them out there.

Girlscanbld2

I have a very high quality flyer with several nice photos that I send to all the listed home sales over $250k (Average home price in my area) that I pull from the Sunday paper each week. Last month I sent out only 50 flyers and have already 2 signed contracts in the 35-40K range.

KG007

Great response rate. Tried to send you a PM but daggone if I can figure out how to send it on here. I'd love to see a sample of your letter. I've done personal letters several times to recent home buyers, got nothing.

Did about 85 door hangers about two weeks ago during a little break in the weather. We're doing about a $28K remodel with one couple from those. Super nice people who are excited about doing the project. So a few postings on here have pretty much disproven most of the original posting on this thread.

Ohmy

How are you delivering this flyer?

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Electrician in Alpharetta, Roswell, Atlanta

Ohmy

Doorhangers absolutely rock. Unfortunately, we get too many angery phone calls to continue.

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Electrician in Alpharetta, Roswell, Atlanta

KG007

Had one nasty call left on the voice mail with no name or call back number out of over 10K door hangers. And he was wrong saying it was a posted no soliciting neighborhood. Have had a lot of people at least saying thanks for the info

festerized

Wind shield fliers
It took me 20 min to make this using Print Shop 23 programs from staples. $35.00
Printed out 150 copies in B&W pre folded $25.00
I’m going to do the wind shield thing at HD and ShopRite

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Addition Contractor Bayville Home Addition Monmouth Beach NJ Contractor Jackson NJ

“Photography is not art, It’s just a Xerox of what just happened”

TBFGhost

I am about to get some reflective yard signs...

Girlscanbld2

My sister is a "Techy" and very good at power point (?) She did it for me in a matter of minutes. I then took it on disc to Office Max and had them printed on high quality paper @ .30/ea. I don't know if these results are typical...believe it or not I've only done two mailings so far! Check your Sunday paper though, the home and garden section usually list's recent home sales along with the name and address of the buyers. I think this would be especially good for remodeler's.

I even got real lucky on one of them, the HO's want to wait until the work is completed before they move in....good deal.

Anderson

I had no idea that you could do a free listing on Google and I would say I am pretty tech savvy.

cbscreative

David, let us know how it goes with the windshield blast. You may get a call from the stores asking you to send a cleanup crew to pick up the litter (from people who toss it).

There is a major flaw in the DIY software. The greatest strength of those programs are that you can do your own graphics. The greatest weakness is that you can do your own graphics.

Let me explain using your $35 price as an example, but please don't assume this to be personal. I am using this because of the averages, not the exceptions. If this works for you, it will be the exception. If it fails, it will be an example of the general rule. The general rule is my point.

Suppose you get one job (but I would NEVER recommend your windshield delivery method). You could assume that you were successful and it only cost $35, plus time and printing, plus the cleanup crew demanded by an angry store manager. OTOH, suppose you hired a pro for some ridiculous price like $300 to $500 to design it. Now suppose that the expensive design took time to create a message that generates calls and you got 10 calls and 3 jobs (assuming conservative response and low closing rate).

It's only 2 more jobs because I want to illustrate using very low numbers. To stay with low numbers, let's just say the jobs were only $5k each. In this example, your $35 yields $5k. Not bad. But $500 (using the higher number) yields $15k. Which would you rather have?

Now you could say I'm just plugging my services, but fortunately for me, I don't need to do that. I'm merely illustrating the difference, and using very low numbers to make the point.

The problem with your flyer design is not that it doesn't tell me what you do. It most certainly does, just like a zillion other flyers. The problem is I have no compelling reason to respond to it. Telling me you do additions is not the same as informing me that you can provide more living space without the inconvenience of moving. Telling me you do basements is not the same as inspiring me to think of all that space that is being wasted by not having it finished.

If your flyer told me what problems you can solve instead of just telling me what you do, it would be considerably more effective. OK, maybe now I just eliminated the sense of just plugging my services because that's free advice on how you create a flyer that yields a much better response. But to help with design and balance so the message gets noticed, I'd have to charge for that service.

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Steve Chittenden
Web/SEO Geek • Graphic Artist • Writer • Marketing Guy
One reason I know so much about the web and marketing is that I don't have to know as much about construction.

DKnafo

and what if your 500$ investment only gives you one job or 0 jobs? What if your 35$ investment gives you 12 jobs and your 500$ investment would only give you 2 jobs?

The rest of your advice is dead on in my opinion but the part I quoted makes no sense at all.

festerized

Cb thanks for your insight.
I may retract the windshield fliers and instead give them to new clients at the estimate phase.
In my mind the flier would have a bigger impact getting the client to visit my web site verse just handing them a business card; I’m trying to focus all my advertising to my web site in hope my web site gives the customer that extra incentive and insurance that I’m the contractor for them.
Cb does the back side of my flier spark interest?
I’m working on a second flier, using it as a networking tool by show casing me and all my subs.
I’m confident this is a good approach, but as we all know you’re good at putting me in check, which I respect

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Addition Contractor Bayville Home Addition Monmouth Beach NJ Contractor Jackson NJ

“Photography is not art, It’s just a Xerox of what just happened”

cbscreative

Your objection raises a valid concern, and one I have to approach from two different angles. First of all, if the $500 investment yielded nothing, then something is wrong (oh yeah, I know that's obvious).

