What Type Of Advertising Works For You ?

CreativePainter

Daily newspaper ads, flyers, internet, yellowpages etc. Did web presentation helped your business at all ? How many visits on the website ? How many info request did you receive trough your e mail ? I know this topic could be posted on Marketing and Sales section, but i wanted painters opinions only !!!

Tks !

Brian

I didn't originate this answer, but I agree with it.

Daily newspaper ads don't work. Fliers don't work. The internet doesn't work. The Yellow Pages doesn't work. Yard signs don't work. Direct mail doesn't work. Home shows don't work.

But doing all of them together is dynamite. Depending on a few forms of advertising is not going to generate many leads. You must have a wide and varied mix of marketing.

In a typical month, we get leads from 8 to 10 different sources. If you throw a wide net, you can catch a lot of fishies.

Brian Phillips

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George Z

May need to question the "don't put all your eggs into one basket" thinking.
You can put a whole bunch of eggs in 2-3 baskets only and do it really well.
Of course you need to know how many eggs and get the right baskets.

In other words,
Yellow Pages are showing a decline and of course the "piece of paper" to every door type
(post cards, flyers etc.) are considered more and more as junk mail.
We actually received phone calls questioning our ECO friendly practices
and definitely re considering the whole concept.
That makes internet marketing, signage and now referal marketing
as what we will mostly concetrate on.
We do some Yellow Pages, Newspaper ads etc. but I wonder why.

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Humble Abode

Brian and George,

As always, great advice.

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dougchips

(8-10 sources)

ibsocal

Craigslist,free ads works good for me.
that is my 2 cents.

Brian

George,

You make a very valid point. Warren Buffett says to put all of your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket very carefully. If anyone has proven this in regard to marketing, I would say you have.

As you point out, the trick is knowing which basket. Until we have sufficient data (from past experience) this can be very difficult. For someone just starting to market, it would be very risky to put all of the marketing money in a few ads. In that context, I think a broader marketing campaign is more sensible.

We are certainly modifying our marketing as we obtain data and trends change.

Brian Phillips

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profinish

The yellow pages have worked great for me for the last two years

farrellpainting

profinish if you dont mind me askin what are prices in your area for the phone book?

liltrainerboy

i just put a saltine cracker add with bold textand back ground under roofing, siding, moving& delivery and a in colum line under gutters and i paid 3600 for the year. paid for 11 mos and got one free

farrellpainting

thats cheap in my area they want 7800 for a 2x3 business card plot and there are two yellow books around here that each go out to approx 900,000 address', everyone throws one of them out!so 15.6k to hit everyone with a biz card,over $1600 for a full page=38k for that!
what a joke!its redicuosly expensive to do legitimate legal trade business in n.y uninsuered lowball hacks dont make it much easier either!

PlainPainter

George, I am entering my third year as an official contractor - with some lackluster results in acquiring customers - I am grabbing more and more faithful customers, but my last year wasn't my biggest. And I noticed that you sort of panned a few advertizing techniques - and I getting to that time of year again where I am thinking of biting the bullet and putting an add in the classifieds - but didn't have great results in the past, although didn't extensively advertize either. I find that my yard sign and word of mouth has been my biggest strengths - and perhaps I should think about this as a waiting game - and just let things play out. I am at a point where I can't gamble on an advertizing budget - the money is better spent anticipating bills in upcoming months, as I have no backlog of work. What do you think? I have had magnetic signs on my truck for 6 months now - and haven't gotten one call as a result of them. I had this fear when I first put them on - that I may not be able to keep up with the phone calls - that was pure silliness. Anyways - you think I should hold onto my money, and just let my word of mouth customers come to me? It's just that I have family and friends, and now a serious girlfriend who think all you need is wide basket of advertising - at a cost of $1200/month mind you - and it's getting me nervous thinking about it. I feel I am ahead with fewer customers and no advertizing budget - I have no evidence that any of this advertizing really works, I haven't heard or read anywhere of a consensus of what really works. I am on a shoestring budget and don't know what to do. Most my customers are ones who walk by me on a jobsite and ask for an estimate. And I fear that's how it will always be.

And what happened with the whole eco strategy? It isn't working out?

-plainpainter

ruskent

Okay i am not a painter but here is my 2 cents..

