Newspaper Ads: Yes or No?????

[Sunrise Guy]

OK, I'm thinking seriously of placing a 4" X 6" ad in our local paper. It won't be cheap as I know from experience (in other fields) that you need to run at least a couple of month's worth of ads if you want to get a bit of bang for your buck. I'll probably hit every Saturday's gardening section for the next two months.

How many of y'all have run major ads in your daily? What has been your experience with it? Do you still do it? How much was your return vs. your outlay?

I leaflet, yellow page, hustle online, website, etc. The newspaper is another way to get the word out, as I see it.

Anyway---Your thoughts, please. Thanks!

 

[JayD]

Local paper

Hi Sunrise Guy,
We advertise in our local paper,pink pages,our local paper produces the most work for us,pink pages produces enought work to warrant the cost. In our area the local papers is the way to go,but we are in Australia,but they say you have to spend a buck to make a buck..tip, always ask where they heard of you that way you'll know what media returns the best profit for your dollar.
Hope This Helps

 

[windthrown]

Timely local ads...

In my experience you do not need a large splashy ad. A well placed consistant ad in the local paper in the classified section under gardening and arborists for several months did really well for us many years ago when I was in the trade. Actually after about 6 months my brother and I pulled the ad as we had more than enough word-of-mouth business. That was for a company we created doing private and business landscaping and tree work. We found after time that just answering the phone and actually showing up to do bids and do the work was 80% of success.

Also advertize into strength. Meaning Saturday ads in the gardening section are the best time and place. Also advertizing in spring is the most effective, when people are thinking about spring cleaning and getting outside and enjoying their yard. Winter ads just do not get the same results, except after big storms, when we always ran an ad: Have chainsaws, will travel! We did really well after big storms.

 

[treevet]

I am of the opinion that to advertise in the busy season in the paper might show a little desperation unless you re new or a huge company.. What little work there is out there in the winter might be captured w the old "winter rates" gig (doesn t mean you have to give winter rate]. Make sure you put ISA cert #, you aren t even in the game w out it around here it is such a basic level of knowledge.

 

[kbyam13]

local ad depends on town

I find that demographics plays a huge role. We advertise in local papers of towns and districts that have a stronger sense of community. Papers that talk about issues specific to that community are read by their taxpayers, and your ad will be seen. City papers are a waste to us. We have small ads in the YPages, but mainly so current clients can find our number in a pinch.

 

[CRN Tree]

I run ads in two local papers. Have found them to be very productive. But most of your business comes form word of mouth. I have ads in the two local saws shops at there request. They were getting so many people asking about tree cutting they had me put up an ad. Probably half of my business comes from them.

 

[begleytree]

Our local paper has a 'call the experts' block for buisness offering services. I keep an add in there. at $720 a year it brings me many hundreds of times more work than my $5K a year dollar bill size yellow page ad. So much more that I have dropped the yp ad to the free listing only.
I think throwing an ad bruied in the endless small print colums of the standard classifieds would be a waste of time.
I took 6 months and used my distinctive ring number in the paper and calls to my normal line (yp ad) nearly ceased. and I get a lot of buyers from the paper, verses price checkers from the yp.

imo, if you consider some forms of advertising as a 'desperation ad' you are missing out on a lot of calls.

I use the phone co YP, yellow book YP, newspaper, movie theater listings, ball team sponsorship (includes radio ad during the local game) and permantly signed equipment. there are no direct mailer firms here, and I haven't jumped onto cable TV ads yet/if ever. I personally ignore street corner sitting benches myself so I don't use them either, and am thinking about a billboard.

I too bought a block of normal page advertising in the same paper as the experts colum and found that I got very little calls for a lot of outlay. imo, short and to the point is key, too much info in a print ad causes most people to skim/glean and go on.
by far my best form so far (besides word of mouth) has been the buisness directory in the local paper.
-Ralph

 

[Sunrise Guy]

Our local paper has a 'call the experts' block for buisness offering services. I keep an add in there. at $720 a year it brings me many hundreds of times more work than my $5K a year dollar bill size yellow page ad. So much more that I have dropped the yp ad to the free listing only.
(snip)
-Ralph

Hmmm---Ralph, you've given me an idea. Thanks! The local paper here has a business card-type section for ads from service companies. Maybe I'll try an ad there before I hit the big time and big bucks with a display ad.

