Group,
As more and more people go wireless only,
the phone books are becoming less of a value to advertise in. I say this because people that don’t have a land line DON"T receive a distributed phone book, hence less exposure.
My personal house phone is wireless and not listed in the new book. I’m not saying we shouldn’t advertise just what would be a better value, newspaper, internet, radio,TV?
We’ve been getting more ROI on our website than the phone book. In fact we’ve made more money off jobs landed from website interest than both phone books combined. I still get enough business from the phone book ads to justify keeping them but that could change.
Internet.
By the end of the year I’ll have spent over $3600 on yellow page ads in 2 books. I’ve gotten about $800 out of it. Next year I’ll be doing just one single line in both books, and they still want over $100/month.
I’ve spent about $800 on internet advertising. I’ve gotten about $10,000.
I might try the local paper next spring, but not the big regional one.
One thing you left out was direct marketing…postcards, door hangers, fliers, etc. I’m going to take the money I save from the phone book expense and put some of into more internet advertising and some into direct marketing.
This year my phone book ad did very well for getting some large commercial jobs. I got few residential jobs here and there. But, I was surprised to get as many calls as I did from bigger commercial clients, ie: retirement homes, mid-rise, banks, etc. I renewed my ad for next year.
John - How big is your ad? I’m paying $75/mo., in the Dex book, for a 1 1/2’ (maybe one inch…I can’t remember) ad. I won’t be paying for a phone book ad next year…unless they give me the same one for $25/mo.
I track everything, and I haven’t received a call from the phone book ad in 3-4 months. At that, I’ve had less than ten calls in 10 months. Zero conversions, as they were all shopping price.
I have a one line ad in the Denver book and a dollar bill sized ad in
the Boulder book. Last year I had a 4 line 2 color ad in both books
last year. I got more from Boulder last year, so I decided to focus
the dollars there this year. I got one large house from Boulder from
the ad
[QUOTE=World Mail Auto Poster;54867]people that don’t have a land line DON"T receive a distributed phone book[QUOTE]
I receive one and I no longer have a land line.
Last year I did not renew my ATT yellow page add which I was paying $130 a month for some small adds, but kept my Yellow Book adds for $175 a month. The ATT book as been shrinking and hardly worth the paper it’s printed on. I recently hooked up with a company that set me up with a basic website, but optimized for my location in a 50 mile radias. So, I’m still in the process of generating results from that, so time will tell. No doubt who you are, this is the time to review how we all spend our ad dollars. Good topic…until later
Year to date, here’s where our business came from:
BNI 12%
Chamber/Merchants Association 1%
Friends & relatives of customers 15%
Sub from janitor services 3%
Newspaper ad 0.2%
Realtors 0.3%
Repeat customers 62%
Phone book 4%
Trade show 0.3%
Web site & internet 2%
What form of internet advertising do you use?
Can you share exactly how you track this ?
Could you also clarify if there is any overlap? ( For example; if a current customer heard about you from the yellow pages, are you counting that as a current customer ? )
THanks
I’ve got a website. I designed it myself. It needs work. Next year I’ll probably take the dollars I would have spent on the phone book and apply some towards a professionally designed site.
I’m listed at the Window Cleaning Network. I’m listed at every free site you can find. The more places you list at, the better your position on the search results of the major search engines.
By the way, part of the $3600 I’m spending on the yellow pages this year includes $900 for a “premium” listing on the Dex Yellow Pages: Online Phone Book Directory for Local Business Listings yellow pages site. When someone goes there and looks up window cleaning in Boulder, I’m the 4th from the top of the search result for Boulder, and the top result for several suburbs (click the link to see the result). In spite of this, I’ve only gotten 2 emails all year, 3 phone calls, and 3 website views. Not only are people not looking for me in the phone book, they’re not even looking for me on the phone book’s web site.
For those of you who haven’t, list your business on Google Maps. When someone searches for particular services in my area (“service” Fort Collins), I show up in the Google Map at the top of the page. It’s a free service, and it only took about a month before I started showing up in the map on searches.
John,
What are some of the “Free” sites that you mentioned. I would like to get our website included in as many as possible without paying any more money. I am already spending too much on two phone books and a website, around $500 per month. Thanks.
We started about four years ago to reduce our presence in the yellow pages. We now just have a bold listing and we have seen an increase in residential cleanings.
Our local telephone company is stopping to produce the white pages and will only give you a copy if you request. The only reason they keep the yellow pages is that it is a profit producer. It seems to me that the majority of people are looking towards the web. We have increased our presence on the web through our web site and paying for a premium placement.
So, from what I am hearing here is that the phone book is losing it’s punch and may not be worth the price. As a fledgling residential company, with limted advertising dollars, where is my money best spent? I am Currently using door hangers (which are very time cosumming to distribute) and am getting contacts from about 1 out of 100. I am also targeting neighborhoods with homes in the 350k+ level. The average home in this area is around the 240k level. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.
Phone book has been very good over the decades, but we are definitely in a time of transition and need to find new ways to reach customers and for them to find us
Even the phone book knows they’re going the way of the 8-track tape or even cd’s
The problem is in this economy, fewer than ever are looking to begin with - web, phone book whatever
If they aren’t looking, the only choice is to “go to” them through other means
Finding the better value will be a costly trial and error (for sure for myself over the last couple years) with different results for each, depending on the unique situations in each area
Direct mail works very well for me. I target specific neighborhoods that I want to target. But, you have to be consistent in sending them mailers. A lot of them won’t call you after seeing one card, but if they continue seeing your card, they recognize you as a strong, viable company. Also, from your county accessors office, regularly get a list of homes in a certain area you want to service, valued at $350k or above. Send them cards.
Besides direct mail, if you don’t have one already, get a website. We’re all talking about how the phone book is dying, it’s because everybody’s going to the phone book. Get your site out there.
Don’t concentrate on the value of the home, get the median income for the areas your advertising to.
Don’t be fooled by someone who lives in a $350,000 home but has income of $50,000, because that person probably does not have the expendable income to hire you.
First, if you haven’t done so already, list all your information at http://windowcleaningnetwork.com/
Second, Gary only requires you to put your name, company name and/or location in your signature. You’ll note that in my signature I put my name, company name, location, phone number, and website. Every post anyone makes here gets archived at http://windowcleaningnetwork.com/ So, if I have my info in my signature, and I post here a lot, I’ll increase my exposure as far as the search engines are concerned. All this information is in my signatures everywhere I post, here, and on pay sites, and on free sites.
Third, trade links with other companies. You’ll notice a links page on my site. Trading links is supposed to help with your search engine results. I’ve heard this doesn’t work as well as it used to, but it’s free so why not do it?
I’m not giving out all my information here, as I have competition in the area that I don’t want to give all my secrets to (no, not you Mike T. 
). Everything I found for free listings I found by researching on my own. We all experience slow times, whether we’re in Florida or someone else. Next time you slow down, commit to internet research, finding all the free sites you can post to, all the free sites you can list with, etc. Relationships Matter | LinkedIn is one I can think of off the top of my head. Your local chamber of commerce may let you list on their site for free. Just do some research and list everywhere you can, within your budget.
By the way, I’m willing to trade links with anyone who wants to trade links with me.
