Anyone had any luck with any advertising - tried my local friday Ad for months and not one single call, local papers the same. Work seems to come by word of mouth from previous customers yet some companies spent £100s each week do they know something noone else does?
You seem to have had a hard time of it this year sussexplumb, have things not been busy at all for you? Leaflets work in my area but its probably 1 call per 150 leaflets and they have to be good, Yellow pages works to some extent but attracts a lot of riff raff. Have you got a website? Age concern provide me with a handful of jobs every month, I only advertise in Yellow Pages (small advert) and all the rest comes from recommendations. What are your prices like, you may be too high??
Get a few jobs from yell.com (which is just a free listing) and you are right on the leaflets and personal recommendations but things have been very slow. Paid for Adverts though seem to be a total waste of time. Think my prices are in line with other plumbers £30 - £40 an hour callout which regular customers seem pretty ok with
Maybe you're too cheap Depends on what your customer base is - mine is almost all recommendations or internet. But then I don't get too many grannies calling
i had no luck with yellow pages and they kept sticking up prices. have tried local papers without too much luck. dont really advertisemuch now, but the most calls i have had have come from local parish magazines. they tend to be pretty cheap and i think they are effective. the bulk of my work is from recommendation though.
As with HowlsAt, for a modest sum, one is £10 for sixmonths,next parish along (twice the population?) £80 for the year. These are good earners, typically the more mature client, so plenty of tea and chat... I beleive this sort of publication stays on the coffee table for a fortnight or so unlike tomorrows chips wrapper. Of course recommendatios are the best, but customers (elderly especially) tend to 'drop off the ned of the conveyor belt'. (this was a phrase used by a chip-shop owner I was working for, he has had to invest in Pizza franchise to get the young'uns into his chippie, while the pizza is being nuked in the back-room, they then tend to but a coupla cans of Irn-Bru, and a packet of chips while they are waiting - well, it works for him!) DH
perhaps walter could give us the expert's view on advertising? i totally agree with you dreadnaught, you dont get riff raff and cheapskates ringing you from parish magazines.