[wynne jones]

Why ask the question?

You say you are booked solid, you don't mind spending £800 to achieve this. So even if you have a bucket with a hole in it so what?

You say your time is more important than faffing around with other marketing ideas that may help retain or jog existing clients into a repeat clean.

What's your problem? 

[ian harper]

Mike

[ian harper]

Mike

[garry22]

Mike,

1/ Why not employ someone part time to keep in contact with your existing clients? I'm sure they would bring you in more than they cost.

2/ Percentage of turnover is a bit misleading. What about return on investment (ROI)?

If you spend £ 800 to get £ 5,000 back, that's not bad ROI at all (minus costs). Break even is acceptable if you generate enough repeat business.

I did my coptwriting training under someone who charges up to $ 25,000 a letter. If that letter brings in several hundred thousand dollars in sales, then those sales are effectively free.

[Mike Halliday]

garry over the last few months I have had a girl in the office doing that, but looking at the figures spending my £800 marketing  budget that way it not the most cost effective..... the amount of work she bring in is not as good as leaflets that's  why from Jan I'm going back to spending all my money on  leaflets .

i was going to start a topic at the weekend about how I've experimented with my marketing money over the last year spending it different ways and which gave the best return.... leaflets won by a mile

I've done AdWords, newspapers adverts free spotters, free newspapers,  a girl in the office doing telesales, free de-icer, mailshots( to plumbers, estate agent, letting agents, doctors, dentist) plus other stuff..... none got the ROI of leaflets ....with zero effort on my part

[garry22]

Fair enough. At least you've tested the various approaches.

[Jim_77]

I've done AdWords, newspapers adverts free spotters, free newspapers,  a girl in the office doing telesales, free de-icer, mailshots( to plumbers, estate agent, letting agents, doctors, dentist)

Mike all of that stuff is aimed at getting new customers... what about keeping your existing ones?

[Mike Halliday]

Jim you missed my first sentence which was in answer to garry question 1..... I've had a girl ringing past customers and over the last 2 week sending out Xmas cards, still not the return of leaflets

[Neil Williams]

Jim you missed my first sentence which was in answer to garry question 1..... I've had a girl ringing past customers and over the last 2 week sending out Xmas cards, still not the return of leaflets

Depends on how you want to read the results Mike.
For example you can put out 10,000 leaflets in a week but with the best will in the world your girl is never going to do 10,000 phonecalls even if you had that many previous customers to call.
Ignore the numbers but what percentage of interested customers does she get from phone calls etc against blanket leafletting an area?

[Mike Halliday]

Neil I'm talking about financial return, her wages and how much work she brings in is more than if i spent her wages on putting leaflets out

 I can pay her to send out reminder cards and phone old customers but the amount of work she brings in in less that if i spent the same money putting out leaflets

[AshWhite]

Mike,
Would you maybe get more jobs quicker by phonecalls though? As opposed to people keeping leaflets for 3-4 months before calling you I mean?

[Neil Williams]

Neil I'm talking about financial return, her wages and how much work she brings in is more than if i spent her wages on putting leaflets out

 I can pay her to send out reminder cards and phone old customers but the amount of work she brings in in less that if i spent the same money putting out leaflets

But I think that's always going to be the situation unless you added 'cold calling new customers' to her remit.
My own findings are that when times are quiet we get a better % return on letters etc to previous customers than leaflets put out.

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

Mike have you considered the "bloody hell, not another leaflet from Henry Halliday" effect.

Maybe mix it up a little using newsletters, postcards.

Mind you I don't leaflet so what do I know  

[Jim_77]

Sorry Mike I thought you meant telesales as in phoning new prospects.

I have to say though, Xmas cards are NOT sales letters... unless they are A4 printed on both pages inside, with sufficient copy doing the selling and a tempting offer presented to the customer?

My reaction when I get Christmas cards from my suppliers is "oh p off" but if they WROTE to me with a letter that actually sold something to me, I'd pay a lot more attention.  If I needed something that they were offering, and with a bit of a deal on the table, I'd more than likely oblige.

Do you get what I mean, in that there's a difference between those two messages?  It's my belief that just sending "something" from you isn't enough.  You need to give it all to them, the only thing they have to do is pick up the phone and take it.

Also, how much per mailing piece did those cards cost you, including postage?  Bearing in mind you can send a 2-sided A4 colour printed letter for £0.37 (ex vat). which is cheaper than buying a 2nd class stamp!!

Comparing the ROI of your £x.xx per xmas card to £0.37 per letter, would it have made it a more worthwhile return?  And further to that, if (arguably) a sales letter would have provoked a better response than xmas cards, would that have made it even more viable?

Going further still, a direct mail campaign for the pre-xmas rush just a few weeks before is surely too late?  I did mine mid-October and got work from it instantly and I've still got a couple of jobs to go next week from it.

As far as telephone sales goes, what's your knee-jerk reaction when someone phones you up to sell you something?  I'll tell you what mine is - I hang up!  As a general rule, people don't like "in your face" sales techniques and they instantly throw up barriers to it.

Mike I know this is coming across a bit like I'm trying to teach granny to suck eggs... honestly I'm not, I'm genuinely trying to think round this issue with you

[Ian Gourlay]

Derek has cracked Social Media Marketing    I have just bought a book  Free marketing 101 low cost no cost ways to grow business online offline by Jim Cockrum availble on amazon . Jim also wrote The  Silent Sales Machine biggest ever selling digital book on ebay , but now revised for any business. All strategies based around social media

I personally understand Mikes Model better for immediate results

put in £10 get a £100 out its the way most direct Sales Companies Work  

In theory if Mike doubled his area of operation he would mega blast VAT .

Even if his other Strategies do not deliver such a good return I have not read him complaining about not being busy

I personally think Mike does well to get that return from leaflets and would take a while to get that result if he increased his area of operation

Mike is in a position where his turnover suits his life style . He probably could stop advertising and still get calls but why risk it.

[Mike Halliday]

Lots of good response but for a few years I have excepted the fact that I need to spend money on marketing to get the amount & quality of customers I need to be busy all the time,

 if I gave £200 to every person on here and said go spend this money on marketing, no one would do anything I have not tried. And what have found that works for me with the smallest amount of my own time taken is leaflets.

Now if idid'nt put a value on my own time then it would be different,  if I ignored how long it, took what gave the best return on money spent was delivering complimentary  newspapers to small/medium sized business ( something I,ve never heard anyone else doing)

In the end weall choose how we do business & what works for ourselves.

[Simon Gerrard]

Mike,
You appear to be completely missing the point. By now, given you're a second generation business, you should have so many past customers that you shouldn't need to advertisie, or at least very little, but certainly not to the tune of £800 per month. The fact that you do need that level of investment should be telling you your doing something wrong and instead of finding out what that is and correcting it, you seem intent on throwing money at it which is bizarre.
But it could be as simple as you've now educated your customers that they buy carpet cleaning services via leaflets because they are always coming through the door.

Simon

[Ian Gourlay]

Simon

I do not get what you are saying.

5 years ago U was working with a Direct salesCompany that had been established 25 years

Although they had repeat business they still spend money on aquiring new customers , generating referals andrepwat business,


If I had just worked with one company I would perhapd think they are wrong . But everything I have ever read , companies I have neen with tell me this is what tou have to do.

I think you might be a position where iver the years you have a some Big Contracts under your belt  which means you do not need to advertise.

I wish I had played my cards right 27 years ago when I left a major retailer and had as part of the  package contracts for their Mrgga stores