Advertising

[DearbornLawnCare]

How do you determine how much to spend on advertising a year ?

[MASTERMOWER]

There is no formula. As a general rule, most will spend about 10% of their profits on advertising. While that may appear like quite a bit, some large corporations have been known to spend over 90%!!!

Spend what you feel is necessary. Usually, the more you spend, the better off you'll be. However, you don't necessarily have to spend a fortune to be a success. If your not wanting to plunk a small fortune down on advertising, there are cheap/free advertising methods you could engage in which are known to be effective. Now if you wanna play with the big boys in your area, you'll likely have to cough up the advertising budget similar to theirs.

[alex_s]

I havent started my business yet...but a friend of mine says he has never advertised for his services(also lawn care). All word of mouth. Cant say i'll do the same....but, just a thought

[steve-o]

How do you determine how much to spend on advertising a year ?

i think it depends on how big you wanna get. when i was part time i just did a few hundred postcards with decals on my trls. and truck. i went fulltime last season and did a few thousand postcards plus i ran a block add in the yellow pages. that along with the decals on the trls. and truck plus the internet that you get with the phone add kept me busy up until last week, plus a few jobs lined up after the new year. i am guessing i spent $1000 and that's not including the decals as they were done 3 years ago. i work solo with my kids helping on big jobs.

steve

[DearbornLawnCare]

I know theres no general formula I was just wondering if guys usually spend a certain percentage of there profits on advertising. Most of my work is word of mouth, this past year I didn't do much advertising at all, I think I passed out 600 fliers before I got to caught up with the work. My plan is just to bring in a few more calls for this year and try to land some more installs. Most of my advertising budget will be spent on online stuff (website, etc...), I'll also put an add in the yellow book and the rest will be spent on direct mailing. Hopefully it works out!

[Jay Chatfield]

Mean Green Lawns and Landscaping

Hello,

Listen... if you already have a client list that keeps you busy then why do more advertising than what has built your existing client list already. I mean if your full time, then like you already said you may get too much work then your stuck with difficult decisions to make. If you are not able to hire labor and someone to answer phones then getting into the phone book is not very practical. The phone book can be expensive (specially in Oakland County MI) If you just want to get a few more custos then pass out a few flyers .. It's cheap and a few hundred will get you 10 - 20 more.

DEARBORN as in Detroit?? Cause if so I run my business out of Pontiac and do most of my work in Rochester Hills and Troy.. Flyers are very effective in those areas.

[DearbornLawnCare]

All the big corps have enough customers to keep them busy for the year (not just lawn service) does that mean they stop advertising?? No, word of mouth can help your business grow but it will do it gradually, advertising will bring in a variety of customers in a short amount of time.Difficult decisions? not really, picking out the jobs I want doesn't sound too difficult to me, also I can always subcontract or hire more labor. Hiring labor is not a problem either I live in MI we have the highest unemployment rate in the nation , getting someone to answer phone is not a problem either. Yellow book is not too expensive here I can get a credit card size add for $150 a month plus there aren't too many landscape companies around here so c.c. ad will stand out. Flyers do K over here but most poeple that call have been hit by at least 2-3 other companies, and a few of these companies run on a 10-15% profit margin resulting in them asking if I can beat $20 a cut.

[csalisbury]

Dearborn,

As MM said, 10% of profits is a good general rule. There are some formulas you can use to determine exactly how much you should budget, but I won't bore the group with all the technicalities. If you're really interested, let me know and I'll do my best to make it interesting.

Your best bet is to stick with methods that are scaleable and trackable so you can direct your dollars as needed to those methods that are working best. Investing in a website is always a good start, as is creating strong direct response marketing campaigns.

As for yellow pages ads, while they appear relatively cheap, if you don't have a lot of excess in your budget, you're probably better off directing those dollars to a direct mail campaign. Here's why.

While the YP's might be effective, it's extremely competitive and you're competing directly against others providing the same service. Plus, it's a very passive marketing method where you're fighting for the eyeballs of consumers that MIGHT be good candidates versus being proactive and using direct mail to go after prospects you KNOW are qualified. Also, whether or not your ad gets the phone to ring, you're stuck shelling out $150 every month.

In most cases, you're better of taking that money and investing it in a direct mail campaign to a carefully targeted list of prospects. That way, you KNOW your sales message will be seen by prospects that are qualified to purchase your services.

[Jay Chatfield]

DUDE.. did you not read the entire paragraph I wrote you...

