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I quit YB advertising because the sales lady wanted twice as much for the same ad than the year before. However, I do want to advertise. I want to put my ad money on what I feel it would be more efficient and effective.

What would you suggest  

I recently called Google Adwords, after a detailed discussion, they wanted to "pull" the monthly payments from my credit card. I had a bad experience with a merchant that "pulled" the payments from my C/C so I don't do "pull" payments and they told they don't do invoice. So...Google is out.

You can do a pay per click campaign with a specific amount of money every month. Adjust it to a point that sends the amount of work you can handle.

You can do a Search Engine Optimization on your website. Which is basically a word optimization strategy.

There are a lot of options to consider.

If credit card pull is the only reason why you hesitated, why not sign up for a prepaid card or get another account with a debit card and just put enough to cover the advertisement cost ?
YB is dead in my opinion for most areas, google adwords / pay per click works almost anywhere, yelp and angie's list works on certain markets and you have to have some good reviews to support the ads, without them, the ads won't work since it beats the purpose of people searching there.
Direct mail may still work in certain markets however it's expensive and it's hard to be certain that it's working until you try it and if it doesn't work, you can be in the red for thousands of dollars.
Craigslist is another one that's gotten mixed results but it's free, search the thread about craigslist in the search column up there in this forum.

Whatever you do for marketing, is HAS to be consistent.

I would suggest EDDM, D2D, in addition to blowing up marketing on the net.

It takes money to make money.

 Even in my small market, AdWords, done correctly, can bring in leads.

Hire a commission based independant door to door salesman with previous experience...
I recently ran into a pest control company that the owner would pull up to the job and 2 salesmen would pop out of the truck and start knowing doors in the surrounding houses. By the time the owner / sprayer guy was done he already had another job just down the block... In my eyes this is a game changer once the rinse repeat method is in full throttle. Think about that for carpet cleaning u would only need one salesman and that would give him a about an hour to get another job. Clockwork baby clockwork!
When in doubt with advertising or marketing, go old school. It's impossible not to work, unlike the interweb.

I use to door knock myself when I was new in this biz, and did get a lot of work doing it.

The problem I saw with it for carpet cleaning was the type of person that agrees to have their carpet cleaned like that, spur of the moment was usually only tempted to do so by a very low price and usually it was a small job, only a room or two..........that might work for a lot of guys but it was never my kinda preferred deal really.

I'd say knocking on doors not a bad idea to get new customers, and you'll have higher end jobs, if you're willing to do it to introduce yourself and in the process create a customer down the road and ur not looking for same day cleaning jobs. Just my O and experience.

To the Original poster, I'd put my money into Yelp advo, if it's something that people are using in your area, but like DP said don't waste your money until you get some reviews built up, and you're near the top of your category for your service in your area. Or you're just throwing your money away, just ask a here I think a guy or two here that have tried it with too little reviews with little success.   

In my small market area, I am going out and hanging a flyer with a magnetic business card on the doors of key neighborhoods. I will be covering 5 small towns within 30 miles of each other with over a 1,000 door hangers by this time next week.

Not sure what to expect, but I do know that many of those smaller towns don't have a local cleaner so it might be the first advertisement any of them have seen. I am hoping to at least get good exposure in those new markets.

In the farming communities around here, not many people will spend time looking for an out of town cleaner off the web. I am hoping that they will jump on one local when they see one in the area.

Thank you guys, for all your help and advice!

door to door works for commercial like restaurants that arent owned by a national company.    

works for residential but everyone here has no soliciting signs and some of the new development neighborhoods with home owners associations dont allow it.  

I think review sites are the biggest and best right now along with google searches,   I would focus everything you got on those 2.    

sending out junk mail Im not a fan of,    cards to previous customers are great and crucial

Do whatever you can to build reviews on angies list and yelp and let the free part work for itself.