nope, can't say I have

 

I have your better off putting an ad in the paper for 2 months with the amount they want to run their mailer for 1 time.

 

I just did the same as well. They were sposed to go out this month but there going out next month instead. I got 10,000 flyers printed and mailed out for $435, not too shaby. You may get a lower response rate with them because of all the othe rflyers they mail out with yours. I will soon find out. Main thing you want to do is give coupons if your putting your flyer in the Valpak.

 

My old boss tried ValPak once or twice, but the return was never worth the investment. The vast majority of customers we got thru them lasted just one season, the next season they are once again scouring for fresh coupons.

One additional problem we ran into- we had a coupon for "10% off any mulch job". Our existing customers would see this coupon and want the same deal, my boss would only give it to new customers. So we lost some old customers this way. Actually, probably lost more than we gained.

I think if you're going to try ValPak, you should be prepared to honor the coupons for existing customers as well.

 

I have read post of 1/2 dozen people on here that have used them....most seemed like they didn't have much luck with them. Personally, I have never used them.

 

apples to apples, your dollars would be better served in a good ol' fashioned flyer campaign. even to throw your flyer away, a prospective lead would have to touch it. with valpak, all i have to touch is that light blue envelope as i throw it away.

definitely report back with your lead tracking. i don't recall seeing anyone running this type of marketing of late, sp any info to share is good info.

 

I am using them for the 3rd year in a row with very good results.

 

I'm doing Valpac in 2 weeks , I'll let ya know how it turns out .
It's costing me $400 to reach about 20,000 .

Something better that just started 2 years ago is a booklet of post cards like of 30 or so pages .
Unlike the valpac , you don't have to open it up , just flip through it .
It looks nicer and gets a better responce .
I'm doing both this month .

Even better , but very expensive , is mailing my own post cards out .
Last year I mailed 40,000 , cost , $4,800.00 plus cost of printing , only $780.00 and they are half pages , cut down the middle to make a long and narrow card on carnary yellow .
Black ink.
Sorry to tell y'all , but , you are wasting your money with glossy shiny cards .
No body cares .
Mine are cheaper and stand out better .

 

ValPak was the biggest waste of money for me...and my ad included a 10% off the entire first season of mowing. I have had much better results putting those tear off flyers on the foodstore corkboards....most of my customers are from there. Also, the small local paper works well.

I will NEVER do ValPak again!

 

Val Pak- No Go. Never had any luck with it. Our best advertising has been a little paper called "The Penny Saver" $40.00 ad in April-June issues and its brought back probably 6k in income. This paper goes to over 80k potential customers now.:laugh: payup :drinkup:

 

Val Pak- No Go. Never had any luck with it. Our best advertising has been a little paper called "The Penny Saver" $40.00 ad in April-June issues and its brought back probably 6k in income. This paper goes to over 80k potential customers now.:laugh: payup :drinkup:

It's interesting how different methods work for different people. The Pennysavor has been horrible for us. Complete waste of money.

 

I used Val Pak last year. The sales rep talked me into running a 50,000 pc mailer for 2 consecutive months. The cost was $2600.00.

Now, my simple mind rationalzed the cost with expecting a 1/2% response rate. I get 3% respone from direct mail and 15% reponse from door hangers.

I got 3 calls. If those 3 customers stay with me for 4 years then I'll break even....

NEVER AGAIN

 

I used Val Pak last year. The sales rep talked me into running a 50,000 pc mailer for 2 consecutive months. The cost was $2600.00.

Now, my simple mind rationalzed the cost with expecting a 1/2% response rate. I get 3% respone from direct mail and 15% reponse from door hangers.

I got 3 calls. If those 3 customers stay with me for 4 years then I'll break even....

NEVER AGAIN

On average a prospective customer needs to see your ad at least 7 times before they will think to call you. Running an ad for only two months will not produce results. It is better to spend the money to run the ad for the duration of the season and continue the following season. Budget your money to do this with all your ads.

 

15% reponse from door hangers.

How many doorhangers did you hand out to get this response rate?

 

On average a prospective customer needs to see your ad at least 7 times before they will think to call you. Running an ad for only two months will not produce results. It is better to spend the money to run the ad for the duration of the season and continue the following season. Budget your money to do this with all your ads.

Point well taken. The subject of advertising is worth revisiting and reading posts on this forum has helped me considerably on the issue.

My experience with Val Pak my not represent a fair analysis because I listened to the salesperson and did not follow my orginal plan. Val Pak manages to find young attractive females. (maybe I should have said "Gawked" at the salesperson instead of listen). My intent was to compliment my newspaper and radio spots last year with the Val Pak offer and localize my advertisement so I'm not running all over the county measuring lawns. The Val Pak insert looked great and on the back side had 3 coupons for a variety of services but it went to a larger geographical area at the recomendation of the sales rep. Since I never used Val Pak before I set my expectations on what the "Hottie" said I should get. I would have been better off as you've pointed out, to keep the area smaller and run 4x or more.

To get a better measure of Val Pak I wonder if those of us who offer just 1 of the following:

Mowing
Fertilizer/Weed Control
Hardscape Landscape services

Or even if your comany offers all the above. Which one gets the higher respones from your Val Pak insert.

 

How many doorhangers did you hand out to get this response rate?

Last year I put out about 2000 door hangers. Now keep in mind these were new neighborhoods and out of the 230 calls only 50% lead to customers. Others are placed on both sides and across from active accounts.

As I run my route I'll spot a new development and return to do the door hangers.

I have an inside with a few developers who give me the heads up on additions to sub divisions etc...

 

out of the 230 calls only 50% lead to customers.

ooooonly 115 signed customers on a distribution of 2,000 doorhangers? you should definitely go back to the drawing board, or take some marketing courses at xavier.

the above was 100% per sarcasm. by any measure, 5.7% is a huge success.

tony

 

115 signed customers on a distribution of 2,000 doorhangers? by any measure, 5.7% is a huge success.

tony

No doubt!! It's a no brainer, stick with doorhangers. I wish they worked that well here. Shoot, 3% on postcards is great as well. I did 5000 last year and only received about 1/2%.