I have made up a very simple 4x6 flyer, my logo, com/res, w/c and gutter cleaning, and contacts. On it I also have $20 off coupon for any gutter cleaning, with an exp. date . I just finished hitting my neighborhood today, there are a lot of houses w/o gutters in the area. I am being very selective, if they have gutter screens, or no gutters they don’t get a flyer for obvious reasons. My plan is to do this again with a w/c special in the future. The houses that I may have not hit with a gutter flyer, I may hit with a window flyer. Although I have worked as a full-time w/c’r before, my current situation (4 year old daughter at home) only allows me to work part-time as I start my company. My question is what amount of flyers did you have to hand out to start seeing results 200/500/1000+ flyers etc. I will be hitting other neighborhoods soon. I hope to be very selective in the jobs that I take, I know the jobs that I dislike and hope to avoid them. Any thoughts or experiences will help!
If the offer is solid, you should see some interest right away. In this economy $20 may not be enough. But what is? I have $35 in my newest cards/flyers/ ads and I’m thinking of bumping it to $40 off. I know things here in North Texas aren’t that bad as other places , yet, but some are still holding on to their money.
I have one question for you though. Are you passing the flyers out in your neighborhood? Or your target customer’s neighboorhood? I don’t pass out flyers in my 'hood cause I ain’t the one driving a caddy–if you know what I mean ;).
My neighborrhood is nice, but my house is one of the biggest. I think that picking specific loactions where you want to, better yet–dream of working in, are better places to pass out flyers.
The above mentioned is my normal response, however with the seasonal slow down, and a bit of greed derived from playing the Devil’s Advocate, I am seriously thinking of running a series of flyers here in my neighborhood.
Here’s something to think about. If they have screens then why not offer to clean off the screens. I got a call for gutter cleaning last year from a woman who had gutter screens. They were covered in pine needles. In fact the needles were so piled up that they had caused the gutter screen to fail. Try offering a gutter check up/cleaning service.
The neighborhood I am living in (renting) was built in the mid to late 50’s single story brick. Some people have renovated and put in new windows, then there are homes with the original glass, some with storms. There are old folks (original homeowners), some young couples and some renters. I am sure you have been to the white rock area. There are a lot of neighborhoods that are like that right around here, some homes (1200-1700 sf) they are tearing down and building (4000-6000+ sf). Right now I am looking for jobs that are pretty easy/quick. My daughter is in school 3 days a week 6 hours a day, then I am home with her the other two days, so it doesn’t give me that much time. Is it my target customer area, I guess it can be till my daughter starts elementary school and I have more time. As long as they are happy with my service, and I am happy with the money I ammaking it should work out.
I’ve never had anybody who is poor call and have me wash their windows. It has always been in those “Dream of Working” areas.
To give a little advice on flyers. Or at least what I did. I threw out lots of flyers. I’d say thousands. What is really good with you is that you are home with your little girl right now and now is the time to gather your fliers together. I would put them in little baggies with a rock or two. Then I would throw them out of my car window into their drive-way. This is what I did.
To be honest I would have somebody drive and somebody throw. Now that I think of it I never threw any while “I” drove only when someone else drove. (VERY DANGEROUS)
Then, when you get the phone ringing I would take all or at least 20% and put it right back into more flyers or better yet find a publication that goes directly into peoples mail boxes every month. There are lots of these mom and pop places that do this. Your ad will be mixed in with other service peoples ads and even a couple window washers ads. It is still okay.
Do you want real numbers? This is MY area, I can’t speak for anybody else but I can spend under $400 for the month and generate around $10k or a little less with these mom and pop places that advertise. (This is stricly residential talk)
I can give you more advice on what to look for in an ad place but once the calls come in re-invest back into marketing.
This 4x6 multipurpose flier will be hard to work with as to making it effective. I am hoping it is 2 sided. If not you could pass out 10,000 and get next to no calls.
Is there an offer for window cleaning as well as the $20 gutter coupon?
I do flyers all the time. It’s a numbers game though. The more you put out there the more calls you will get. I usually hit a hood that I just did a job in or a neighboring hood that I know the residents have the spendable income. You may paper one hood and get nothing and then hit theone across the street and get 3+, you just never know.
