Advertising using phone book covers??

[MASTERMOWER]

I got a call last Friday. I didn't call them back till today. It was a sales call for phone book covers. This company has contracted with a local reality company, ERA, to distribute these covers to each property they sell. Also, included in the price to advertise on the covers, is short radio ads on the local christian radio station. The price to run a 2" by 2" ad was $199. This is just a one time fee. I asked how many of these covers would be distributed, she said a minimum of 1,000 with a possibility of more being printed later (at no further cost). Manhattans population is about 50,000, college students included. I figured 1,000 was a decent figure considering everything. She also said I'd be given "a couple dozen" to hand out to my clients. So I guess it's up to the advertisers along with the reality company to distribute them????

Anyhow, I bite and took the offer seeing as how it was resonablly priced and all. Since I was the first landscape contractor/ lawn company to agree to a ad, no others can place their ad on the cover now....

Has anyone heard of this sorta thing? Anyone with first hand experience advertising this way? I had never heard of these covers before in my life until today.

[Stephen M.]

Yea, I got the call this morning from those guys and they offered the phone book cover, advertising in the local Windemere advertising booklet givin out at closing time, and about eleven tv spots on USA, ESPN, and another cable station dubbed over for the local market. I turned them down.

Why, you will ask? Its a complete waste of my advertising dollars. I've done it all before several years ago but without the tv spots. I guess they have been having trouble selling those spots and had to sweeten the pie and appeal to people's vanity.

In my area, the phone book covers are a waste. I advertised a couple of years in my early days because "I was the only featured landscaper". The rub is, most people who use the cover forget to look on the cover to find their landscaper; they always go inside the book out of habit. Some put the cover in the drawer, thus never looking at the cover advertisers. Most, we found, simply threw it away because it was "easier to use the phonebook w/o it".

As for the realtor book, I never got one call from the people who received the book. That was also the experience of a carpenter I knew who also advertised in it, as well as the plumber.

People who watch ESPN or USA between 7-11pm probably don't care about finding their landscaper via those networks. There is no demographic research being given to me that these networks will actually be beneficial to me.

My 2 cents is that you just wasted $199. Good luck.

[MASTERMOWER]

OOooo, doesn't sound good.

Well I guess we'll see how it works for me this year, but I suspect I'll have the same experience you had. I wish I could have asked this question on here before I agreed to it.

[MASTERMOWER]

Don't waste your time on the general public.

Use targeted direct mail to the hoods where all the movers and shakers live.

Before the postage went up you could send out 3 postcards for a dollar=600 for $199.

If you can close 1% figure at least $2000 gross per groundskeeping account plus snow blowing is extra.

Take your $200 and turn it into $12k and don't deal with the trailer park crowd.

Yeah, I see your point. I guess I was put on the spot and decided to go ahead with them without throughly thinking it over. Live and learn. If anything else, since I demanded my logo be placed on the ad, it will help create awareness to my company throughout the area which becomes invaluable later down the road. To the extent, who knows...

I'm setting up to send out around 750 postcards which will cost around $275. Most of these cards are being sent to specially targeted individuals. In addition, I have placed a yellow page ad in both phone directories which are used around here. They aren't the biggest ads, but they should suffice when someone needs to find my number fast. Click here to view

I still have not decided if I should waste my money on classified ads in the newspaper this year. Last year was a flop, I spent $120 to run an ad for two months and only received two calls. From my experience over the last 7 ,8, or whatever years the return is usually a lot better than that. With my previously lawn care business, the only way I built my customer base of 100 was from classified ads alone.

I won't do fliers because even though they might result in some work, I feel the time wasted distributing them isn't worth the return I'd get. Plus I don't think people would respect my company as well when my fliers are laying about neighboorhoods for days to weeks. I'll leave the fliers to Mr. Getterdone as he seems to love that method......

I guess I might as well ask, anyone have some other advertising method which work fairly well which I haven't looked into? I don't want to engage in a method which would lower the image of my company, such as posting an advertisement on the grocery stores bullentin board, so all those are out of the question.

[GrassMaster]

Work it!

I still have not decided if I should waste my money on classified ads in the newspaper this year. Last year was a flop, I spent $120 to run an ad for two months and only received two calls. From my experience over the last 7 ,8, or whatever years the return is usually a lot better than that. With my previously lawn care business, the only way I built my customer base of 100 was from classified ads alone.

The classifieds work good for some people in some areas. It worked well for me in my area. But I would only used it if I needed work bad.

Now I was able to run it on certain days of the week & I didn't have to lock in on a certain number of weeks or months I think that has changed since when I did it & they want to lock you in for a certain length of time.

Try working over your existing customers for referrals & I know you're probably doing this but try to find highly profitable add on services.

[MASTERMOWER]

The classifieds work good for some people in some areas. It worked well for me in my area. But I would only used it if I needed work bad.