 

[tree md]

Also check to see if your local paper has online classifieds. I was able to list in my city's online classifieds for free and was also able to list in the services section for free. I would get at least 1 job a week off of that free ad and more times than not, 2 or more a week. It helps if you have a website to link your ad to and offer things like 10% off for mentioning our ad. Like Treevet said, you can metion "special winter rates" or offer a 10% senior citizen discount.

Good luck!

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Some of my clients run the NP adds for the first few months of the season. The cannot respond qiuck enough in peak season and get too few calls in the winter to pay for them.

One runs one in the fall to build winter work backlog.

 

[rfwoodvt]

Something to consider is what percentage of your annual budget you wish to spend on marketing.

At one time 10% to 18% of your budget was considered "normal." According to recent data marketing budgets are now heading upwards of 30%. That sounds like a lot.

Consider that consumers have many choices and will likely choose the path of least resistance. With successful marketing we pave the way to make it easier for them to call us!

Since we have a whole lot more competition for thier attenion than ever before it will make sense to spend a goodly portion of our annual budgets on such things as Local Papers.

Newsprint ads seem high and un-affordable. And it is probably overpriced. Thats why it is critical to have a good marketing plan and ad design.

Consider this: if our total operating budget is $100,000 for the year then 10% of our budget
is $10,000. That can cover YP, NP and direct campaigns for at least part of the season

Don't forget too that to do a good campaign you want multiple exposures. Committing to muliple ads sets you up to negotiate better deals. We just recently contacted all the local rags for ideas and pricing for a couple of "scenario's" using multiple weeks of ads.

A couple of them, especially in our Key towns are hot for our business and keep sending us better and better offers. We first thought we could only "afford" 6 weeks worth of ads but the longer we wait the better the offers are.... We are now looking at nearly 2.5 times that amount of ads for a bit more than we originally expected to spend. We expect that we can also get the "business section" ads to be thrown in Free.

Are the local rags worth it? Time will tell but if nothing else, we will be more familiar to the community and a familiar name will get called sooner.

BTW, we have long understood that though the YP ads bring unsatisfactory results it serves as what is perhaps the first "litmus" test our customers put us through. If they want to call us they check to see if we are "legit" by looking for us in the YP.

If they see a display ad they are confident we're on the up and up. They don't spend a lot of time looking so that is why the display ad is so important.

Search online for Marketing Plans or "best print ads" and what not....or PM me and I'll send you some links you might find helpful in determining what you want your ads to tell your prospects.

Also, if you are serious about growing a large business, even if later on, it will be worthwhile to find someone who knows marketing to bounce ideas off.

Hope this helps!

 

[M.D. Vaden]

Newspaper ads worked good for me in the Portland west suburbs.

Newspaper ads worked miserably poor near Medford, Oregon (and I've heard the same from other businesses with no testimonial to the contrary yet).

8.5 x 11 flyer inserts brought better results than display ads in the papers near Portland.

I could insert 2000 flyers and get more calls than the ad running in 10,000 papers.

 

[windthrown]

Advertize in spring!

I am of the opinion that to advertise in the busy season in the paper might show a little desperation unless you re new or a huge company.. What little work there is out there in the winter might be captured w the old "winter rates" gig (doesn t mean you have to give winter rate].

You might think that, but it simply is not the case. Advertize into strength and you will be far better off. Movie ads are 5 times bigger in the Friday newspaper, because that is when people go to the movies. Spring and early summer is when people think about tree work. No one is going to think that you are desparate running ads for tree work in spring. Far from it. What little work there is out there in winter will not really pay for the ad, and I do not recommend it. Maybe run a small teaser ad once a week in winter to let people know you are still around. The trick here is to have a sustained ad over time. People see the ads, and forget about them. Later they see them again, and think about tree work being done, and forget about it. Then they see the ad again, remener that they saw it before, and think about the tree work that needs doing, and then call.