Keep in mind that you may get a call from a flyer that you put out months prior. This is why I do not put an expiration date on my flyers because a person may not be ready yet to have their windows, gutters or carpet cleaned before the expiration date. For whatever reason, maybe they just had them cleaned and was not happy with the service from that company. Just like food, once it expires it gets thrown out. You may want to put something like "limited time offer"
I have attached one of my flyers. I also have one almost identical but with a window & gutter cleaning coupon instead of carpet & windows. But both flyers let them know I do all three services. On my online coupons I recently started offering an additional discount for any 2 services and a bigger discount for all 3 services. I’ve received a few customers with this offer. Thinking about adding it to my flyer.
This is sorta true, sorta dangerous too. Passing out more equals more spending (it’s not an investment unless it makes money). If I need to spend an extra $2,000 to get two more sales, I will be out of business in a hurry.
The only number that never changes is advertising costs. It cost just as much to get a 10% response as it does to get an .01% response. I advise to refine our ads by testing in smaller batches, then increase when we have a solid piece.
All advertising is relative to our marketing budget, not on what ifs. If there is more to lose than there is to gain, trash it and start over.
I know most on here do not have a lot of advertising dollars, we need to squeeze every little bit we can from it.
In my case… Other than free ads on the internet and word of mouth, flyers are one of cheapest forms of advertising I do. I would doubt a one man operation is spending $2000 on flyers. I design & print my own flyers. Spend $35 for ink to print 3000 flyers (3 per page). If I get one job from those flyers I made a profit. I average 7 per 3000. If even 2 of those new customers become regular customers I am still making a profit from those same 3000 flyers. I get a better response & ROI from flyers that I do any other paid advertising I do.
Fliers are far and away the best way I have got business. It destroyed my mailed post cards. I plan on doing 10,000 a month April-Nov this year. (unless I retire the squeegee by then)
To optimize our marketing now will increase the ad response, and of course increase our profit.
To always think small, keeps us small. If you were to increase your response to 1% on your current fliers, you would have 30 calls rather than 7. Even at .5% you would be doing way better.
Even though you are really not paying much, you could be losing LOTS.
Whoa! 10K fliers. Do you distribute those yourself or do you hire help? I do mine myself. Hell, I’m 42. I’d be to tired to do any jobs after walking & putting that many out, even over a 7 month period. Thats alot of hoofin. 3K a year for me seems like alot. Right now I just put them out on a few neighbors homes of jobs I do or if I have time between jobs I’ll hit a few streets in the area. Although, I have thought about hiring a flyer distribution company to put out 1K a month.
Heck no I don’t hand them out anymore! I hire a distributer and it costs me around $400 per 10,000. I have the fliers printed and drop shipped directly to them.
I have been reading, and although many of you are selective on which neighborhoods you canvas your fliers, in any case, if you are self canvasing, it is taking your own time, or money if you are paying someone else to do the work. Personally I am limited at both aspects, not yet officially in business, and working full time elsewhere … my time and money is limited.
I live in a bedroom/rural foothill community, most of the community is well established with money, as it was at the time, the place where people came to retire. It has grown from a retirement community to a community where people came to escape the hustle and bustle of big city, they commute to the valley. In other words, the majority of the homes, are nice ones.
My thoughts were, why not partner up with a few local successful Avon distributors to help with getting fliers out into the neighborhood? They purchase new catalogs usually every other week and they distribute them to their existing customers and often door hang them elsewhere. You can do a trade, offer to purchase their catalogs for that campaign in exchange for them including a flier in a book. As many of you have mentioned, often it is someone seeing your flier a few times before they give you a call. Also if you personally know the representative, it also works as a personal recommendation from them.
yeah dude … its a numbers game … you might not see a return until you put out 5000 flyers, most people throw them away or use them to catch bird dung… just keep putting them out until you get responses if you dont get responses then you best redesign your flyer… more money but better return
1% is tough but I have done it many times. Try 4% last January!
The only numbers game this is are the number of dollars wasted. Optimize your flier (not graphically- my 4% was b/w with no picture) to find the right response grabber.
Even at a very possible to do .5% response we can get 25 calls from a 5000 distribution.
Can you imagine 25 new customers a week? That is only a measly $4325 a week for an average sale of $175. Your right, it is a numbers game.
People seem to be looking at fliers as “so cheap it does not matter”. Add up the wasted time and money at the end of the year and it wont look so cheap. The real cost is the jobs we could have got if only our ad was a little better… that could be 10s of thousands.
It IS NOT ok to get low response. Put work into this wonderful form of advertising.
