What are all your advertising avenues?

Going to start up another ad-venture and just looking to get some input.  

Home advisor was great for about 4 weeks but then the leads just starting exploding and so many werent working out,    I decided to set it to commercial leads only until I can get a lot more reviews up there.       We have a 5 star rating but only a few reviews,   need to get at least 20-30.      Biggest problem was too many leads and I couldnt contact them quick enough because we were working with 1 van and already a slammed schedule,   with home adviser you gotta call immediately.  

Going to market to many existing customers with a card asking for a yelp review and home adviser review from previous cleanings

want to see how much free exposure I can get from yelp with more reviews.  

Does anyone here do EDDM?      biggest thing with non-review based marketing is you need to establish credibility,    which is why believe it or not the "super service awards"  etc  do matter.    


Also going to start an actual referral program,    do any of you do this?     I dont mean asking for referrals,   but actually having a system.      


heres a good line for when your just finishing up with a customer "we dont spend a lot of money on flashy advertising so any referrals or word of mouth really helps us out a lot, it keeps our costs down so we can offer better pricing with the same quality"  

That exact line seems to work really well,    many people can relate to being manipulated by flashy advertising and that statement seems to make them feel like you dont want to get involved in the infomercial style cheesy ads.

This is a timely topic for me as I really don't spend much in advertising. I operate almost exclusively on referrals, but then I have more charm than advertising smarts anyway.

It is a good thing God made me so ugly, because I am a really good charmer and flirt. Being ugly was just to give the women a fighting chance, but I can normally charm my way into getting work.

I am thinking about using a Jimmy Buffet marketing method of giving away t-shirts in a can. He used to carry tins the size of a tuna fish can that would contain a logo t-shirt all over the world and hand them out to people he met. The can had a warning that the t-shirt may contain wrinkles when opened.

I remember seeing one photo of a tribe of cannibals in the Amazon wearing concert t-shirts so the method must work well.

Consider what you spend on advertising and then ask how much is that per customer......how many t-shirts could you have purchased with that amount? T-shirts are walking all over town, mowing the lawn, washing the car, or showing at softball games. They get great coverage and keep working for years before they wear out.

I think I am switching to t-shirts for my advertising campaign. Might even send a few cases to Ethiopia just to try and make the news the next time they have a disaster. Chicago Cubs World Series champion shirts and Castle Defenders parading around town would be cool.

I just have to find someone who can press them into tuna cans...

This is a timely topic!...as I just sent AC a pm asking him about his marketing efforts....I have everything under control except for the advertising changes that happened over the past 10 -11 years. In the past I did well to just answer the phone with a real person and some YP advertising.....much of my efforts went into my daily marketing myself and most was captured this way but I need to find normal ground for when im not able to do the "charm" as milspec seems to have as well. We did daily postcards direct mail and follow-ups too but.

So, I wait for the replies.

That's the problem with advertising, how do you stand out? Personal contacts allow you to sell yourself, which is what the customer is buying more than the company or equipment. Any standard advertising just advertises the business and to me, misses out on the strength of what you offer.

My plumber, dentist, physician, electrician, barber, and butcher were all selected because I enjoyed talking with them and they treated me well. None of them came to be by standard advertising routes.

My dentist has a print ad, sure, but nothing in it captured him. When you meet the guy and find out that he has climbed Everest, used to be an Airborne Ranger, plays a great bass guitar, and can tell you some of the best stories while fixing your teeth , you end up choosing this guy for life.

That is what I want to find....how do you do it except by social interaction? I think all commercial ads can do is compare the business to another business and you hope that your key words win the day. To me, that just leaves a customer comparing price over almost everything else and that isn't a good thing.

That being said, I don't know squat about how to advertise and have the fee time waiting for the phone to ring to prove it.

I agree with Rob, being friendly, and charming goes along way, but you really have to put yourself in front of them for that to totally work, like he also said ads just don't convey that, and being good on the phone just doesn't really cut it. That's why I put myself in front of potential customers by going out to do in home quotes.

For me this business has always been about sales and good service.........not just service. And as I've said before, the only proper way for me to sell myself and service is face to face.....and it works very well, but most guys think it's a waste of time. That's really too bad for them. I had a customer the other day that told me she called another company before me and after she requested for them to come out and give her a proper quote in person, they flat out refused and told her we don't do that, so just moved on, called me and got what he wanted, and I got her business, which was almost a $700 job.

The only advo I've been doing the last year or so is with Yelp, but unless you have 10-15 good reviews I think it's a waste of money to pay them for advertizing.

I'm currently in the process of ditching Yelp, and putting the money into Angie's List advo tho. I'm fed up with the predominately lower end/renter/price shopper customers I get from them and have noticed AL members being all homeowners, and recently finding out their ave. members income is 110k per year I'm really thinking and hoping it's where I'm going to have success in the future with my advertizing dollars.

Household incomes of 110k on Angie's List? That sounds like very fertile land to me. That is the kind of research that everyone should employ, demographics matter.

I would venture to say in the affluent areas of LA that average would be considerably higher.

That i"d guess is very possibly for my area and not nation wide. ??

Davey...great reply!...this is very true when you depend a lot on personality. Helps me to stay focused on not getting away from doing in home quotes.

We don't do EDDM anymore, I think EDDM attracts people looking for deals.
Internet review sites are the key imo, Yelp and AL seems popular around here, I ditched Yelp because they are messing around with me after 5 long relationship years, they wanted to triple a portion of fees in my ads plan unless I sign a 1 year agreement, I told them go to you know what.
I'm going back to Google ad words unless I can try AL for a few months, working on that now, the only bad thing us I don't have much reviews on there now. I'm starting to ask every customer to give me reviews there if they have an account with them which unfortunately most don't cause they cost $$.
I also talked to one of my repeat customer yesterday that told me she doesn't care for AL because of the companies listed there are not as pleasant as in Yelp and AL is very aggressive in sending her emails and deals of her particular search.
Crap, I think I should put this in AL vs Yelp thread huh ? Lol.