Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: jeff1 on January 23, 2007, 08:02:04 pm
-
Hi Guy's
The Boss phoned them up today to get me my free line booked, so I know within the next few day's I'll get a call from them trying to flog me a bigger section?
What I need to know, is it worth paying several hundred pounds out for the advert, will it pay for its self or is it a waste of money?
I understand its a hit and miss affair, but in 9yrs I have never had to advertise, so I need a little guidance.
Many thanks in advance for your replies.
-
i managed for many years without a yellow pages advert !
i did try it out a few years ago ( and still do advertise with them ) , i did ( and still do ) get calls from y.p not all in the areas i would like !
i think youll find its cheaper for the first year , and then obviously goes up each subsequent year !
the deciding factor for me was that there werent many w/cs advertising in yp in my area !
-
Me 4 years .....over 400 customers monthly but most are large houses and flats never been in yellow pages all word of mouth but i know a few that have and never worked.But it may be different in all areas
P.S why are you now advertising after 9 years?
-
Me 4 years .....over 400 customers monthly but most are large houses and flats never been in yellow pages all word of mouth but i know a few that have and never worked.But it may be different in all areas
P.S why are you now advertising after 9 years?
Many Thanks
The reason I'm advertising after 9yrs, is I have just changed to wfp and by the end of this week, I will have run out of work, 2 weeks ahead of scedule, so in a way its good news.
I didn't really want to spend hundreds of pounds just to fill a 2 weeks gap, if I filled that gap within say the first month of advertising, then I would have to turn most of it away, so it would be 11 months wasted.
I think I'll stick with just the free line.
-
yeah i would word of mouth as soon as people see you wfp they will ask you in the street ...best way easiest way...cheapest way
-
Always been a little behind with my work, and word of mouth has always been the way I got work, but this wfp lark is the dogs danglies ;D 2 weeks extra work needed, so thats a lot of extra money that will be coming in, well worth the investment.
-
Sure is look at some of my posts with pics all due to wfp working
http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=31459.0#msg244996
-
I have read all your posts on your work and all very nice jobs. well done
Being an old fart ( well 50 ;D) its hard to make a change to your old habbits. but I think changing over to wfp is the best Decision I have ever made, all the jobs I hated doing are now a dodle, jobs were I needed my boss I no longer need her ;) feet on the ground, I don't mind walking back and stepping into the odd pond like I did friday ;D work quiker work safer.
-
You normally get offered a discount on any increase in advertising spend for 2nd year, thats only on the increse in size but i used to get 50% off the increase.
My advise would be to do the smallest display ad available this year and dont expect much from it, and use the discount next year to do a much bigger ad.
I think, and im no expert in the window cleaning section, but if you seek commercial work it is worth being in for the simple reason it makes you look as if you take your business serious, you might pick up some domestic as well.
People who see your van passing or have seen you working might remember your company name but the chances of them remembering your phone no. are very slim, easiest and most peoples first try to get the no. will be yellow pages.
-
Roughly what sort of advertising budget are we talking about?
You know in your head how much extra money you can earn, after tax (very important as your earnings shoot up).
As your probably aware I am new, you are the opposite :D yet we have something in common. We have time on our hands, time that enables us to hand pick jobs if we wish and canvass. On every day you have off you could spend an hour knocking doors if your wished, you might get 3 jobs a day like this, or maybe even just one, maybe none at all You know when your last free day is going to be before the cycle starts again. So bang all the work onto that last free day, by the time you reach it, it should be at least half full, you might even have filled a couple of days.
keep doing it every month and before you know it you have filled your book for free!
Yellow pages is fine if you like to travel about all over the place.
-
Yellow Pages....
Is it worth it?
After a few years of spending a small fortune each year.... my answer is a big NO.
It's true you can negotiate a big discount but to my mind it's still not worth the money.
The same amount of cash spent on leaflets targetting the area you want to be working in is a far better investment.
-
I tried the yellow pages for two years and not much good.
Quite a few phone calls but they were mainly to far away for me.
Did not renew it this year.
Paul
-
Yellow Pages has probably just about paid for itself but no more than that. My problem is not so much about YP but about the area I live in. I get quite a few enquiries in Crawley but when I ask, there is rarely any access to the back due to the type of housing around here. I don't get many enquiries from out of town because people tend to focus on window cleaners in their own area when they search the book. It might help if I took out a longer ad with areas covered but I doubt it. I have had as many enquiries from my free one liner ad in Thomson's as I have from my paid three liner in YP.
However, YP has paid for itself because I got a smallish commercial job from it that is £34 at six weekly intervals.
-
jeff, i found yellow pages, to be a waste of time, my A4 laminated leaflets
are more affective in post offices, my local chippies, and local shops, most take £1 a month. the reason i know this works, is because i always ask new customers how they found out about me, jeff with your logo maker you can make a really nice attractive one,
-
jeff, i found yellow pages, to be a waste of time, my A4 laminated leaflets
are more affective in post offices, my local chippies, and local shops, most take £1 a month. the reason i know this works, is because i always ask new customers how they found out about me, jeff with your logo maker you can make a really nice attractive one,
cheers Guy's looks like yellow pages is heading for the bin ;D
so many againsts thanks for the advice, probably saved me several hundred pounds, so the drinks are on Jouk45 ;D ;D
Joe just email me with what you want, its a pro version I have so should be able to do you a pretty one for you ;D so long as its not rood :o ;D
-
well i just spent £1500 to be in the pages and about £200 for yell.com , have got about £35 of custom so far , one £20 every 4 weeks and one £10 one off clean .
