Hi Guys
I dont think its fair to blaim Yell for bad responce. Take a look at your local book and see how many adverts have reasons for a prospect to call? How do you select when you go to the book.?
Most prospects look for the local guy if there is more than one they call them both. the prospect will more that likely use the cheap one, or base it on which one they get the right fellings for at the quote. not a great way to choose a service provider.
Give them a reason. we have just tested an advert in our book for our maid service with "The mother of all cleaning offers" and its working great. it gives prospects reasons to call,
First month free
inside windows cleaned free
free upgrade
free carpet cleaning
When someone has cleaning every week its easy to give away these things for free. Think about even if our price is higher that someone else in our area the extra value that they get from us will get us the job.
We have some great ideas for next year for our carpet advert.
If you dont give prospects a good reasons to call then you cant expect the advert to work.
You should only expect to get your money back, for every pound you spend you should be happy to get it back. its the backend where you make your money, add ons, reconmandations, repeats.
I would evan loss money to get a customer. as We have confindance in our systems to make it back and much more.
We all like something for nothing, we are all in a position to give added value to customers where they think thay are getting something worth a lot more money. For example an extra room, how much does it cost you? the time it takes and a small amount in costs. to the customer it will be whatever you charged them for the first room. You have just made a friend. BTW always put the price on the invoice and then take it off so they can see what they are getting in writting.
One of the downsides to Yell is that you must put you address on the advert. so this makes it easy for the prospect to pick a local guy. ok if you live in a big town, but no so good if you dont. you can use this to your advantage if you think about it. we have and we can now put adverts in two local books.
Your phone number gives you location away as well. BT have a system called "Remote call forwarding" not the one that you get at home. this one lets you get a phone number with a differant area code.
One other problem with yell is that you can be sure that the prospect will be getting other quotes, so make sure that you follow up with a letter giving away an extra benifit, that you did not offer on the quote if you did not get to book the job then. Put a time limit on it, I use about three days.
For us its not just about one advert its about a marketing plan.
If you braek evan on the yell advert, but you sell add ons and get repeat business and reconmendations. they its worth the money. If an advert does not work then there is somthing wrong with it, not the media. this can be a big problem with yell as you only get one chance at it. we are testing out next year advert now on a leaflet to find out if it works.
Respect
Ian Harper