[Ian Gourlay]

What do you consider a reasonable amount to spend on Advertising leaflets, promotional staff, mail shots a month if you want to build your customer base.  Both as a % of sales increase    and actual cash amount.

[Mark Betts]

I look for a return of about 5 times what i spend.

IE

Spend £32 a week in local paper and pulls a minimum of £160.00.

Not in yellow pages now.

Schools stuff spent about £40 on material and its pulled over £750  


Mark

[Mike Halliday]

10% of weekly earnings there's no need to put a cash amount because they are varable eg; spend  a £1 get £10 back, spend £100 get a grand back.

Mike

[Doug Holloway]

Hi,

My figures are about the same as Mikes although it will vary with how long you have been establised.

As the no cost referals,reccomendations,etc increase this will reduce the advertising cost per customer.

Cheers,

Doug

[jasonb]

I spend £9 a week on leaflets, that's 200 per day. And another amount on referal sheets and coupons. Probably comes to about £11 a week.

Currently I am not advertising in the Yellow Pages as I  don't know if it's beneficial or not.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Jason if you have a full week what is the point of advertising with anything else anyway?

For a small box 6cm sq it is £700, and you even get price shoppers at your prices.

Shaun  

[jasonb]

Jason if you have a full week what is the point of advertising with anything else anyway?

For a small box 6cm sq it is £700, and you even get price shoppers at your prices.

Shaun  

I would prefer people to call me from an advert than from leaflets as it's less hassle but I have heard so many people say the the YP is expensive and a waste of time that it's put me off. That leaves the local press, but the majority of my customer base can't read.

[Mike Halliday]

jason did'nt you say you do an hours leafleting a day?

and you earn £30 an hour so that £150+ £11= £161 a week on marketing.

on my formula you should be earning £1610 a week

Mike

[Ian Gourlay]

Thats why in the origional question I did include Marketing staff.

Mike your ten persent figure is that purley worrk generated from £100 spend. as I tend to achieve a i in 4 return ie £100 = £400 of work.

[Londoner]

You have hit the nail on the head. How do you cost out the time spent delivering leaflets ?

Is it dead time or working time?

I try and think of it as "healthy exercise"

[Mike Halliday]

Ian, here an interesting theory for you.

If you get a 4-1 return then you pay 25% of the money you earn getting the job, so if you reduced you price by 25% perhaps you would'nt have to bother advertising,, you have lots of customers :


Here's another interesting idea. If you have your leaflets delivered to the same house every 3 weeks for eternity then all your existing customers would recieve that leaflet every 3 weeks so your leaflet would also act as a reminder card. it would also make it easy for your existing customer to reccommend you because they can pass on your leafet, because they'll  get them every 3 weeks .

Mike

[Ian Gourlay]

Then the response rate would improve reducing the % spent on advertising.

[shaun_pearson]

the yellow pages works well for me. been in it two years now and im getting more from there all the time. just about to get leaflets for the first time so hopefully more from there. getting a lot of repeat work this year which is a good sign.  jason, give yp a go,  it will cost you £550 for a 6cmx6cm ad, just over a tenner a week and im sure it will pay.  
where does the biggest percentage of work come for you guys? most of my work comes from yp and contacts ive made over the years.

[David_Annable]

Jason


Quote     "I would prefer people to call me from an advert than from leaflets as it's less hassle "


If you dont advertise how do you Know its less hassle.

If you do advertise and its less hassle why do you do so many leaflets.

Dave

PS Please dont call me names.as I have low self esteem.

[The Great One]

Hi Guys

My advertising budget is...

£0 down and £0 per month for a very long time!

Regards

Martin

[George-Reid]

Guys.
I am spending £75 a week on leaflets
£492 a week on wages before comission for door knocking.
Generating a minimum of £3240 per sales per annum per week.

Actuall profit after comissions vat man and doing the work which none of you have mentioned is around fifty percent profit so £1620 per annum per week.

WE do this all summer long expect to generate £40k this summer with £20k to the bottom line.
This is only one of the ways we market our business.
Cheers

George

[replacement]

You only post flyers so.....

That leaves the local press, but the majority of my customer base can't read.

So if a majority dont read, how did they become customers in the first place?

Justin

[gwrightson]

this is interesting  , got a call yesterday to price a job,
asked how she found me,
her reply i got your leaflet through my door,
now that paticular hse was the very first street i dropped when i first started 6 months ago, proves some do hang on to them
yes i got £120 job