[geefree]

Hi everyone,

I am curious as to which form of advertising .do you all seem to get the best results from?

e.g.  yellow pages, leaflets , van signs etc.

What works best for you ?.

Gary.

[brett walker]

hi gaz


word of mouth & having a sign written van work best for me


brett

[ScrimShady]

the best that has worked for me is local directorys, i have been in one for 4 months and picked up loads, also leaflets work well for me.

[mgba_78]

In the last 2 weeks i have had signs put onto van and been leaflet dropping 50-100 or so a day 4 days a week.

Well i cant remember the last time i had a new customer was way way before xmas, and now i picked up 3 new ones last week (£12 each) quoted 4 others waiting to hear back from them and 2 more quotes next week.
Also due to signs on van picked up a gutter clean £40.

Funny as in the beginning the leaflets didnt really work at all and i dropped loads, but now i have had a revamp of leaflet and am thinking about where to target next and it seems to be working!!!

Bring it on

Andy

[Majestic]

Most of the time its word of mouth,  but with the winds we have had over the last few weeks and the state of the windows  people are looking in Yellow Pages and phoning me

[Paul Coleman]

Hi everyone,

I am curious as to which form of advertising .do you all seem to get the best results from?

e.g.  yellow pages, leaflets , van signs etc.

What works best for you ?.

Gary.

Word of mouth and people seeing me working are pretty good.  The best way to give a quick boost to your turnover is to canvass.  I have had some response thrugh Thomson directory, Yellow Pages, and a little through Yell online.
My next step is to get the van signwritten.  I've held back from this so far but some on here swear by it so I will do it.  Just a plain ad with my profession and phone number in large letter with my business name in smaller letters.

[KarlJones]

I only started building a while a go.  Business starts tommorow morining

So far, Yell has thrown up the biggest supprise.  I expected it to get a bit of local work due to the postcode effect, but that has not happened yet.  What did happen was someone 7 miles away phoned me on 118247 (yellow pages) and I got 2 jobs from him (nextdoor is his mum)

Leaflets really are poor arn't they.  They do get some business but it is very little.  Likewise business cards, however I am sure in my head that a business card has more shelf life than a leaflet.  Posted about 200 leaflets, one customer.  300 business cards, not one customer.  Knocked 300 doors, about 60 of them were in and this leads to 6 customers.

Google Ads have bought in nothing.

To keep in the good format that paul has started below me...

Canvassing
Yell
Leaflets

[pjulk]

Most of my customers come from in the right order.

Being seen working.
Word of mouth.
Parish Mag
Van signwritting

Paul

[david68]

I got some results from yell.com

Dave

[Chris - CBWC]

I'm in yellow pages, thomson local and one other I can't remember!  It's all free so why not!  I post maybe 30 leaflets a day, then knock on their door the next evening.  If I can get at least 1 new client each night, that's 20 new clients a month, and I'm happy.  Have been considering putting signs on my little Peugeot 205 but I'm pretty sure it's not got long left....!

Chris

EDIT:  Just got the Business Pages through the letter box, first time I've seen my business listed in a publication!
Also, I recently received a very fancy pen from National Pen Ltd, free sample with company name, address, phone number on it.  100 pens for £30 or something like that.  Wondering if anyone has done something like that?  I'm not going to, just looked good on a pen.  Where would you leave the pens to increase advertising anyway?  Drop them through letterboxes instead of/as well as leaflets?!

[geefree]

thanks everone.

any commercial advertising views?

Gary.

[geefree]

seems you all built and no advertising needed lol... going by the number of people who have read this lol. and few secrets shared.

[Neil Williams]

seems you all built and no advertising needed lol... going by the number of people who have read this lol. and few secrets shared.

Perhaps people are getting wise to you only asking questions on how to do things etc

[david68]

Thats not very fair Neil....... >:

Dave

[pylofm]

Gary I am finding that .5 or .6 % is about the rate for my leaflets.

Cheers
Dave.

[Londoner]

Leaflets work well but you have to deliver loads and do it continuously. The results are about one percent initially. Some times you get lucky and get more but one percent is about average.
That however means about one new customer an hour so thats not so bad if you consider that gives you about £100 per year increase in turnover for each hour  you spent leafleting.

But it doesn't stop there, once you get a new customer in a particular road you usually start to pick up one or two of the neighbours and her friend up the road etc. So the process starts to gell..

Then about four months on you leaflet the road with a leaflet saying " I was cleaning in your road today........" and you get a few more because they know you now.

I have always found door knocking turns up a lot of time wasters who want them done once or say yes and think better of it later.

But don't expect instant results from leaflets, you often get calls months later.

[geefree]

Thanks again for your replies,

I just want to do thinhs the right way, and your help always means a lot to me and i am grateful for that,

as to neils comments, well he has his own opinion and thats fair enough, is that not what this forum is for ?

but i will say this to him,

i am glad of any help i recieve, also i try to post a question so the answers given are benificial to everyone who reads them, and i am almost sure he will have picked up tips on this forum as all of us have....

people getting wise to me asking for help?

its a strange reply, but your opinion, so fair enough.

thanks all.

Gary.

[Dean Aspects]

i have mainly relied on word of mouth and just being seen but this year i decided to give yellow pages a try it was slow at first but now i get 2/3 a week phoning me and when i have priced it i have priced higher than normal and got every job
plus as most are in new areas i have picked up neighbours also
so its good for me but my listing is one of the first in the window cleaners section
people are lazy they usually phone the first ones listed in their area
we all do the same even when you are looking for something yourself you only look at the first few
just going on my own experience

[Chris - CBWC]

I have always found door knocking turns up a lot of time wasters who want them done once or say yes and think better of it later.

That's true, and it bugs me when I get their cheque in the post with 'please cancel all future cleans' or I ring them for the next clean and they say 'not this time'.  But then, you have to think, if you don't have a full round and you weren't cleaning their windows, would you have been at home doing nothing?  At least it's something, no matter how little.

[Helen]

We have alot of alternative advertisng options posted here and lots of views on what works well for people. Whats works well for one person, doesn't work for another and so on. Although Neils comments come across abit short and sharp, perhaps he meant that loads of people have answered your question, Gazza, but you haven't posted what has worked or not for you. We all learn by our own experiences and should not be totally guided by others, so come on share 'em How have you bulit your business Gazza and what has worked best for you?
Us... just about all has been covered by other posts, but word of mouth and referrals come top, but you only get them after time. Leaflets work well for us for the more serious customer as if they bother to call the they really want your service. Parish mags are ok, but the cost of the advert is not much anyway.