Anyone ever use the newspaper to advertise in your area to promote your services? What kind of returns have you seen? I understand the advantages of convasing with flyers in individual neighborhoods.
I had a large response rate last season. However, the big thing to keep in mind is they were all over the place. I had to turn down a lot of jobs simply because they were out of my serving area. I would say that I picked up around 20 accounts from the paper turned down 20+ due to serving area, and did the estimate but did not pick up another 10+. That is without looking at the #'s. You will get alot of price shopping, so be careful not to waste to much time on these leads.
I've done newspaper ads many times before with so so success. I usually only had a realitivly small ad though.
See if you can't cut a deal with the carrier to use insert ads for only selected routes. Not sure if they will do it or not but I know I get some ads that are specifically targeted to nearby restaurants.
Thanks for the info. Trinity. I think I'll give it a go cause I have other friends in lawn care that will probably want any leads that are out of my area and I would keep any of the ones close by. Out4now - thanks for the info, you gave me a good idea with that because I have a friend that delivers a small local paper in our area! I will give him a call and see if I can work out something with him.
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Honestly, even though I have lived here for several years I have not paid a lot of attention to the local classified adds. I live in a very populated area where the houses are going up like popcorn and have been for years so even though there are many doing lawncare you don't even view them as competition. I spoke with a lady in the classifieds at the local paper yesterday and she helped me with an add to start in another month or so. She said the feedback she gets every spring from the people she lists for lawn care is that they are overwhelmed with calls. Guess I'll find out!
Overwhelmed with calls is one thing, overwhelmed with sales is another. PITA's go price shopping every chance they get. The best is when you get what I call the e-Bay customer. So how much? X dollars, can you do it for (insert lesser amount) They think its an auction or something. I think someone should sell a No PITA's bumper sticker lol. We can put a picture of Bobby's shovel on it.
Using the paper , well , you must be consistent , it's only good for that it gets seen over & over , people remember it so when they look in the phone book , they will recognize your name
We have a couple small papers in our community. the small papers they deliver by mail to every house these papers i did very well with. It cost about 50 a month for 4x4 inch add. the reg paper cost 170.00 a month got nothing but headache calls from.
