Advertising...phone book?

Right now parking lots are covered in snow where I live, but I am coming up on my third year of business. I have been so cautious (or cheap) with my advertising funds. I don't know what is and isn't effective. Is it worth the money to get an advertisement in the phone book? What about logos on trailers? Numbers in lines?

it is hard to compete with large adds in the yellow pages so check your book to see what is there. I am listed 14 places in the book but only as 1 liners. (name and phone#) I have found the name on the equipment has been my best return for the $$. $100 spent on equipment lettering will last 10+ years ware $100 spent in a phonebook will last anyware from 1 month to 1 year depending on the size of the add. get the name out there and make the number easy to find. Different places require different advertising.

Totally agree with Dwan, found best dollars spent on Ad is lettering on vehicles and trailers, worst would be money spent on phone ads. Company listed in 5 differant books because of the area here three or four places each, survey of customers said trailer and vehicle was where they found numbers most of the time. Just my 2 cents worth Bob

To be brief IMHO yellow page ads are the biggest waste of marketing $$ most contractors make. I agree with the experiences of the above. Also be sure your web site name is prominently displayed on you vehicle signs and is short & easy to remember. Leave off the http part just www.myname.com . Remember a lot of people seeing you may be driving & unable to stop & write down a # and many people don't remember numbers well, but if a web address is "catchy" enough they will remember it. Also make sure the phone # and web address are the 2 main things on your signs, (and generally all advertising). If ANYBODY has ever had someone send them a letter asking for a quote because they saw their address on a job or vehicle sign or other "ad" please let me know...you would be the first (government or such RFP's don't count) yet I see many people wasting that valuable space with their full address. A simple city & state in small letters will do fine so they know you're not a "traveler". As I have posted elsewhere I attended a seminar by an expert on making yellow pages work & produce results and it can be done with a LOT of work. But he didn't realize if you "back-figured" his industry percentages only somewhere between 1% & 3% max. of commercial customers needing a service like striping will look in the yellow pages (the % is way higher for residential plumbers or auto-service...just his stats) Out of those who do the average one will call 3 ads so you are competing with 2 other people right away. You do HAVE to be in the yellow pages, but don't blow the money on big ads (they will also offer you much cheaper rates the first year but be much higher in following years and his stats also showed that only a tiny % of the time are books besides the "phone company" book worth anything at all. Well over 90-95% of callers still reach for the "phone company" book.

I get a lot more leads from my web site than I do Yellow Pages. A very large percentage of shoppers will go to the web rather than the phone book. When I get a call from someone who found my name in the Yellow Pages, she usually has called everyone in the book and is looking for the lowest price. One thing that has been Worth the money - a one line listing under "Pre-Cast Concrete Products". Folks call for bumper curbs and I get the other work too.

A few years back I advertised in yellow pages (five different phone books) under three different places in each book. Cost a lot of money. Not one phone call in the year I had my numbers in book, and I was first name in all and the only one in two books.

must be the area and not but 2 phone books with both lisitings of Nacogdoches and Lufkin Texas , i got a good deal on the cost of the advertisment and i get lots of work now in my area from it i live near both towns with Pop. of around 30,000 and also now getting calls from some of the smaller towns around this area...but like i said not as many phone books in this area as in the bigger cities...but it has helped me a great deal...

We are in 4 phonebooks with ads in all of them. South Carolina is not that big but we are doing alot of traveling this past year because of the phone book. See about 30 minutes away from me it goes into another area code. So in those phone books we have a 800 number in the ad. Which also has what we do and our website. Nothing spectacular just one colorbut big enough to make a difference. The way I see it is you get a 2-3 average size jobs a year from the ads and those jobs will pay for themselves. And you use the cost of the ads for taxes anyway. Just because you see a budwiser commercial on TV doesn't mean that everyone in the USA is going to drink that brand. With that in mind budwiser is still going to put up the money for the commercials. Don't get me wrong either. Putting signage on your equipment and on the jobs that you have complete is a good thing also. -Dean

Dean?? Everyone don't drinlk Bud?

wow Dean you said you were in SC and did great with the yellow pages.. I am just up the road from you in NC near Gastonia/Hickory... Didn't get a call the entire year.

Amazing so many people don't have luck with the phone book. When starting out, it created a many calls and many jobs. Now I've reduced it to a basic add, but still get calls every month. Different markets I guess.

I want to put the name of my business in a few places to cover different listings but I think I might get the best results from lettering my trailer. I just got the 6'x16' enclosed white trailer. I am trying to come up with ideas for the lettering. I know I want it professionally done as I do not know how to do this. Anybody have pictures of their trailers, trucks, or business cards they would not mind showing so I could get some ideas. Around here I have not seen many trailers lettered as a lot of companies are afraid of stuff getting stolen. I have to get some good locks for the trailer. Please post some pictures or email them to me. Thanks.

S.A.M wrote on Jan 13, 2006:Go to #8

South Carolina is not that big but we are doing alot of traveling this past year because of the phone book.