Now I was able to run it on certain days of the week & I didn't have to lock in on a certain number of weeks or months I think that has changed since when I did it & they want to lock you in for a certain length of time.

Try working over your existing customers for referrals & I know you're probably doing this but try to find highly profitable add on services.

Yeah I forgot to say I was going to offer some incentive to my existing customers for referrals. Already they have referred me to many in the past, so I hope the added incentive will modivate others to refer me to their friends.

I used to run classifieds the way you mentioned. I still have the option to specify when I want the ad to run and for how long, but I always preferred to keep the same ad running for a minimum of a two week period. One thing I used to offer was a senior citizen discount which I would place into the classified ad. It wasn't much, maybe 5% off. The discount seemed to attract many customers. However, I'm not totally sold on starting the discount again unless I find myself in the poor house desperately seeking work. When I offered the discount I'd have mixed results. Sometimes I would gain a few higher end properties, but mostly I gained cheap arses with crabgrass lawns.

[GrassMaster]

Ask them every time...

Like your a broken record, "Do you know anybody that needs lawn work?"

See a lot of them has this mind set, they afraid if they refer you to others that they lose you doing their lawn. I've heard it before several times.

I had this one Doctors wife say, David if I hear you ask me that again. I said I really need work... She said go clean the mildew off my Lawn Furniture. OK

Took it to the car wash & pressure washed the umbrella & chairs. About $1.00 & 15 minutes work. She gave me $40 & said I'll get you some customers & she did!

Within 6 months she got me at least a dozen Doctors & Lawyers wives properties... All year rounders & I charged the hell out of them too, you can get away with that on referrals. At least I did.

OK, now I've thrown away a pile of money in my day on advertising. I had mile longers in the Classifieds, I did charity work, I did showcase houses for the Junior League, Auctions & other pitiful ways of advertising too!

This is what I finally came up with in the classifieds, all Bold Faced Letters just as large as would fit in a column, no more & no less. (It worked for me)

LAWN SERVICE
GRASSMASTER
666-666-4377

It will stick out & it's easy to read see not all of us can spot our neighbors Dorothy & Toto playing in the field at 300 Yards like you can with your young eyes... LOL J/K

Us older folks probably 80% plus of your targeted market are going to be eye balling (Squinting) up & down those classifieds, before we focus in we see in those big letters LAWN SERVICE that's all us old folks need to see & we call you up first before we find the beginning of the Lawn Service section!

The above 3 line ad is Quick & to the point, if I wasn't interested in getting my name out there I wouldn't had put GRASSMASTER in the middle, but my way of thinking is when they are scanning the classifieds they see Lawn Service Grass... It's got to get their attention.

Why didn't I list more of my services, because they assume you can do it or you to stupid to do it. They will figure that out when they meet you!

Hang in there, another year or 2 you'll be turning down work because you too busy!

[csalisbury]

The problem with a lot of these cover ads and radio/tv spot offers is that they're not targeted enough to generate a justifiable response. It's basically spraying and praying. Those things get distributed to such a wide array of markets so there's really no way to know if your message is getting delivered to your target market.

As Lorenzo stated, direct mail is highly effective because you can target specific markets. There are so many options available for putting together a quality direct mail piece and with as pervasive as marketing information is these days, you can find a list of people that match your ideal prospect to a 'T'.

As for ideas of ways to expand your market, have you considered joint ventures with other service providers in your local area? Find other small business that service your same type of customer and partner with them. You could get them to send an endorsed mailing to their customer list introducing your service and offering them a discount or complimentary service. You would of course want to offer to reciprocate by sending something to your customers as well. There are dozens of ways you could benefit from using another service provider and all it takes is a little creativity. Aside from being relatively cost-effective, this method is also extremely powerful because you're being introduced to these prospects by someone they already know and trust.

[Stephen M.]

...I still have not decided if I should waste my money on classified ads in the newspaper this year. Last year was a flop, I spent $120 to run an ad for two months and only received two calls. From my experience over the last 7 ,8, or whatever years the return is usually a lot better than that. With my previously lawn care business, the only way I built my customer base of 100 was from classified ads alone.

I won't do fliers because even though they might result in some work, I feel the time wasted distributing them isn't worth the return I'd get. Plus I don't think people would respect my company as well when my fliers are laying about neighboorhoods for days to weeks. I'll leave the fliers to Mr. Getterdone as he seems to love that method......

I guess I might as well ask, anyone have some other advertising method which work fairly well which I haven't looked into? I don't want to engage in a method which would lower the image of my company, such as posting an advertisement on the grocery stores bullentin board, so all those are out of the question.

The biggest mistake alot of guys make is NOT leaving in the ad long enough to make a difference. Two months is not a long time when you are trying to go for NAME RECOGNITION. This is why the phone book cover, et al, is sold to most people. We are all vain enough to fall for "the only landscaper" routine. But what we all need is what is called "branding", ie, name recognition and that will lead to a sale.

