I need some quick advice about advertisement. Is it really worth it? I just got 2 brand new yard signs to advertise my business. I have worked for someone for 8 years now and they don’t do a shred of advertising. He believes that if his work is good enough, word of mouth will keep him busy. As long as I have worked for him, it has worked. But I was wondering if a sign in the yard, or a name on the truck would help send my business that much farther. How much do you spend on advertising?
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In theory, advertising always pays off, but the real world can be a bit different.
If you can develop a business on word of mouth you're probably better off since most of your customers will be pretty well "pre-sold" when they contact you for the first time. You'll spend less time selling those kind of jobs.
If you're advertising, you'll need to allow more "selling time" since you'll be dealing with lots of tire kickers, people who have no idea of what their project may cost or people who can't make up their mind. Unless your antennae are far better than mine, you gotta make nice with all of them until you figure out who's a player and who ain't. - lol
I was an advertising/marketing major in college but I learned more through experience that pound for pound, dollar for dollar, nothing can beat word of mouth advertising. I use business cards ($250.00)with a logo designed by a professional ($2500.00)and have rack cards ($417.00)which I pass out occasionally to real estate agents who give me more qualified leads than anyone(priceless). I do not post my business name with phone number anywhere except on my cards.
I don't want someone calling just because they saw my number and thought they might get a bid that will be compared to the other four bids they have. I never want to competitive bid as I will probably have to do the job cheaper than the firms I beat out to get the bid. If I find out a client is getting several bids I usually back out telling them I cannot give them the quality they deserve if I am the lowest bidder. Usually the lowest bidder has the most mistakes on his bid.
Real estate agents offer three things, One; clients that are desperate as their house was just inspected and they have a limited amount of time before the closing to get all the repairs done. You can charge what you want and still be the hero. Two; clients that are new to the area and don't have any contacts for remodeling the house they just moved into. and Three; info on fixer uppers new to or about to hit the market.
Best of luck.
Constructing in metric...
every inch of the way.
This has been discussed ad infinitum here. Read the last few hundred threads in this folder for plenty of info.
Whether conventional advertising, yard signs or word-of-mouth will work best for you will depend entirely on your circumstances such as-
where you are, what sort of work you do, whether you are working for repeat users such as GC's, how long the average job takes etc etc
Some businesses need a lot more leads than others, and they are the ones than need to spread the net wider by advertising over the entire area they want to work in. Others are able to rely on word of mouth because they are long established and have no growth ambitions
John
If advertising is overrated, why does McDonalds spend more on it than any other quick serve resturant? We already know they exist, don't we?
blue
Mic D's knows you would forget about them over night if they weren't in yur face 24/7..
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!<!----><!---->
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
He believes that if his work is good enough, word of mouth will keep him busy.
A couple of thoughts on that. To some extent I believe it is true, word of mouth can keep you busy providing you do a good job of asking for and soliciting referrals. It will work better for an established company then a new one and better for a smaller company (one man band or a couple of guys) then a larger company.
If you want to grow into a larger company that has employees, running multiple jobs at the same time, I believe relying on word of mouth alone would not cut it.
The company I work for spends around 20k a year in various types of marketing and advertising, everything from radio and TV to church bulletins, lettered trucks, job signs, home-show etc.
The effectiveness of any individual form of advertising alone may not produce the results you would expect, all them operating together give you a "top of mind awareness" So a typical customer may call in, and when I ask how they heard about us, they'll say a job sign, but then they'll also have heard our jingle or saw a TV, print, or radio ad.
I've had people tell me they saw our a TV ad when we haven't run one in months
The job signs themselves are a golden idea. I'm constantly surprised by how many calls & Jobs we get because someone "saw our signs around town" same goes for lettered trucks. We spend around $400-500 to letter up a truck or van and spend a few hundred on yard signs every few years.
Keep the signs looking clean and good, if they get beat up and start looking ratty replace them. One thing I'm big on is setting the sign plumb and level. I don't mean get out the level and check it but do not leave it looking crooked... if you can't even set a sign straight how can you be trusted to remodel a house right? The two of them provide one hell of a ROI.
We have two types of signs, some nice cedar framed larger ones for larger projects and some smaller metal ones for quick jobs, even if we are there only 1 day, the sign goes out in the yard.
As for the for the other methods of advertising, come up with a marketing plan, figure out who you want to sell to and how to reach them. Don't feel limited to traditional methods of advertising either. There are many ways to market to people that do not involve traditional methods.
This is starting to get really long winded so I'm going to wrap with one last thought... read this book. http://tinyurl.com/y9budo