Clean It Up

UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Brendan (chem2clean) on June 17, 2012, 09:37:40 pm

Title: Do flyers work
Post by: Brendan (chem2clean) on June 17, 2012, 09:37:40 pm
hi,i dropped golden pages 3 years ago,I was paying ten grand a year for years.Started paying for seo on website hoping for results,robbed,now i going to try a two day course and do it my self.What kind of response do you guys get from flyers.Think the average call for flyers is between 2-4%.How do you guys do?
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: AshWhite on June 17, 2012, 09:45:03 pm
If I could get 2% consistantly, I'd be out dropping them very chance I got.
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Brendan (chem2clean) on June 17, 2012, 09:52:47 pm
would that be calls or jobs converted,over here its about 60 euros per thousand delivered.Thinking about getting a really good colour flyer a bang them out at 2 thousand a week.What you think.
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Neil Williams on June 17, 2012, 09:59:01 pm
Mike Halliday is the voice on leaflets.
Purely guessing here but I think he get's about 10,000 a week out..... constantly....and then over the same areas again.
Doing it that way is like the pizza leaflets, pretty annoying after a while but people remember the name in the end ;D
BTW 1% is considered a good return for just enquiries, the converting bit is purely down to yourself.
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Brendan (chem2clean) on June 17, 2012, 10:03:35 pm
thanks neil, mike seems to have it nailed down,that site and van look great,man i want him to clean my carpets.
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Mike Halliday on June 17, 2012, 10:05:57 pm
just done a experiment with 45k a month for the last 2 months going into a new area.  did.nt work as well as the regular 25k I have been getting delivered in my own town.

just shows that the response builds up over time  as the leaflets are constantly delivered. but 4 calls a 1000 is a more realistic response
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Shaun_Ashmore on June 17, 2012, 10:16:03 pm
Yep going back in time when leaflets were the norm 0.5% was the average obviously on solus or own delivery then you increase the % but that is time consuming Mark Powell used to do his own perhaps he can advise more.

Shaun
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Brendan (chem2clean) on June 17, 2012, 10:33:12 pm
things really bad over here,mate works for company with three vans,now just one and struggling.I was pretty cheap for the quality i was doing but now its just price price price,mad the way things have gone.pleasedont start going on about quality of work and shxt cause i have been a carpet cleaner for 25 years and always been flying but last couple of years has been really hard.people dont price anymore for quality,just price.So i have to really get a head of the comp by being in there face,flyers seems like a good plan.
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Gary Longley on June 17, 2012, 10:47:57 pm
things really bad over here,mate works for company with three vans,now just one and struggling.I was pretty cheap for the quality i was doing but now its just price price price,mad the way things have gone.pleasedont start going on about quality of work and shxt cause i have been a carpet cleaner for 25 years and always been flying but last couple of years has been really hard.people dont price anymore for quality,just price.So i have to really get a head of the comp by being in there face,flyers seems like a good plan.

Couldn't agree more. Regardless of what you use, how good you are etc they just want their carpets 'cleaned' at the cheapest price they can get.
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Brendan (chem2clean) on June 17, 2012, 11:08:47 pm
`yep,its mad,cant sell quality in a bad recession,all cheap end shiiit.All the sales shiit goes out the window.
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: mark_roberts on June 17, 2012, 11:26:09 pm
Hi Chem to chem

Im in Belfast.  Sure its more difficult all over but theres still people willing to pay for a job well done.  You still have to sell hard.

Are Aqua Dry still going down there.  Mick Doherty I think was his name.  Many years ago we a did weeks training course with an American instructor that Mick organised.

