# Best advertisement



## FARMBOSS (Oct 12, 2006)

what form of advertisement has worked the best for everybody


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## dhuffnmu (Oct 12, 2006)

What's up fellow Michigander. Word of mouth is the best.


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## FARMBOSS (Oct 13, 2006)

*re*

ya Ive had a lot of success with word of mouth, phonebook ad wasnt that great, Ive been on my own since May and I'm a little nervous about keeping work for the winter because Ive been constantly reinvesting, I got a bandit 200 chipper, new 350 dump and 5 stihl saws including a 660 36", and its almost all paid off but I havent saved too much for the winter, on the bright side im only 20 years old so I dont have a lot at risk, so Im trying to see what other forms of advertisement have worked well for everyone else, I have saved a few oak trimming jobs though, do you stay pretty busy in the winter???


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## daveyclimber (Oct 17, 2006)

Everybody will say word of mouth is the best advertisement and rightly so. The problem is that it takes a long time to get the ball rolling. I have found that mailing out a simple flyer has made our small company tens of thousands of dollars. They have brought more income than our 8 phone book ads have. On weekends I drive around town or a neighboring town and write down addresses of places that look in need of tree work, generally the more upscale homes and apartment complexs. I may mail out a few hundred flyers and get only a half dozen calls but will generally be several thousand dollars in work for just a little over a hundred in cost of stamps,flyers and envelopes


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## dhuffnmu (Oct 17, 2006)

Hey Farmboss,

Work tends to get slow this time of year up here. You really just have to stick with it and do what you can. I am fortunate to be doing some really good sized jobs at the moment so makes me feel a little bit better. I got alot of oak trims saved for winter. Yesterday did a 5k crane job. Tommorrow got 3 maple trims and locust trim jobs. So a variety of work will come big and small you got to learn to take them all. Good luck buddy. Stick in there you will be alright. The biggest thing I will recommend. Is do good work and you will just about always have work.


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## vctree (Oct 18, 2006)

treeservicedirect.com was a decent way to get leads. they charge a fee per lead and it is up to you to follow up and price correctly. it was a decent way for me to get my foot in the door with a few neighborhoods. if you can, lawn signs were a incredible way to get you name out.


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## ShoerFast (Oct 18, 2006)

Agree that phone-books are for companies with too much money!

Word of mouth is by far the best, but perhaps the slowest. 

Have you tried meeting with a few of perhaps biggest potentials, set up meeting a few Property Managment firms, Builders and Developers, ask a few questions and if opportunity arises, tell them what you can/will do for them, if they get a chance to like you, your in.


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## trevmcrev (Oct 20, 2006)

ShoerFast said:


> Agree that phone-books are for companies with too much money!
> 
> Word of mouth is by far the best, but perhaps the slowest.
> 
> Have you tried meeting with a few of perhaps biggest potentials, set up meeting a few Property Managment firms, Builders and Developers, ask a few questions and if opportunity arises, tell them what you can/will do for them, if they get a chance to like you, your in.



Yeah the phone book really sucks. I INVEST about $40,000 a year in the darnded thing and what do ya know, it alone accounts for about $340,000 worth of our work. Seriously, what ive found in the yellow pages (main book here) is small ads dont work and are a waste of money, lucky to give a return on investment or break even. You have to go big. Think about it, when you need something from the book do you call the little one liner ads or do you call the few bigger ads most local to you.

The real secret is dont rely on one type of marketing to generate leads for you. Try for several different stratagies and most importantly, Test & Measure. That means ask every enquiry how they found or heard about you and RECORD THIS DATA. Monitor the results and youll soon know what is working and what isnt. Then you can justify things and know what advertising is an "expense" and what is an "investment". Keep doing ALL the things that work and drop anything that doesn't.

Personally here i find builders/developers among the worst clients to have. They are profit focused and for them the cheapest job is the best. They think they are doing you a favour because they have so many more projects coming up for you so you should give them a great price. Oh great, i can work cheap for you again and again! They also tend to be the worst payers. You can spend more time and effort chasing the coin than doin the job in the first place.

Good luck.
Trev

Trev


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## a_lopa (Oct 20, 2006)

Agreed trev,developers are a nightmare...


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## Stumped_4_Life (Nov 5, 2006)

These are the fourms of advertiseing that give us the most for our dollar

1. Doing quality work
2. our "brand" (Pushing company logo and colors)
2. Jobsite signs
3. Flyers & door hangers
4. Yellow pages


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## JUDGE1162 (Nov 9, 2006)

Word ofmouth is always best, can't beat the price. Flyers are good too, depending on your area, you can just print up a bunch of fliers and good door to door with them (saves postage) but mailing are not that expensive a single job can pay for it. If you have them some times you ca get cheap ads in local papers, penny saver mags, valuepak has worked well for me with a small coupon $50 off any $500 or larger job something like that.

If you can lawn signs of jobs you just did most people will leave them up for a few weeks without issue and should be out while you are working for sure.

Flyers at the local garden shop or harware store are good too.

While yellow pages are not cheap lots of homeowners do you them.


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