[Mblack]

I think I may have this figured out! I've been trying to figure out how to post for several days. I even just picked a member who had a lot of posts and emailed them. Anyways I hope this is going to work.
My question is about advertising. What have some of you found to be effective methods (other then word of mouth which comes with time and experience). I'm considering mass mailings, yard signs, billboards and some other options. Please share with me your experience with these and other possibilities.
mblack

[TrickyDick]

I think the kind of advertising that will work for you depends a lot on your specific situation. How big a company are you, what are your goals, what is your competition like, what are your target markets, what services do you offer, what kind of community do you work in, etc. etc. Try searching ( in the upper right corner) for thread about advertising. You will probably find a lot of information.

[Mblack]

Well let me give you a little more about myself.
I've been in business for 5 1/2 years. I am a one man show at this time doing both lawn and tree care. I desire to make this year a year of growth. The past couple years I have had more work then I can handle. This year I plan on getting a lawn crew up and running and possibly a climber. I need to make sure I have enough work to make this happen. My target market is residential clients with home values of 150,000 or greater.

[cutntrim]

Your community newspaper is a good start. At least around here, it's widely read (cover-to-cover) by a good percentage of homeowners. Small print ad in classifieds, display ad in main paper, flyer insert, etc... I find it more valuable than the YP.

[jamesn162]

i agree with cutntrim. i invest about 10k a year on yellow pages and yes the ads do pay for themselves but usualy only with big jobs. If your target is residential i would say newspaper with flyer inserts.

[TrickyDick]

For what you're doing it sounds like a professional looking flyer distributed to neighborhoods that you already work in or want to is a good start. Most people, including me, think yellow pages are a waste of money except to make sure someone can find you if they're looking for you or maybe to place a giant display add.

Also passing word to everyone you know or work with that you or looking for new work can get you a lot of referals.

[Stonehenge]

Mblack, this is unrelated, but your frustration in posting came from the verification period. We manually verify every single new member that signs up here, to make sure they aren't a spammer (because spammers are getting to be prolific in their spammage). There were a few things I needed to verify with you, and the emails I sent to you got bounced back to me. Your phone call was enough for me to know that you had good intentions, so I gave you full priveledges.

re: your question, also consider figuring out ways to get local media attention. Good newspaper articles are clipped out and saved for years sometimes before someone calls. Door hangers can also work.

[Mblack]

I'm glad to know that the difficulty concerning posting just had to do with the registration process vs. my lack of computer savy. Thanks for getting me going.

I'd appreciate continued responses about advertising from some of the other viewers.

Everyone hold on, spring is around the corner and soon we'll be looking back at the slower days of winter with envy.

[Stonehenge]

What kind of budget do you have to play with? Figuring out the best way to spend that money might be a better angle to take on this.

[Mblack]

I have about $2000-$2500 to work with. I've also spoke face to face with other business owners and got some ideas. I'm moving forward with a buffet style approach. I'm already doing door hangers and have ordered the little signs on a plastic stake often used by fertilizer applicators, some larger corrugated plastic signs to use in my present lawn customers and am still looking into a targeted mailing to about 1000 in the $200,000 or higher price range. I'll make a point then to ask new clients how they found out about us. What are your thoughts particularly on the mailings? have you done them before?

[TrickyDick]

I'm curious what kind of market you're targeting when you say houses 150k or 200k and higher. Are you looking at getting lot's of little lawns to mow or would those be high end properties in your area? Around here 200k won't buy you a studio condo in a crackhouse so the numbers don't tell me what you're shooting for.

[4seasons]

I think he's talking about what the homeowners make per year(Tricky).
Mblack,
when you say lawnwork do you mean everything from cutting to chem ap.?
When you do get some customers try to sell them on a 2-3yr contract. This keeps them locked on you and keeps lowballers out for awhile.

[TrickyDick]

In his earlier post he referred to "homes valued 150k or more". I'm curious what that translates to.

[Mblack]

$150,000 homes around here are the low end cost of new homes around here up to about $300,000. This range will get you a four bedroom, two story, two car garage, finished basement in a newly developed area. Well the $150,000 probably won't but that price gets you a nice older home in an established neighborhood.

I'm sure glad I don't live were it doesn't even get a studio in crackville.