Clean It Up

UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: mark turton on April 09, 2013, 11:16:50 pm

Title: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: mark turton on April 09, 2013, 11:16:50 pm
just wondered re carpet cleaning promoting

which priority you would put your marketing in - ie
leaflets
door knocking
magazine posh
magazine local
radio

also do you use a % of monthly or annual income to go to this or set a budget or just as and when?

any help appreciated.. :)
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: Carpet Dawg on April 09, 2013, 11:28:57 pm
All of the above and more. You can never have enough customers!

Radio and posh magazines. Not sure about those two though. Expensive and not sure if you would get a good return on investment.

A percentage of annual turnover should go towards advertising and promotions. I know chem dry have a formula for it, maybe someone else could shed some light. I think 10 - 15% is about average to remain the same, but if you wanted to expand and grow, I think you'd be looking at around 40+%.

Tony
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: Chris Straker on April 10, 2013, 06:30:01 am
Win some sort of award from a recognised body (ie: magazine, newspaper or council) ...... I came out the directories in 2006 so just get new work from word of mouth or Google searches ........ that is where the bona fide source of awards comes in  ;)
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: feldon on April 10, 2013, 07:25:33 am
You have missed off:

Website - aka the internet

Google Places

 :)
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: andrew66 on April 10, 2013, 08:54:21 am
Inbound marketing is the direction we should all be thinking about, we can spend so much time and money on avenues that dont work whilst ignoring ones that do facebook ,linkedin, twitter etc.
Since we focused on creating a web presence our work has increased, and most of it is free
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: garry22 on April 10, 2013, 09:03:01 am
Best producing....

1/ Direct mail salesletters (although Post Office greed has pretty much wiped this out now).

2/ Websites.

3/ Talking to people (one of my longest contracts, eight years now, was gained sat chatting on a beach following a windsurfing session).
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: Andrew@Approved Carpet Cleaning on April 10, 2013, 09:26:57 am
Facebook
Leaflets
Web

just sayin.
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: heritagecleaning on April 10, 2013, 10:23:48 am
Dorris Stokes or Derek Acorah  :)
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: Andrew@Approved Carpet Cleaning on April 10, 2013, 10:35:52 am
Dorris Stokes or Derek Acorah  :)

hahahahaha  ;D  ;D
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: Simon Gerrard on April 10, 2013, 11:07:44 am
Repeats and recommendations are the key to succes. There is no point in getting ever more customers if you can't keep them and in order to keep them you need to provide first class service and fantastic quality so that your customers come to see you as 'their' carpet cleaner and never even think of looking elsewhere. Achieve that and you will always have a successful, thriving business.

Simon
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: William Sharpe on April 10, 2013, 04:24:34 pm
compiled an analysis for 2012-2013
1. Repeat customers 54%
2. referals 22%
3. Google- maps and ppc 16%
4. other - yell, yahoo etc 8%

cheers
reg
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: garry22 on April 10, 2013, 06:20:19 pm
Quote
Repeats and recommendations are the key to succes. There is no point in getting ever more customers if you can't keep them and in order to keep them you need to provide first class service and fantastic quality so that your customers come to see you as 'their' carpet cleaner and never even think of looking elsewhere. Achieve that and you will always have a successful, thriving business.

I agree Simon, that would have been no 1 on my list but I assumed that Mark meant new customers (as in a start up business).
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: Allan Simmons on April 10, 2013, 09:17:25 pm
Garry and Simon have it spot on for me.
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: Shaun_Ashmore on April 10, 2013, 09:22:32 pm
Your GOB!

Be a know it all get yourself about.

Shaun
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: mark turton on April 10, 2013, 09:34:01 pm
excellent replies and thankyou for taking the time for feedback.

yes i i forgot the online mediums - although not being an avid user of my own facebook im in dark ages as to how facebook generates paying customers (not watchers, followers and likes etc)

my primary is window cleaning and carpet cleaning i started nearly 5 years ago as a small add on that has grown and i like doing it (most of the time) - its also a change of physical action (well a little) which helps with resting well used other muscle groups.

however ....
simon g mentioned existing clients (im use to this with window cleaning customers) but carpet cleaning i have no idea how you set up a pitch/proposal to a custy re a regular carpet clean? ive had repeat custom but i dont have a tructure or methodology to ensure it. - ideas welcome?.............. :)
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: Simon Gerrard on April 11, 2013, 08:13:11 am
Mark,
That is where carpet cleaning is different to window cleaning, where people get their windows cleaned a lot more often than their carpets.
There isn't a structure for setting up regular cleans simplty because in most cases they aren't regular, but some CC'ers try and sell a yearly clean paid for on standing order.
So what you are left with is the hope that people will remember you - and for the right reasons. You can help this by staying in touch with emails etc so that when they want their carpet cleaned again, they call you.
But that will only happen if the quality and service of the job we did for them was first class. This is why it is important to set your business up from the outset with service and quality as an absolute priority, so that you begin to retain customers and build a reputation in your community from day one and not the day we wake up to the fact that skimping on service and quality in order to compete on a price level with your competitors is not going to help achieve our long term goal - a business with low overheads, high customer retention and high profits.

Simon
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: Max Campbell on April 11, 2013, 07:22:33 pm
To answer the original question (and no-one else near me is allowed to use it!)


Parish Magazines (and plenty of them)
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: Joe W Brown on April 12, 2013, 08:44:14 am
Why is no one near you allowed to use it?
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: Max Campbell on April 12, 2013, 11:08:38 pm
Why is no one near you allowed to use it?

guess
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: Joe W Brown on April 12, 2013, 11:31:04 pm
Bribery? Blackmail? You are actually part of a sinister underground mob?

 :o :)
Title: Re: best advertising medium youve used?
Post by: maxcampbell on April 13, 2013, 08:45:10 am
If you're near me, I won't stop you believing any / all of the above.