[Ian Gourlay]

Derek

For a start I said you should write a book and sell it not devulge your secrets on a open Forum
.

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

yeah but i did explain that mike. to get an exact figure could also be confusing, do you include repeats and referals in your original market spend etc... i personally think its impossible to give an exact figure and thats why i included an explanation as to my 10/1, and like i said, i did explain that so can't see why ian is saying i'm ego boosting. bit un called for really, but hey ho, each to there own. and it was 40/4 so not exactly genious.

Derek

I would completely agree that it's the only tangible way of comparing figures-especially if we are comparing between our own businesses.

For the record I'm probably over 25/1 return. But there again  I advertise with YP. If I only had websites then I guess my return would be even greater as of course there seem to minimal costs in running it unless you start adding in pay-per-click ant the like as well.

Rog

[mark_roberts]

Carpet Doctor are you saying for every £1 spent you get £25 in revenue from Yellow Pages because if so your about the only person in the whole country getting that return from YP.

Which part of the country are you in.

Mark

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

Mark

No, what Derek and I are saying is that I'm getting £25 total revenue for every £1 spent on advertising..............but................of that revenue generated much will come from repeat and referral business so it is impossible to tie down how much NEW business comes from the costs incurred in advertising as many new clients may not have encountered your advertising but simply been recommended.

To complicate matters further, exising clients may simply want to book you in again but have to refer to, for example, YP to get your details again. They knew who you were, but just didn't have your telephone number written down in their own address book.

To directly answer your question though, I'm in the South manchester YP. I have 1/6 of a page full colour add it is perfectly clear to me that plenty of people arre still referring to it before phoning me and hence for the above reasons it is still more than appropriate for me to advertise in YP.

I am of course aware that with less competitiors advertising in it I may get an advantage and also that just because it works in S Manchester won't necessarily mean this success would be replicated in other YP area books for a variety of reasons.

I will happily admit though that it doesn't work as well as it used to do for as we all know the channels for getting our name out their have multiplied over the last few years.

Rog

[mark_roberts]

Ah thats different.

When I talk advertising numbers the only think that makes sense to me is if i spend £1 how much work will come directly from that £1.  Its a false economy to include your entire sales IMO.

Agree will you YP is not the cash cow it once was.

Mark

[Andrew Briscoe]

Just checked my advertising costs, for every pound i have spent i took in £152.46p   
However i have been going since 1989 so dont spend a lot.

Andrew

[derek west]

puts my egotistical 10/1 to shame don't ya think ian?

[Ian Gourlay]

Ok Derek I apoligise .

We are probably talking about diffrent methods of measuring returm

Which is why I mentioned tracking reports

It should then be possible to break down return from each segment of obtaining customers

If repeat customers  just phone you and not checked your number in YP or elsewhere yes that is nil cost

If they found your number in Yellow Pages then phone you that needs to be recorded to Yellow Pages

[Mr Dvae]

so there you have it, next time you have a problem with a carpet, suite or a piece of machinery, ask away on this forum and someone will write the answer in a book so you can buy it on ebay and there you go......problem solved.



Dave

[Ian Gourlay]

My personal view is that with the Margins Carpet Cleaners operate at  I would say a 15% of turnover spend on Advertising should be the minimum spend to maintain and grow business

You then need to break that down for instance I have just had a call asking me to pay for some advertising that gave me a nil return

[jasonl]

I think a few people are confusing marketing and advertising which are 2 totally different things.

I have a marketing person part time  who spends all his time carrying out free or nearly free to implement marketing tasks ,, email , phone calls, visits to  potential/existing customers, listing/updating blogs, SEO , getting us onto directories, networking, PR etc . My advertising spend is very little , but my marketing spend is £120/week plus 15% of work brought in , plus about £30 in diesel  for him .

It is early days  but the annual return  will be about 10-1 , which is not very high , but we are aiming for a 6 figure turnover in our first year.

[Simon Gerrard]

Ian,

We spend way less than that on advertising and yet keep growing, not because of advertising but because of reputation, repeat and referral work, all of which costs nothing. Advertising spend should be dropping as you become more established. Indeed, it has to in order to become profitable  because advertising is a businesses biggest expense, but as you gain and hopefully retain customers your need to advertise should be declining and the profits should start to go up.

Simon

[Simon Gerrard]

Jason,

When does your groupon campaign start?

Simon

[jasonl]

Very soon , I delayed it until after August .

[richy27]

obviously the question on how much advertising / market spend ( jason is correct two diff things) will depend on the operation you run  so many variables to take on board    the age of the business , the size of the business eg multiple vans  etc etc .   

try not to take the figures in the poll as gospel as it will be unclear due to not knowing each persons business who voted

[D Ingram]

Interesting reading guy’s but the way I measure marketing here is on each avenue I spend money on, i.e.  if I do a leaflet campaign I measure the return I get and conversely news paper adds are the same so to measure a budget for advertising on a whole years turn over is a bit misleading when you take into account the avenues where the  work comes from.

  This is where a good data base comes in to play where you can pin point all your expenditure on multiples of advertising and costs. Without these tools at your disposal it is very difficult to analyse your returns for each campaign

Dave x

[Simon Gerrard]

Jason,
You predictions for growth from a standing start are optomistic, given that you've said that you'll have a part-timer working on advertising/ marketing and yet you're assuming sales of £100,00 in the first year, with no existng customer base. Is that figure for carpet cleaning, or restoration and cleaning?

Simon

[jasonl]

Jason,
You predictions for growth from a standing start are optomistic, given that you've said that you'll have a part-timer working on advertising/ marketing and yet you're assuming sales of £100,00 in the first year, with no existng customer base. Is that figure for carpet cleaning, or restoration and cleaning?

Simon

This is from the whole business, first half was 35k, with no marketing so it will be achieved

[derek west]

what do you mean by first half, we are only 3 months in to the financial year? or do you mean from january?

[jasonl]

Jan to december is my year