We spend a good deal of money on Yellow Pages ads. If you want to be big you gotta do this. But there's a secret. If you can't afford the top position (biggest ad) or at least one of the top 3 in your section (which should be LAWN CARE -- NOT -- Landscaping) then it's not cost effective. The top ad in any given catagory gets 50% of the calls for that catagory. The next 2-3 get 40% and the small ads get less than 3% each. A small ad will rarely pay for itself. This is from personal experience and a lot of research. <p>But, if you can't afford a big ad in your yellow pages, then there are other good options. We use all of these too;<p>Fliers - these are probably the second best form of advertising. The results are always good if you lay enough of them and you control which areas you want to target. Also, I only use black and white one sided fliers. They look very professional and have nice graphics, content, etc. But I get as much response from my 2 cent black and white copies as I ever did with my nice folded color ones. <p>Mailers - in my opinion, these are just the lazy man' way to lay fliers. And it doesn't get as much response or attention as a flier on the door does. Mailers get thrown away as junk mail a lot more often than fliers do. Still, they have their use. If you want to bomb 50,000 households all at once then this is how you do it. But it can be very expensive. <p>Joint Mailer Ads - This is a VERY lucritive deal. Recently I was approached by a local company who sends out coupons magazines only to upscale houses in 3 cities. They approached me with an idea that I loved and took advantage of. They would sell me a full-page, color ad, crafted by a graphic design company in town, for $950. Their usual price is $1350. This is per month. They hit 50,000 households. Now, here's the clencher! They had the idea to form a "Landscapers Cooperative", where I would list a variety of services and boxes at the bottom that said "For City A - call 555-1212. For City B call 555-1213, etc...." I went and sold each "box" to different landscapers in my area. Each box sold for up to $300. So if a customer was in City A and wanted a service they'd call him. City B would call my number, and city C would call another friend of mine. Now I went a step further and split the page into two halves. The top half was the Landscape Maintenance section and the bottom was the Landscape Contractor's section. I sold the bottom half to landscapers in this area the same way as the top half was divided. (In City A - call....) I sold these boxes to all the other companies and the total I brought in was $1100. I got my number in there for my city for totally free PLUS I made another $150. So I'll get the benefit of hitting the 15,000 or so homes that are targeted in my city for free! Any of you could do this. <p>Billboards - heck no. Are you crazy? They cost WAY too much. That's for huge companies. <p>Cold calls - tried it. Hated it. Response was decent. I got about 1 lead for every 30 calls. And I was targeting certain areas. But I couldn't handle the rejection. It sucked. If you got an iron will go ahead. It's a decent way to get leads. Otherwise it may be a good idea to hire a telemarketing company. They charge about $30 an hour. But the results could be worth it. <p>Signs, Truck lettering, etc. - This is a no brainer. In my opinion if you don't have a good, easy to recognize logo, USM, and phone number on your truck you are wasting valuable ad space. It costs me $80 to put lettering on our trucks. And they are the best looking logos and lettering in town. I just shopped around. We also use tent signs when we are at a job site for any good length of time. People can't see the side of a truck as they drive by as well as they can see a sign that's focused right at them. These are cheap forms of advertising that will work for years to come. <p>The Newspaper - most newspaper classifieds have a special section for "Lawn care" or "Home Services" or something. We get GREAT response from these - but only in the spring. Every other time of year is a waste of money. They do tend to attract a lower class of homeowners so you have to weed out the bad ones but you learn that over time. <p>Website - I am telling you guys. Over time, people are going to look on the web for all sorts of stuff. Even lawn maintenance. They already do. I got my first customer the other day strictly from a search engine. That doesn't happen very ofen but it will happen more and more in the future. Having a good web site and getting listed on the top 10 most used search engines will be very important in the coming years. <p>That's about all I can think of. And I am exhausted typing. Hope that helps. <p>----------<br>Jim Lewis - Lewis Landscape Services<br>http://www.lewislandscape.com