I too am in MI.. Pontiac.. I do must of my work in Rochester Hills, W bloomfied, Troy, Auburn Hills, Bloomfield Hills, Walled Lake, Novi ,White Lake, Waterford and Clarkston..... NOW.. let me tell you you WILL have a hard time gettin good workers that are not going to cost you more than what you are making... Don't fool yourslef.. ALSO YELLOW BOOK is a LOT more than 150 ea month for Oakland County... actually twice that amount was the qoute I got from them in Feb. 2006.

The difficult decisions will be which jobs to turn away from and which to keep... you will grow too fast without resources to fill the demand pre set with an overload of customers that will call all year long dropping one service and looking for another in the middle of the season... Having to say NO is always difficult for me..

NO LANDSCAPERS OR LAWN CUTTERS??? are YOU GOTTA BE JOKING ME... You OBVIOULSY have not done your homework AT ALL becasue a trip to the county court house will show you that there are over 150 NEW lawn business in oakland county every spring summer and winter sence 2001... ALSO you will see in the phone book has THREE PAGES of lawn and Landscaping services for oakland county alone and thats why every one around here wants a 20$ lawn job.... If you dont have any custos.. give them a 20$ lawn job.
LISTEN EVERYONE... I see this happen so much...

DO NOT go out and waist your money on a bunch of advertising for an unestablished business unless you have the money to waist.. Your just as well off taking that money to Greek Town (casino) and bet it all on black Why buy bunch of advertising for a business that has no foundation or history of available referrals or and successfull experience at running at smaller volumes let alone huge volumes...
YOU ARE SETTING YOURSELF UP.. like 90% of everyone else out there that last for a year or two.

AGAIN as I said before keep your money and pass out flyers is Rochester Hills, Troy and Sterling Heights.... You can get out probably 15K if you want and they will resond well and pay for good service if you can sell them..

If you are from Deaborn your more than likely aribic or calidean.. maybe indian or lebanise (sp?) and these areas have almost NO white people in them. The stats show about 70% are of other ethnic decent and average over 60K a year.

I know a lot about the market here in Metro Detroit.. I have been a I small business owner for 15 years.. (sence I was 15) My family have large businesses here, (not party stores or gas stations) and I am apart of 3 networking shops in the area. (The BBB it's a joke) I have researched and written two business plans in the last five years. One plan was to establish a foundation for a design and production company and the other was for my lawn ad landscaping business. Both books took me about 3 months of full time research and about 6 weeks of writing. ( and I still can't spell for ****)

All in all you need to plan more, spend less, and start out slow enough to earn what you need to cover your cost of living. Work up the ladder or else you will fall to the way side like most service providers in this area.
WATCH OUT for Torra and Burgiollo (sp?) they own this area and most of the commercial contracts in Oakland County with like 45 trucks and crews, and 10-25 million in assets at least.

[Woody]

Jay, no offense man, but if you EVER have workers that are costing you MORE than you are making, then you are LOWBALLING the work. Lowballers DESERVE this because thy ruin the market and sodomize every legitimate company out there by dragging down the industry.

[Jay Chatfield]

no I dont do that at all.. The attitude of people in Detroit is just really bad.. We have unemployment becasue people don't wanna work and everyone that does thinks they are worth 12-15 $'s an hour with no skills... Add that to cheep homeowners because of the economy and you get... SCREWED lol it's a different breed of people here in MI... Come to DETROIT and see for yourself lol ...

[DearbornLawnCare]

Dude I'm in WAYNE COUNTY not oakland county, two different areas. Look in our yellow book and see how many people advertise, as matter a fact there are a total of 7 companies that advertised in there. I met with one of the reps about 2 months ago I still have all the stuff she gave me I'm 100% percent sure it's $150, you're area is more expensinve. There is a lot of good and experienced poeple down here willing to work $12-$15 an hr. I don't know what our talking about. My helper has been working with me for 2 years and he gets $14, he's 38 and has been landscaping for 12 years. who said I was unsccessful at running my business, if I was I wouldn't be planing on doing all that advertising. Rochester Hills, Troy and Sterling Heights.... it takes me more than 35 min. to drive up to any of those areas.

[Woody]

Dearborn:

IGNORE Jay. He is a blithering idiot who really doesn't have a CLUE as to what he is talking about. It sounds like you have done your homework, so hang in there and keep on keepin on. 6 months from now you'll be elbow deep in work (and loving it), and Jay will be trying to sell sunglasses for $9.00 an hour in a kiosk at the local mall.