Advertising

[zturncutter]

During the time you have been in business, not including word of mouth, what has been your most productive advertising method? Why do you think it works?:confused:

[BSDeality]

lawn signs. Its targeted advertising. i put them in the neighborhoods i want to work in (assuming i already have an account there.) i picked up 4 new clients within a half mile of one of my previous accounts this fall with a lawn sign. less drive time = more profit.

[zturncutter]

BSDeality, where do you have yours made?

[paponte]

Signage including, truck, trailer, jobsites. Also phone book, local paper advertising. :cool:

[Avery]

Yellow pages. People use them when they are looking for a specific service.

[sildoc]

Flyers!
Second year of haveing a yellowpage add so I am expecting more name recongnition.
I am also going to try door hangers this year hoping for a more professional look. Good luck.

[JimLewis]

Most productive advertising In this order (#1 being the best);

1) Flyers

2) Website (not just having one. That does nothing. But actually learning how to get your website to pop up at the top of search engines)

3) Service Magic

4) Truck Lettering

5) Yard Signs

Advertisement methods that have been totally a waste of time for us (#1 being the worst)

1) Yellow Pages. I've had small ads. I've had big ads. Color ads, B&W ads, different categories, everything. They've never paid off and every freaking time, no matter how big the ad - I end up getting ZERO calls for 6 months of the year. And yet I still paid hundreds of dollars each month to get nothing. TOTAL WASTE. Worst return on my investment I've ever had. (Now do you want me to tell you how I REALLY feel? :D )

2) Mailers. I sent out several thousand a few years back to targeted neighborhoods. Very nice quality. And again - almost zero return on my investment. Total waste of my time.

3) Newspaper classifieds - was okay when I was new and was a low-baller. But now that we're established, licensed, bonded, insured, etc. I find that we're too expensive for people shopping the paper for lawn care guys. Also, I don't like the kind of clients we used to get from the newspaper.

[Team Gopher]

Hi Zturncutter,

Here is a post (http://server2.lawnsite.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55888)from BSDeality that showed his signs. He made them. Very nice looking.

http://server2.lawnsite.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=518096

[zturncutter]

Thankyou for the input. I like jimlewis have found that the yellow pages is the worst return for the money and i have had all different sizes of adds. In the last three months i have had one call from the yellow pages and my add is the largest in my local directory!!!

[BSDeality]

I had 3 signs made professionally @ a vinyl sign shop. they ran about $50/ea with heavy duty stakes. I also had a 1'x6' banner made up to go across my tail-gate.

Here is the professionally made one:

<img src="http://server2.lawnsite.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=518093">

and here is one i made. I used about 10 coats of aerosol gloss over the top of it to seal out the elements.

<img src="http://server2.lawnsite.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=518096">

[GrassBustersLawn]

BEST

1. Yard Signs. I had 3 made up (Real Estate size 18"x24" I think) with my company name & phone #. I also had "rider" signs (little ones that attach under main sign 6"x24") that say "Fertilizer" and "Leaf Pickup" and "Aeration" so that I can customize them to the season.

2. Truck signage.

3. Flyers.



WORST

Mailers - combo deals such as ADVO or VAL-PAK, that you can target certain zip codes, but your ad is in with 30 other ads like the pizza parlor, etc.

Newspaper - Usually get calls for jobs outside of my area of operations.


Mike