I hope it works
-
I would stil put yourself in the free listing because at least your details are in there and at least its a little bit of advertising and it makes you look more professional!
Shaun R. ;)
-
In the last couple of weeks since this thread started I have had several quality enquiries through YP - though it remains to be seen whether they will become regular jobs. Also, I do want to do a higher proportion of commercial work. I would like my business to go from domestic/commercial 90/10 to about 50/50. Therefore, after a bit of soul searching, I have decided to renew my three liner in YP for another year. It costs slightly less this year than last. Also, against advice, I have alse decided on a three liner in Business Pages - which deals with business to business services. Costs are about £140 and £240 respectively. This may end upo being a mistake but the man who never made a mistake never made anything else either. ;D
-
i am with them this again i got one call lastbyes 1 call! it was a house that needed gutter cleaning conservatory clean and fascia cleaning.
475 in total i charged ... advert was 216.00
and while at the job a window cleaner spotted my van and gave me his round of blocks of flats and offices..
totaling now £1330 a month
so for me it paid off but i wouldnt advertise with them again.
1 call is not good enough
shawn
-
Yellow pages makes me laugh.
In there advertising they say for every pound someone spends on a yellow pages ad they get £25 worth of business.
So last year when i had my ad i should have got £11,250 of work.
they were only £11,000 out
Paul
-
Yellow pages makes me laugh.
In there advertising they say for every pound someone spends on a yellow pages ad they get £25 worth of business.
So last year when i had my ad i should have got £11,250 of work.
they were only £11,000 out
Paul
Their figures are wildly out with me as well Paul. I gained one job @ £288 p.a. Another at about £100 p.a. A few one offs of around £150. That's a total of around £530. There is also possible work through YP (very recent enquiries) of about £1,200 p.a.
However, I can only assess it on the work that I definitely have.
So I spent about £150 on the ad. This means that my return on that ad should be about £3,750 p.a. but I got about £530. So they were closer in their calculations with me. Even if I assume that I get all the work from the recent enquiries it would still be around £1,730 just under half their prediction.
In fairness to them, if I had followed up all the jobs with poor access (i.e. only able to clean when they are in), their figure of £3,750 probably would have been about right.
If I take the profit on that £530 (whatever that might be) then I suppose that I have made extra money from YP. However, I probably could have got the equivalent work anyway by other methods if I had pot myself out.
The only reason I have kept YP going for another year is because of some recent enquiries for work of a reasonable quality.
I consider my paid ad in YP to be going through a "stay of execution". It may be jettisoned next year in favour of a freebie.
-
If you are lets say happy to lose the cash for an add do it, thats is the only way you will know, i have found for me it has always paid for its self! £1 for £1 and more,
ie one job i got was only £10 but i got another £70 from neigbours! i put in a very crude advert with my logo in
but a warning once your name is in there [free listing or add] yp will chase you up to do an add! and with that other firms will will chase you to advertise.
you can: ignore the call [ but is it that big job?? ££ ]
say spent budget
say do a add for 37.75!!
spent addvertismnet costings
can you call my add people on 09.....
pass the phone on to a young child!!
put the phone in your pocket and get back to work
im sure otheres will add to this...........
-
If you are lets say happy to lose the cash for an add do it, thats is the only way you will know, i have found for me it has always paid for its self! £1 for £1 and more,
ie one job i got was only £10 but i got another £70 from neigbours! i put in a very crude advert with my logo in
but a warning once your name is in there [free listing or add] yp will chase you up to do an add! and with that other firms will will chase you to advertise.
you can: ignore the call [ but is it that big job?? ££ ]
say spent budget
say do a add for 37.75!!
spent addvertismnet costings
can you call my add people on 09.....
pass the phone on to a young child!!
put the phone in your pocket and get back to work
im sure otheres will add to this...........
Yes I found that receiving calls from other advertisers was a pain at times. A quick no thank you ad a polite request to be removed from their call list is what I do. It is a nuisance though when the call is diverted to a mobile. Not only am I paying for most of the call but I have to stop work to answer it. Sometimes I've had to pull my van over to do so.
If these companies checked properly, they would find my number registered with the Telephone Preference Service as a "do not call for telesales" number. Maybe I should list my 0845 number there too before the directories come out.
-
I took the plunge and stuck in a three liner for £130 so if I loose out its no big deal, but £130 isn't a lot to recoupe through out the year, if I just break even over the twelve months, I'll be happy. If it fails then next year its just the free liner for me.
Thanks for all you input it made some interesting reading, to know how yp effects different parts of the country. just like the prices for wc how they differ up and down the country.
Thanks Guy's
-
I say run and hide from the yellow pages
-
It works better for some trades than others, and also we are mostly talking about linage ads here, the real test in when you get up into the display ads and then design can also play its part, tailoring your ad to your potential customers.
I would treat it like stocks and shares, if you carnt aford to lose it dont spend it. If you have a tried and tested method to get results stay with that. If you have some spare cash give it a go.
Dave
-
I have alse decided on a three liner in Business Pages - which deals with business to business services.
I was told by the yp rep that I should be in Business Pages, so I asked for a copy and found out that my directory coverage was the WHOLE OF SCOTLAND, and that businesses in each classification are sorted alphabetically by name, not town! So if I was a punter looking through the BPs I'd have to go down all the phone numbers till I found my local code, write down the details, scan down till I found another . . .
Sorry, not me - as a user or a subscriber.
But, back on topic . . .
For me, yp are great. The first ever reply was a commercial which I still have and their job more than pays the advert, so anything that's come in since hasn't cost me anything in advertising.