Mark

BTW. Post your real name. 
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Brendan (chem2clean) on June 17, 2012, 11:32:56 pm
HI MARK,dont want to mention names,but yes theres two dohertys brothers,aqua dry is one.Both run good quality carpet cleaning biz and both are finding it difficult for all the reasons i mentioned,thanks
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: feldon on June 18, 2012, 07:37:32 am
Interesting thread, I have tried several different leaflets over the last couple of years, delivered by myself and on occasion by delivery companies.  I have usually averaged between 0.1% to 0.3%, the higher % when I delivered myself.  I have always had professional designed leaflets with an offer, however as an experiment I have designed and printed my own leaflets on a laser printer, no pic's or logo''s on a bright pink A4 leaflet, based on an editorial had done when I booked a series of adverts in a magazine.  Its my version of Joe Polish's pink leaflet, not seen his to be fair but I gather his is very reliant on text, information and a special offer with deadline.  I'm going to start delivering today and plan to put 5,000 out over the next month, delivered by myself, be interesting to compare results with proper leaflets.  5,000 leaflets.  Why is that every time I plan on a leaflet drop a thread pop's up on one of the forums full of negative and bad experiences of leaflet drops :'(
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: davep on June 18, 2012, 08:11:53 am
Because there a waste of time  ;D
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: M.Acorn on June 18, 2012, 08:21:40 am
Don't really bother with flyers if I am honest I figure that if people want their carpets cleaning they will google it.
I know personally all the junk mail I get goes in the bin, and I get plenty of flyers here from cheap carpet cleaning firms.
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: JandS on June 18, 2012, 10:32:24 am
Flyers go in the bin.
That's why I use glossy postcards printed
on both sides.
Try to get 250 a week out but it's hard to
gauge the response in a particular area as
I get phone calls from them that were delivered
over 6 months ago.
I don't target them every 2 months but every year.
Return at a guess is 0.6 - 0.7%.

John
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Mike Halliday on June 18, 2012, 11:39:01 am
Flyers go in the bin.
 .
John

yes they do..... but unless the are blind or walk with their eyes closed they will look at the leaflet as they walk to the bin.

 if the leaflet  grabs them as something they actually need they will keep it.

this is why I think its so important that you can  IMMEDIATELY  see what the leaflet is about.... you have the time it takes them to walk to the bin to change their mind from....... bin it ...  to.... keep it
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Susan Dean (1stclean) on June 18, 2012, 05:07:29 pm
things really bad over here,mate works for company with three vans,now just one and struggling.I was pretty cheap for the quality i was doing but now its just price price price,mad the way things have gone.pleasedont start going on about quality of work and shxt cause i have been a carpet cleaner for 25 years and always been flying but last couple of years has been really hard.people dont price anymore for quality,just price.So i have to really get a head of the comp by being in there face,flyers seems like a good plan.

i man of truth , its hard for most i am like you work here is poop but i am quite lucky as i now have a massive property base so i couldnt careless weather we get any work or not , we dont advertize at all  , no web page, no papers northing at all and we still doing ten jobs aweek still running two truckmounts but one may only move when i take it to the shop for a pint of milk , its a 58 reg and as 7,000 miles on the clock lolololol 4000 of them were done on trips to redruth with it

thats why ive dumped the big money and gone back to charging cheap going to review it in a few weeks may even lower them more time will tell , as long as they pay the wages and running cost then i am happy

 theres going to be alot of people that come on saying there earning this and there earning that , i like to know what they do with the money because my garge in bigger then most of there houses so there just talking bull or they have a real bad habit sniff sniff
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Susan Dean (1stclean) on June 18, 2012, 05:18:48 pm
Flyers go in the bin.
 .
John

yes they do..... but unless the are blind or walk with their eyes closed they will look at the leaflet as they walk to the bin.

 if the leaflet  grabs them as something they actually need they will keep it.

this is why I think its so important that you can  IMMEDIATELY  see what the leaflet is about.... you have the time it takes them to walk to the bin to change their mind from....... bin it ...  to.... keep it

your band on the money mike , whats the longest time one of your customers as held on to a leaflets? 6 years for use we did a mail shot well out of our area near york then 6 years later we got a call from one of them ! ,
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Shaun_Ashmore on June 18, 2012, 05:46:25 pm
Susan if you are not bother if you do the work or not why do you want to go cheaper? You'll work the same amount of hours but for less money, if you are in a position not to care then wouldn't it be better to put prices up?

