[IBEX Drywall]

So I've recently moved to a new town, it has a population of only 4500. I really don't want to go through all the hassle of ads and GC introductions, handing out business cards, ect, and my wallet is also demanding that I get some work going.

I found out about unaddressed admail, where I can literally send my business card in an envelope to every postal point of call in town, which is 1730 households. I've already printed all the cards and packaged them ready to go, but now I'm having some reservations, my services listed on the cards are painting, drywall/taping, texture, wall & ceiling repair, this also happens to be an oil town, lots of people with money and few other trades, I'm starting to wonder if instant exposure to 4500 people/1700 homes might be too much? don't want to get swamped.
Any body else have any experience with mass advertising?

 

[jlsconstruction]

If you get the work hire some guys and get it done

 

[slowsol]

So I've recently moved to a new town, it has a population of only 4500. I really don't want to go through all the hassle of ads and GC introductions, handing out business cards, ect, and my wallet is also demanding that I get some work going.

I found out about unaddressed admail, where I can literally send my business card in an envelope to every postal point of call in town, which is 1730 households. I've already printed all the cards and packaged them ready to go, but now I'm having some reservations, my services listed on the cards are painting, drywall/taping, texture, wall & ceiling repair, this also happens to be an oil town, lots of people with money and few other trades, I'm starting to wonder if instant exposure to 4500 people/1700 homes might be too much? don't want to get swamped.
Any body else have any experience with mass advertising?

I wouldn't worry about getting too busy to handle the workload. When was the last time you read a piece of junkmail?

 

[mikeswoods]

Oh boy---direct mail just doesn't work all that well---send out the cards,you will not be overwhelmed---

 

[gastek]

So you are sending just a card? No introduction letter?

 

[IBEX Drywall]

The cards are inside a blank envelope, So it's kinda the trojan horse idea of getting the cards home with the people, instead of just a card that gets tossed immediately with the rest of the junk without even getting looked at.

No introduction, the cards are quality professionally made, raised print, gloss, premium paper, my new business name, my services, my name, my phone numbers, the back has a google map of the area, titled service area. Good cards. I'll save an introductory letter for direct handouts to GC's if needed, but I really want to skip the middle-man and target Home-owners for repaints, repairs, basements, ect, Cash work.

The total cost of this advertising campaign will be approximately $500 in total, so really just one small job out of it and it's paid for.
I'll be sending them out after in a few days so they are received in the beginning of the new year, which I think would be appropriate.

If anything it will be an interesting experiment, I'll report back with my results.

 

[tedanderson]

I hope it turns out well for you. If I had to choose between a piece of junk mail and a guy who gave me a card, I think that I would call the guy that I meant face to face.

You can't look at that stuff as being a "hassle" when you really need the work. Face to face advertising should only be considered a burden when you have more work than you can handle and more money than you can spend.

 

[gastek]

The cards are inside a blank envelope, So it's kinda the trojan horse idea of getting the cards home with the people, instead of just a card that gets tossed immediately with the rest of the junk without even getting looked at.

No introduction, the cards are quality professionally made, raised print, gloss, premium paper, my new business name, my services, my name, my phone numbers, the back has a google map of the area, titled service area. Good cards. I'll save an introductory letter for direct handouts to GC's if needed, but I really want to skip the middle-man and target Home-owners for repaints, repairs, basements, ect, Cash work.

The total cost of this advertising campaign will be approximately $500 in total, so really just one small job out of it and it's paid for.
I'll be sending them out after in a few days so they are received in the beginning of the new year, which I think would be appropriate.

If anything it will be an interesting experiment, I'll report back with my results.

Do you at the very least have a web site address on the business cards that you have pictures of your work and maybe some testimonies from past customers? That can go along ways with helping get your foot in the door as well.

 

[IBEX Drywall]

I hope it turns out well for you. If I had to choose between a piece of junk mail and a guy who gave me a card, I think that I would call the guy that I meant face to face.

You can't look at that stuff as being a "hassle" when you really need the work. Face to face advertising should only be considered a burden when you have more work than you can handle and more money than you can spend.

Your absolutely right about that, but at the same time I can't go and personally introduce myself to every homeowner in town, and getting awareness of my business to HO's is especially important considering that I'm moving into primarily painting and wall and ceiling repairs, ect.
And traditional advertising targeted to HO's takes a lot of work and a lot of time to get established. I really don't know what the outcome of this advertising method will be, but we shall see, and thanks for the best wishes.

Do you at the very least have a web site address on the business cards that you have pictures of your work and maybe some testimonies from past customers? That can go along ways with helping get your foot in the door as well.

Florida's such a different scene then many other places, you got so much competition in every area of the marketplace, everybody fighting for their piece of the pie, so they too can live under the sun 12 months of the year, you REALLY have to do everything possible to CONVINCE any customer that your more professional then the other countless people bidding on that job.

Here it's different, it's not a beautiful warm place with palm trees and beaches, it's a rough oil and agriculture town on the Canadian prairies, where it's winter 9 months of the year. Any kid fresh out of high school can take a 3 day safety course and get a job on the oil rigs that pays 80-100k+/year with all benefits, so for that reason not a lot of people get into the trades around here, and unlike florida, nobody lives here for "pleasure". So for those reason's there's not a lot of competition around here in relation to the demand for trades.

With that said, Of course having a website and pictures ect. would be helpful no matter the market conditions, but I'm just not that tech savvy, and a website designer quoted me at 1800$ to design a website, but you know he will just use some type of template and 1 hour of uploading and whatever it takes, I really just think the small website design business is a bunch of geeks out to take advantage of peoples computer ignorance. Any suggestion on an easy website builder for the computer illiterate? I tried looking once on google but couldn't find anything.

Again though, I will soon see what the response rate is to this campaign, and will let you guys know how it went.

 

[ohiohomedoctor]

Id get my cards into the break rooms at the oil rigs and knock doors personally in my spare time leaving an intro letter and coupon of some type.

Also the website is imperative. Even if you don't rank it most people expect a company to have one at this point. $1800 is cheap. You could do your own on wix but ranking it will be almost impossible..

Call all the gcs in the area and see if you can get some face to face time with the key players in your area..

 

[SectorSecurity]

If you want to build an easy website, get hosting, install wordpress and upload content. As for placing your business card in an unmarked envelope I would assume more people would throw that in the garbage then the business card.