Advertize when demand is highest and you will get the biggest bang for your ad buck. They teach that in business school... I have some engineering degrees, but I also took some business classes when I started on my MBA once. If you are licensed you may or may not need to post your license number, depending on the state or province you are in. My brother and I were never licensed, (not a big thing back then) but we were insured and bonded, and we mentioned that in the ads. We ran the ad in the professional work section of the local multi-town newspaper. There were maybe 8 of us listed there. I also ran ads of my own in the local weekly paper in spring for working on orchids (time to repot them). I got a lot of calls from that ad too. Like I said before, after 6 months we had enough work (year round) not to have to advertize any more. Word of mouth was enough from then on, for both commercial and private landscraping accounts and new landscape and tree work. It is when you can charge more than average, and say 'no' to the jerks and idiots that want you to do insane and stupid stuff that you will have become a success.

 

[Timberhauler]

I've got a ad in two different papers around here...They are not big ads,they are just basically a classified ad under the Services section of these papers...They well more than pay for themselves.

 

[Sunrise Guy]

You might think that, but it simply is not the case. Advertize into strength and you will be far better off. Movie ads are 5 times bigger in the Friday newspaper, because that is when people go to the movies. Spring and early summer is when people think about tree work. No one is going to think that you are desparate running ads for tree work in spring. Far from it. What little work there is out there in winter will not really pay for the ad, and I do not recommend it. Maybe run a small teaser ad once a week in winter to let people know you are still around. The trick here is to have a sustained ad over time. People see the ads, and forget about them. Later they see them again, and think about tree work being done, and forget about it. Then they see the ad again, remember that they saw it before, and think about the tree work that needs doing, and then call.

Advertize when demand is highest and you will get the biggest bang for your ad buck. They teach that in business school... (snip)

Well said. I could not understand why the other poster thought that placing ads during peak demand times was a sign of desperation. Maybe this individual believes there actually is such a thing as "too rich."

 

[windthrown]

Well said. I could not understand why the other poster thought that placing ads during peak demand times was a sign of desperation. Maybe this individual believes there actually is such a thing as "too rich."

Or getting too many calls... I worked for a contractor once that was so busy doing bids all the time he hired me to do the work

 

[Sunrise Guy]

Or getting too many calls... I worked for a contractor once that was so busy doing bids all the time he hired me to do the work

Yeah, I can see there might be a flood of calls, but that kind of "problem" I don't mind having. Usually, I'll work one day, bid the next, if it starts getting stacked up. I actually like the day on/next day off schedule, and have never lost a gig, as far as I know, because I needed to schedule it a week down the line. I am working a week-long job next Monday pruning five acres of oaks, but I'll see what happens if I try to do bids after 6PM here. Or, I might leave my crew in the field and go off to bid, but I like being onsite so that probably won't happen.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Or getting too many calls...

It can be a problem if you get too many to respond to. We've all heard that people call several companies in the summer to no avail.

 

[windthrown]

The good problem to have...

It can be a problem if you get too many to respond to. We've all heard that people call several companies in the summer to no avail.

I found that was a good problem to have. Mainly 'cause I could drop the crappy accounts and skip the problem jobs, and pass up the people that I did not like working for. Like this one...

I had several landscape accounts in Pebble Beach for some real nice retired people. Rich beyond belief, but still nice people. Anyway, I got a call from an airline pilot to do some tree work at his estate there. Maybe all of an acre. So I drive up and go to the front door of a McMansion and knock. A woman answers the door, and says, "servants are to go to the back door" and slams the door in my face. Man, I was shocked. I worked for people far richer and famous and they were far more respectable. Anyway, I say ":censored: that!" and walk to my car. On the way the husband/pilot runs after me and tries to get me to do the bid. I tell him off good and say no :censored: way was I gonna take the kind of crap that his wife was dishing out. I also advise him to get a divorce, and drive off to do another bid. That felt great. To be able to do that. Starting out I grovelled and did come real crappy jobs for some real crappy people that complained and griped and ?????ed and wanted to bid me down. Or jobs that I got call-backs on becasue some limb that was hanging too close to the house that they did NOT WANT ME TO TOUCH when I was pruning, but now, suddenly, absolutely had to be removed, THIS INSTANT!

It takes all kinds... I do not miss commercial landscraping or tree work, really. Now I can do it here for fun for myself. :hmm3grin2orange:

 

[diltree]

I'm gonna say no on the newspaper add....I read the newspaper every day, and have never used a contractor from the ads section