Shaun
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: feldon on June 18, 2012, 06:36:46 pm
Well after a job this morning I dropped 250 of my new d.i.y leaflets and got a job booked for £115 whilst I was still out delivering ;D
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Gary Longley on June 18, 2012, 06:44:13 pm
Well after a job this morning I dropped 250 of my new d.i.y leaflets and got a job booked for £115 whilst I was still out delivering ;D

Nice one, so its paid for your paper, ink, own design work & 'dropping' them  ;)
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: feldon on June 18, 2012, 06:55:41 pm
Its only cost me £14.95 for the paper, the ink is free as I got a commercial laser printer for free with quite a lot of toner left in it, the only other cost has been around 2 1/2 hours of my time to deliver 250 leaflets.  Doing another load tomorrow so hoping i'll get some more yet.
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Steven Lawrence on June 19, 2012, 06:54:50 am
things really bad over here,mate works for company with three vans,now just one and struggling.I was pretty cheap for the quality i was doing but now its just price price price,mad the way things have gone.pleasedont start going on about quality of work and shxt cause i have been a carpet cleaner for 25 years and always been flying but last couple of years has been really hard.people dont price anymore for quality,just price.So i have to really get a head of the comp by being in there face,flyers seems like a good plan.

i man of truth , its hard for most i am like you work here is poop but i am quite lucky as i now have a massive property base so i couldnt careless weather we get any work or not , we dont advertize at all  , no web page, no papers northing at all and we still doing ten jobs aweek still running two truckmounts but one may only move when i take it to the shop for a pint of milk , its a 58 reg and as 7,000 miles on the clock lolololol 4000 of them were done on trips to redruth with it
thats why ive dumped the big money and gone back to charging cheap going to review it in a few weeks may even lower them more time will tell , as long as they pay the wages and running cost then i am happy


 theres going to be alot of people that come on saying there earning this and there earning that , i like to know what they do with the money because my garge in bigger then most of there houses so there just talking bull or they have a real bad habit sniff sniff


your garage maybe bigger than my house, but i bet my garage is worth more than your house! :-*
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Ian Gourlay on June 19, 2012, 10:57:20 am
things really bad over here,mate works for company with three vans,now just one and struggling.I was pretty cheap for the quality i was doing but now its just price price price,mad the way things have gone.pleasedont start going on about quality of work and shxt cause i have been a carpet cleaner for 25 years and always been flying but last couple of years has been really hard.people dont price anymore for quality,just price.So i have to really get a head of the comp by being in there face,flyers seems like a good plan.

i man of truth , its hard for most i am like you work here is poop but i am quite lucky as i now have a massive property base so i couldnt careless weather we get any work or not , we dont advertize at all  , no web page, no papers northing at all and we still doing ten jobs aweek still running two truckmounts but one may only move when i take it to the shop for a pint of milk , its a 58 reg and as 7,000 miles on the clock lolololol 4000 of them were done on trips to redruth with it

thats why ive dumped the big money and gone back to charging cheap going to review it in a few weeks may even lower them more time will tell , as long as they pay the wages and running cost then i am happy

 theres going to be alot of people that come on saying there earning this and there earning that , i like to know what they do with the money because my garge in bigger then most of there houses so there just talking bull or they have a real bad habit sniff sniff

If you not bothered about making money because you have so much already why not just concentrate on your property empire
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Hilton on June 19, 2012, 11:50:24 am
things really bad over here,mate works for company with three vans,now just one and struggling.I was pretty cheap for the quality i was doing but now its just price price price,mad the way things have gone.pleasedont start going on about quality of work and shxt cause i have been a carpet cleaner for 25 years and always been flying but last couple of years has been really hard.people dont price anymore for quality,just price.So i have to really get a head of the comp by being in there face,flyers seems like a good plan.