Figure out what type of customer you want to work for. Are you targeting high end work with customer finishes? Or do you just want to do basic paint jobs, in and out quickly? Are you targeting intieior or extierior work? What type of jobs have your previous customers held?

Before you can advertise, you need to know who you want to work for first.

If you looking for high end work, a newspaper ad is not going to cut it. your going to need to advertise in highend magazines, and direct mail.

If you looking for basic room repaints, newspaper service directories, fliers, door hangers, even home shows may work.

Home shows could be a great place to show off your custom finishes. Get a 10x20 booth and paint 20 different finishes each in 18in squares or something.

Whatever you do, i'd recommend doing more than one forum of advertising.

George Z

"reconsidering the whole concept"
Sorry, I meant reconsidering the flyers/junkmail concept.
Same with paperless business and e-mail faxing, insistence on e-mail etc.
The Eco is here to stay. You know my opinion on it. Our name is Ecopainting Inc.
In fact demand for ecofriendly services is growing.
Quite a few questions you have,
I would love to share my experiences, but tomorrow.

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PlainPainter

Ruskent - I am strictly high end. I have done apartment quality finishes - and I am very efficient at them. But I am scared of targeting lower end customers who don't pay much and then expect sistine chapel work. I find painting is sort of like engine hotrodding - you can either build a bucks down machine - or a really super duper 80 grand + oval track racer, but damned little in between. And I feel the same way about painting - you either paint cheaply and skip lots of steps, like not bothering to tsp clean stains off walls and no sanding - or you go all out high end work. I find if you start doing cheap work, and then add a couple of extra steps of prep - which I am always inclined to do, that I end up never being able to stop, and the job ends up being high end. So I have decided to stay high end. So thanks about the clarification about the newspaper adds - I have had the same feelings that people that read those adds are people looking for low end estimates. I believe in bulk mailings - I know someone who has had great success with them. But I know I have exterior work coming up, I just wanted interior work in the meantime. I do both - yet have never really built up a clientale of indoor painting - which is strange to me, because I am really an interior painter.

George whenever you have free time to comment that would be great - glad to hear the eco painting is still working great for you. I know Ben Moore has had an eco paint for a long time - but the consensus was that it was inferior quality to Regal, despite being 100% acrylic - hopefully the Aura will be a total departure. One thing I have noticed about 100% acrylic primers - is that I never gave them a chance. By that I mean - I never let them really cure before assessing their toughness. I have stuff like melamine - countertop material - that I coated with an acrylic primer - and after one year it's tough as nails!
I still believe in oil primers for 'problem-solving' areas.

-plainpainter

Bone Saw

website linked to vendor website contractor search by zip, this has produced steady solid customers for me for the last three years, my advertizing budget other than domain name has been 0

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drywallet

How much work do u want? All of it? Thats why they give me 2 phone books every year. You better have work just to pay for the yellow pages. Newspapers Na. Word of mouth and signs on your truck seem to work pretty good!

ruskent

Plainpainter- If i was you, i'd target new home owners. There are pleanty of companies out there that you can buy new home owner list from. They email the list right to you. I looked into it. infousa.com wanted a 100 dollars a month. They said the area i picked averaged 250 home transactions a month.

100 bucks is nothing. The name that you get most likely will be hiring a painter to paint their new home.

I'd start with that and see how it goes.

If you have more money to spend buy a list of 5k names of your target customers. First mail them a letter. Then hit them up with a fancy trifold brochure. You need to mail to them several times.

With the new homeowner list, first i am going to mail them a greeting card that says welcome to the nieghbor hood. I am going to hand address it, and had write a little msg. You can buy greeting cards on the net for dirt cheap. People will actually read this and not throw it out. I will insert a biz card in the card.

Then the next month i am going to mail them a letter. They should reconigize my logo on the envlope and open it up, instead of throwing it out, assuming that it is junk mail.

Just some tips..

PlainPainter

Holy bat-dung, Ruskent - I think what you just said is freaking ingenious, that's the first time someone wrote about some type of advertizing method that actually got me excited. It ties in a good method, namely direct mailings, to something personal - and much more targeted - instead of thousands of homes. Wow - I am blown away - hopefully it works 1/10 as good as it sounds.

-plainpainter

farrellpainting

that is ingenious can you put up a post a while after you send out the last letters to let us know the outcome.possible a continous tally type thread if you got the time?

thats great stuff, good thinkin!