The reason I used the $500 example was 1) to use a higher than average number because you should be able to easily find a "graphic designer" to do that for $50, and 2) because that price should include something you could not get for the $50 price.

If you invested this kind of money for nothing more than design, then you've obviously been burned.

The second point I would make is the designer still can't control distribution or targeting. Even the best flyer design would probably do little to nothing if you have a bad list or only send out 200 of them one time.

And certainly, some business owners could design their own and get great response. That's just not the norm based on my observation.

Now I would think that should leave you wondering what the difference should be between the $50 design and the $500 design. I can't answer that for everyone because most designers are not marketing people. I can only answer it based on what I would do if I were approached by someone needing a flyer for this type of situation.

I would start by needing to know how the flyer would be distributed and who the recipients are. What is important to them? What concerns would they have? How much do you know about them? I need info to make it work.

Then I would taylor a message that addresses their needs. I would not just list all the services unless it flows with the message. It would generally be much better to send different flyers to the same group at intervals than to bullet list all the services at once.

This is too obscure, so let me tighten it a little. Suppose you determine that many residents in your target area have inadequate outdoor lighting (maybe by driving around at night, seeing a string of break-ins in the local news, or some other market research). Now we have something to work with, and I could create an effective flyer.

No one in their right mind is going to take you through all those steps for $50. It takes more than eye pleasing design to create an effective flyer. Even a template can accomplish that as long as the photos look decent.

And this whole scenario still doesn't cover another thing I would be doing. So often, the direct response is too over emphasized and other opportunities get missed. What about all the recipients who get the flyer but are thinking about using the services in 6 or 12 (or even 24) months? How are those leads getting captured?

I would be discussing with you how your web site could be used to capture those leads and build a relationship with them over those months so they're more likely to choose you when the time comes. It's very important to use all your marketing methods to work together.

I know it's a long post, but this is a more complex subject than you might think.

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Steve Chittenden
Web/SEO Geek • Graphic Artist • Writer • Marketing Guy
One reason I know so much about the web and marketing is that I don't have to know as much about construction.

cbscreative

David, hopefully my above post answers your question better.

Your post wasn't there when I started, but that often happens as I multi task and it sometimes takes a while to write a post. My immediate response is way too much text. You have the right idea promoting your web site though. You can drop the htt:// because it's just fluff any more.

I realize the expression "less is more" is probably way over used, but it's often accurate. I would rather see something like this and only this on the back:

Your instincts are right. You already know that all carpenters are not equal. Visit us at davidjfestacarpentry.com to discover how your home can be made more enjoyable...without the buyers remorse you're concerned about.

The colors in the domain are just a simulation to convey the idea that I would do something to make it more readable. This is also not fine tuned. I don't really like the last part, so I would work on that, but it gets the idea across. Since I would expect you are a craftsman, this comes closer to portraying that without getting lost in lots of text like my posts.

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Steve Chittenden
Web/SEO Geek • Graphic Artist • Writer • Marketing Guy
One reason I know so much about the web and marketing is that I don't have to know as much about construction.

festerized

I have seen some shabby fliers in the last few years. Mine by far is better.
I’m thinking of doing post cards or sending my fliers in the mail
Cb you bring up demographics and I would like to shine some light on that subject. In the last couple of years I have been building my own democratic list. I put that Hagstrom atlas map to use after I got a GPS.
When I’m in a new area I use a highlighter to make notations on a specific area or street in town.
Orange for new homes
Green for homes that need improvement.
Purple for wealthy neighborhoods.
Red for homes, streets or areas I would not work in, bad neighborhoods etc.
Years ago I was impressed with some of the post cards that I have received in the mail. And always wanted to try that type of advertising.
I did my research and found its way to expensive with their approach. Paying for demographics on top designer’s fees and the postage all adds up. Now I believe they use a census to control who gets your post card.
As many know be now I’m DIY on everything I do

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Addition Contractor Bayville Home Addition Monmouth Beach NJ Contractor Jackson NJ

“Photography is not art, It’s just a Xerox of what just happened”

Steep Team

3. Door-to-door canvassing. Down right scary for the HO. Not to mention how it feels to be infringing on people's private homes.
Working for a multimillion dollar company that only does this is a LMAO moment from this post. PLEASE DON'T DO THIS it means we will only be more and more successful. I love when contractors think this way keep it up.

fakie99

if door to door canvassing works for you go for it. but i can say unequivocally, that every door-to-door guy that has ever approached me has been a cheeseball, and their tired sales pitches generally bordered on pathetic. there's a reason canvassers have the stigma they do...

canvassing is purely a game of numbers. if companies that required canvassing put more into customer service and retention, they would not be canvassing. they would be converting referrals.

just saying.

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JMeloche
Treasured Earth Landscaping
www.treasured-earth.com

buddy110

It requires a strong team leader, constant training and management but it's one of the more effective ways to market these days. The best part is that you're damn near assured that you're the only one they'll talk to. A captive audience is a good thing.

To say it doesn;t work is ignorant. We don't do it, but I know companies that do and they're kicking ass!

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