2008 vs 2009 advertising $ vs response

[causalitist]

2008:
yellow pages leader ad as only advertising, business name "budget lawn care"
added 40 mowing accounts, 20 spraying accounts

2009:
same size yellow pages add, but now the very first listing
changed name to elite turf care
got very nice website and 298 clicks from google ads for $720
so basically at least doubled advertising
added 6 mowing accounts, 15 spraying accounts

obviously its the economy, but i want to get a feel for the response you guys got and how your advertising changed this year.

curious if other people had roughly the same decrease in ad response, or if our name change had something to do with it...

[Az Gardener]

I was at a round table with about a dozen other business owners of various sizes in Feb. My biz coach holds them a couple of times a year, they are all from other parts of the country. This is a good group to bounce ideas off of because of their business experience and they are my target market.

I was thinking of trying to use the "green" or organic approach as we are very environmentally friendly in our day to day practices or promoting a "holistic approach" of being proactive in our care for our clients properties. They were brutal in shooting those ideas down. "sounds expensive" is what they all said.

Like it or not the perception of the general public is Green and proactive both cost more. I don't believe that, but that wont help if I never get a chance to talk to a prospect.

A long time employee of mine left and started his own thing shortly after that and that is his marketing approach "environmentally sound landscape care" he has had a website up since day one and ran adds in newspapers and done a few fliers and did some door knocking too. Not a single call to bid.

Perception is reality my friends.

[causalitist]

wow... so u think the name change might be part of it?

[Az Gardener]

The short answer is yes but you need to ask your clientele to find out for sure.

Two things happened from last year to this

The economy went into the toilet
You changed your name to focus more on quality rather than low cost


Oh and you upped your ad budget and are getting fewer responses.

You might try survey monkey and run a survey I just got one and am considering using them to float some ideas.