Does advertising work

[leofry@1966]

lets say your dong a modest low sells of about 5k a month just you as a owner and operator, with not marketing at all other than a thank you card and a reminder care every year... so if that company decided to put up $2k a month in marketing.. what are the chances that company would up its sells 5k ... in other words go from 5k to 10k

[DON ELDRED]

Oh if it was just that easy!!!!
Your best chance to increase business might well be going more for referrals from your existing clients, than pouring a ton of money into advertising.
You can not put a price tag on happy customers selling your services for you.

This is not to say that advertising/marketing does not work, just that this is a business where developing a strong repeat/referral customer base will be the lifeblood of your business on a long term basis.

[lee@deepclean.us.com]

I have found most advertising to be a great big hole you shove money into and get almost nothing back. Referral based business is best in my opinion Things like BNI. Seo for your website can be a good investment. Like Don says its great when others do the selling for you. I would love to hear from those who have success in other ways!

Lee

[Perry]

I did some advertising and I did double my money at the end of the month.

How I was able to do it, was I took it in all cash and folded it !!! (ha ,ha )

I had a $175.00 a month add in the yellow pages and it was not worth it at all.

[encapman]

Typical advertising does not pay.

Use well designed flyers and get out in front of potential clients. Get them excited about your service. Show them that you're the consummate professional when it comes to solving all their commercial carpet woes. Inspect their carpet and discuss the problems with them and show them how to extend the life of their carpet. Do a free demo. Back it all up with a rock solid guarantee.

That approach will land you work. And it won't cost you anything more than some printing and shoe leather. The results will be far greater than trying to blindly fire out costly advertising and expecting a return. The traditional forms of advertising will only profit the ad man. That's my .02

[Hoss]

The best advertising deals that I have found are with local chambers of commerce. The membership fee usually covers multiple channels of marketing and events provide a venue to get in front of potential customers and network as Rick discusses.

I worked in online advertising for several years developing websites that competed with Amazon and big-box stores with B2B marketing. We had a $300,000K per month budget just for Google. Pay-per-click advertising, to me, is wasteful for a business such as carpet and floor care. It really only works with products that have been turned into commodities. You can't really compete with the deep advertising pockets of a Stanley, but you can blow them away with your actual service.

[rlord]

I did almost exactly what your scenario says several years ago, my contact at my biggest acct went away and the new guy was going internal. So I spent a bunch of money advertising, long story short, it worked my phone rang off the hook and I was real busy and doubled my revenue. But when I looked at the end result everyone was
getting more money and I was working my butt off.
In your example the extra $5000 after you deduct advertising expenses becomes $3000,
I needed additional help and at $100 a day that's $400- $500 a week so $1600-$2000 a month bringing the $3000 down to $1000-$1400 your bringing in extra per month.
Now in my case there was a lot of running around expenses, additional materials (I was doing Stone , t&G and color sealing along with carpet) bringing the whole profit down into the hundreds, All the extra work, exposure to expensive problems etc weren't worth it to me. I decided to just keep the accounts I had and really manage my expenses. About 8 months later the account came back bigger than ever.
Just my limited experience.

[leofry@1966]

Great advice guys... I already do the chamber and lots of networking but still need more .. constant improvement. I do believe advertising works... the RIGHT advertising works ... I realize this board may be heavy in the commercial work but if residential is what your looking for then you have to reach them another way...I agree with rlord there is some truth in what you say about the numbers but NOW you do have a helper ... if nothing else come out of it and you ended up with the RIGHT help then it does give you a chance to take a day off if sick or want to take a vacation ... and you have raised your income a little not a lot but a little....

And Rick... correct me if i am wrong you i see your advertising in the monthly magazines ...
I believer there is not magic bullet... you can't just network, and you can't just advertise.
it takes a lot to run a business... networking-marketing(some of which is advertising). dong a awesome job telling people about it, them telling people about it
Marketing 101
thank you cards
face book page both business and personal
reminder cards
net working -being out among the public. chamber -bni-eating in the local restaurants
nice uniform
on time every time
well the list goes on and on and constant improving...

[DON ELDRED]

Advertising to the residential market is even more difficult than say the commercial side.
This is where the referral marketing comes into play, also use the five around
brochure every time you are on a job.
Private label spotters etc Reminder cards, anything to keep your name up front.