The way I see it is you get a 2-3 average size jobs a year from the ads and those jobs will pay for themselves. And you use the cost of the ads for taxes anyway. Don't get me wrong either. Putting signage on your equipment and on the jobs that you have complete is a good thing also. -Dean Remember you must do enough average jobs to pay for the ad to = the cost of the ad plus the cost of the same jobs you are missing time on to "pay for the ad". In other words $100 in advertising must produce $200 in revenue (often more depending on time & fixed overhead cost) or you lost money on it. Any more than small "line" ads I advocate, around here will easily cost $300 per month and up. So I don't know what your average striping job is but we were in 5 books (lots of travel and the 800# too) ourselves at one point so that would have been $18,000 per year or $36,000 to just break even which is way more than "2-3" average striping jobs for me. Wasting money to have write-off money off for taxes is NEVER a good reason to do something unless it is something like buying a striper you need at the end of the year that you were already going to buy in spring anyway. Put that money in a retirement account or MSA or other "benefit plans". Use tax deferred if you want. You can deduct that cost & still keep the money . (I will say my 85 year-old mother says she regrets doing her tax-deferred IRA because the tax rates have gone up so much in 20 years & interest rates down so it would have been cheaper to pay the taxes on it back when she was working than at the rates now when she takes it out. Just get a good planner & do your homework on what's best for you.) No arguments...Just some thoughts on costs because many "newbies" visit here & this is the type stuff they forget. They think "this newspaper ad cost $500 & I got a $500 job... it paid for itself" when the reality is you would have made more sitting on the couch with that Budweiser...the money is a wash and you lost your time, labor, wear & tear on equipment & vehicles, etc. so you lost money on the ad.

JImJack: What size add did you have? Do you have access in you add for the customer to see your work? (ex. webiste) And hickory is a good size town also. Is it a different area code than were you are located? This is what I believe. The yellow book is geared more toward the residental portion of this business. Don't get me wrong I will and still am knocking on here business's door that I see. But I have and one custmoer see if I was in the phonebiook to see if I was a actual business One customer called me the other week from kentucky! There is a local chain of stores that she wanted for me to put some bids on. First all she wanted was patch work done. Now she wants all here (7) sites patched,sealed and striped. The town that I live in has a two strip malls going up right down. A construction company out of Georgia is doing the work and they used the phone book to find me for a quote on the job. The reason that they were looking for a striper is because it would cost to much for him to come out and do 2 75 space lots. We got the job and now when that company does work in my area they are going to have my card on file and the general contractor is going to know who I am. In myrtle beach,sc I must have talked to and meet every paving contractor in the phonebook. I told them who I was and gave them the whole spill and then gave them a business card. Do I think that each paver keep my information ( insurance info and photos) and business card. No. But for the ones that work for down there if they lose my number all they have to do is look it up in phone book. Which they have done in the past. Myrtle beach has always been and always will be a city under construction. And people pave. Either it be asphalt or concrete. It is nice to get a piece of the pie and the contractors that use me know I get the job done for them and the inspector will not give them a hard time about the pavement markings. Also has anybody been watching tv and the family on the tv show says something about sealing the driveway? Everybody Loves Raymond, King oif the Hill, That 70's Show are all shows that have said something about sealing their driveway. Then the homeowner starts to wonder about sealing there driveway. They start looking for some research on the internet about sealing and then they open the phone book. All I am saying is that not every company is not the same. I believe that phone book is a good deal. I know there is no comparison to actually talking to a business face to face. -Dean

Dean, You are right about being seen as a real business, that's why I say you MUST be listed... but they could as easily have seen you were a real business with a line ad. Also you are very right and I forgot to mention this important point. The tiny % I gave above was for commercial. Residential yellow page use tends to be in the 45-50% range + or - depending on the market & demographic (still the "phone company" books though) according to the "expert"...so if you also do some type residential work.... I just said what I did since I don't know any residential striping jobs

Hey I have only had to do one residential striping. This guy lived right in front of our local Oprah house and he wanted to paint the curb and put down No Parking in front of his house a couple of times. Yes I was shocked. I never would have thought about it but that is what he wanted I guess never be surprised for the kinda of work some people want you to do. -Dean

thanks for the interesting comments guys.. It was in the early 90's when I had my number in yellow pages and I have talked to few people since then and they say they have never heard of anyone not getting a single call from the yellow pages. I just know we din't and it cost a lot of money. Hope to see you people in charlotte.

Thanks for the great discussion and insight guys. Very helpful!

My $.02 on yellow pages advertising: I would go with the least expensive one line ad with perhaps an additional line to state your services. If you have a web site, be sure to also list the address. This will give you a minimum amount of exposure. There are no guarantees but without an ad I can guarantee potential customers of any size who use the yellow pages will never contact you. It is very tough financially to compete with large companies who use large, multi color ads when you are a small business. Obviously, extensive advertising must work in certain situations because we see it used successfully year in and year out. Here is one suggestion. Our two main yellow pages books are published by Verizon Super Pages and DexOline. You can place an online ad with quite a bit of info including your website on the superpages for free! Not a bad price. Dex charges about $20 bucks a month for a nice ad. The important point is that if you have a website, interested customers can click a link and go right to it. We all know that a website is the great equalizer. For a relatively small amount of money (compared to a print ad in the YP) you can appear to be one of the largest and most professional companies in your area of expertise. I would urge every one to check out the free or relatively free online advertising from your local yellow pages advertising. The next best advertising is to place it on your vehicles. Maybe that was $.25 worth.

On the topic of the name on the truck, Have you never gotten anyone claiming you got paint on there car going down the highway. That has always been my fear, so we have never done the name on the truck / trailers