A classified works for me in several ways. I insert a classified ad into "sales miecellanious" and also into "services". The more times you can afford to place it in the same issue, the better. The more times people see the ad, the more awareness it creates for your company. If you change the ad regarding seasonal offerings, but leave the nuggets sprinkled through out the same
issue, and leave the adds in for a whole year, believe me, when I say you have just created a favorable image of yourself to the people you are trying to reach.

Yes, it will cost money to INVEST in yourself, but this is what you want from your advertising dollars.

I've tried all of the vanity stuff out there, but what works best for me is entering as many color ads as I can in the yellowpages; running a 4x4 display ad in the classified section of the weekly newspaper; and running several classified adds in the same weekly newspaper; as well as hitting a secondary phone book and a monthly display ad in the monthly business journal.

Forget the grocery store advertising, its worthless.

Good luck.

[Stephen M.]

...As for ideas of ways to expand your market, have you considered joint ventures with other service providers in your local area? Find other small business that service your same type of customer and partner with them. You could get them to send an endorsed mailing to their customer list introducing your service and offering them a discount or complimentary service. You would of course want to offer to reciprocate by sending something to your customers as well. There are dozens of ways you could benefit from using another service provider and all it takes is a little creativity. Aside from being relatively cost-effective, this method is also extremely powerful because you're being introduced to these prospects by someone they already know and trust.

GREAT ADVICE!!!!!

A good friend of mine, who used to be an employee of mine in his former life, does pressure washing. He will do our kind of work if he has to, but not as his first love.

He makes bucco bucks 9 months out of the year, but would stave in the winter had he not hooked up with a roofer and a painter.

The roofer advertises roof cleaning, but he is so busy replacing roofs that he has zero time restoring rooves and treating them. He sends all of those referrals to my friend.

The painter will actually bid the pressure washing jobs, then he calls up my friend to do the work.

Its a win/win for everybody.

[Stephen M.]

OOooo, doesn't sound good.

Well I guess we'll see how it works for me this year, but I suspect I'll have the same experience you had. I wish I could have asked this question on here before I agreed to it.

After being sucked a few times by these "decide now or lose the offer" type of sales people, my wife and I decided a few years ago NOT TO make business decisions of this nature on the phone. Its called "high pressure sales".

We tell these sales people fax or email the info, but 99.99% won't. If we can't excercise the 3 day rule as provided in FTC rules and most states regarding purchase decisions, then forget it!!!

AS A RULE OF THUMB:

NEVER fall for these "you have to decide now" type of sales pitches as done by tele marketers;

DON'T believe the "you're the only featured landscaper" because depending where you are in the alphabet, its probably a lie. For example, my business name begins with Q, so that means that if I agree to buy, they nearly ran out of alphabet before they found a sucker!!

[MASTERMOWER]

After being sucked a few times by these "decide now or lose the offer" type of sales people, my wife and I decided a few years ago NOT TO make business decisions of this nature on the phone. Its called "high pressure sales".

We tell these sales people fax or email the info, but 99.99% won't. If we can't excercise the 3 day rule as provided in FTC rules and most states regarding purchase decisions, then forget it!!!

AS A RULE OF THUMB:

NEVER fall for these "you have to decide now" type of sales pitches as done by tele marketers;

DON'T believe the "you're the only featured landscaper" because depending where you are in the alphabet, its probably a lie. For example, my business name begins with Q, so that means that if I agree to buy, they nearly ran out of alphabet before they found a sucker!!

Thanks for the advice. I sure got suckered alright. Landscape Solutions is near the END of the alphabet. They said they got my name from the AT&T yellow page ad I took out. This ad wasn't too fancy at all. My competitors ran much larger, much more fancy ads. I'm sure others passed this offer up and I was just the unexperienced sucker they where seeking out. The covers are being printed now, so obviously they desperately needed me to agree to this deal promptly. Next year when they call me to run the ad again I'll play around with them a little then politely decline the offer.

[Team Gopher]

Hi csalisbury,

You have great points. When I sit here and read all the ideas you suggest I just think how it could be a fulltime job alone trying to figure out and implement all these potential marketing suggestions.

[csalisbury]

TG,

Marketing can definitely be a full-time job. In fact, it should be one of the highest priorities for any business owner that wants to grow a successful business. Too often we get caught up working IN our businesses instead of working ON our businesses. It's an easy trap to get into, but it's important to put systems and processes in place that allow you to work ON your business as much as possible.

Implementing marketing systems that keep steady streams of qualified customers knocking on your door is one of those 'working on your business' things. Doing so will keep things flowing nicely so that instead of having to stop and start your marketing efforts, you'll have a constant stream of customers that keeps your growth rate on a steady incline.