i man of truth , its hard for most i am like you work here is poop but i am quite lucky as i now have a massive property base so i couldnt careless weather we get any work or not , we dont advertize at all  , no web page, no papers northing at all and we still doing ten jobs aweek still running two truckmounts but one may only move when i take it to the shop for a pint of milk , its a 58 reg and as 7,000 miles on the clock lolololol 4000 of them were done on trips to redruth with it

thats why ive dumped the big money and gone back to charging cheap going to review it in a few weeks may even lower them more time will tell , as long as they pay the wages and running cost then i am happy

 theres going to be alot of people that come on saying there earning this and there earning that , i like to know what they do with the money because my garge in bigger then most of there houses so there just talking bull or they have a real bad habit sniff sniff

By the state of your posts we could assume that you must be on some kind of substance abuse.

I am sure that most on here would be pleased with your ongoing success and you are to be congratulated that you have diversified away from carpet cleaning, as many of us have also done no doubt. The fact that you do not have a reliance on carpet cleaning revenue, something that is going to become harder and harder as the austerity drive continues, is a good business decision and I would encourage others to do like wise.

I have to say though that you appear to gloating at those less fortunate than yourself which is not nice and if the intention is to antagonise some then it appears to be working, you say you do not leaflet, yet on another thread announce you will going to war in another area by price cutting to the bone, good luck with that by the way, I assume you will have to leaflet to do this and advertise. ?
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Garyj on June 19, 2012, 12:05:03 pm
hi,i dropped golden pages 3 years ago,I was paying ten grand a year for years.Started paying for seo on website hoping for results,robbed,now i going to try a two day course and do it my self.What kind of response do you guys get from flyers.Think the average call for flyers is between 2-4%.How do you guys do?

You weren't really robbed by the SEO company though. Is your site still not back on Google? How much of your came from Google? Do you think it would pick up again if you were back up there?
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Hilton on June 20, 2012, 02:08:16 pm
I was talking to a chap on Monday who put 250000 leaflets out over a 12 month period and had a 0.5% response,

He actually did 4 jobs a day from it over the same period, I don't know what it cost him but the the value of the work brought in over the same period  was £85 - 100k on average sales.It does show that on big numbers a small percent return makes a difference.

There is a famous multi-millionaire who built his whole business on flyers and DM putting out millions per year he reckoned on a 0.5-1% response to make a huge amount of money.
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: Brendan (chem2clean) on June 20, 2012, 02:21:54 pm
garyj,yes maybe robbed is harsh.paid 4 grand over a year and only only ranking well on some keywords,in fact some keywords that i was first page,ie carpet cleaning,carpet cleaners ,i now cant find.
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: garry22 on June 20, 2012, 07:48:22 pm
Quote
Insert Quote
garyj,yes maybe robbed is harsh.paid 4 grand over a year and only only ranking well on some keywords,in fact some keywords that i was first page,ie carpet cleaning,carpet cleaners ,i now cant find

That's because Google changed the rules drastically overnight.

Some people who were top of page one for ten years or more got wiped out. Many people have lost jobs and busnisses since the end of April.

Sadly the search results seem a lot worse now than before. I looked for a local tradesman a couple of days ago and gave up after six pages of directories.
Title: Re: Do flyers work
Post by: wynne jones on June 20, 2012, 11:40:16 pm
Quote
Insert Quote
garyj,yes maybe robbed is harsh.paid 4 grand over a year and only only ranking well on some keywords,in fact some keywords that i was first page,ie carpet cleaning,carpet cleaners ,i now cant find

That's because Google changed the rules drastically overnight.

Some people who were top of page one for ten years or more got wiped out. Many people have lost jobs and busnisses since the end of April.

Sadly the search results seem a lot worse now than before. I looked for a local tradesman a couple of days ago and gave up after six pages of directories.

Garry, you have noticed it too. You are starting to get results creeping in that remind me of the Netscape days. So much for a mission to deliver relevancy (rather than be greedy beggers).

Lastest black hat technique at the moment is to give your competition search term backlinks, what a crazy Google world we live in.  ;D