What % will you pay for marketing.

Got to talk to a friend that owns a successful HVAC company and got a LOT of good info.

He says when your starting up (by this he means anything under 3-4 trucks) you should never pay more than 15% of your total return. Once established you should never pay more than 6% of your total return.

Their company has an in house advertising agent that answers the phones partly and then also handles all their marketing, social media, etc etc

They also use a third party company that costs them 1200/month just to get analysis on all the available marketing out there, this gives them real numbers that are based on the seattle markets for their specific service.

He was telling me that Angies list and yelp both call them annually to try and increase prices generally by 20% for the same level of advertising package. But when they have real numbers of what these companies are doing in the area they are able to fire back and just simply put their foot down. Because of this neither company has been able to increase their costs at all in the last several years.

For them yelp is the best and brings in the most revenue, but their company is different, every job must be estimated in person... no prices are ever given ahead of time.


Angie's List is changing starting this year, they are trying to launch a program called "concierge providers" so what they want to do is send out a possible customer to several service companies to have them all give a price and then one gets the job. The same thing as service magic aka home advisor this is completely new.

In addition to that they are trying to increase pricing on us by 60% for our magazine ad, and they tried to increase their cut of the storefront sales from 9.5% to 50%!!!!!!!!

I told them not a chance, it instantly lowers to 30%.. I again say absolutely not, it instantly lowers to 20%... again I said no way will that ever work for us so it goes down to what they say is there minimum 12%



Remember, these companies need you as much as you need them... you can and should give them a very hard bargain, pull out every bit of statistic you can on your ROI and other percentages and you will find out their REAL prices. A lot of companies never do this, you dont have to pay what they ask... these prices are not set, it is just their target.


So he gave me the number for his in house marketing guy and told him to spend some time on the phone with me to help out with what he can... what he is going to give us is info from the 3rd party they pay 1200/month to for analysis, and also his own expertise... I have a feeling that I am a huge rookie in these departments and that I will probably learn a lot in a short time.

I know a good amount of what works, but really I do what probably most all of us do... just go with what is working at the time, when there is really many options and ways you can improve.

[quote="ACpower1"].............................

For them yelp is the best and brings in the most revenue,   but their company is different,  every job must be estimated in person...  no prices are ever given ahead of time.....................................

  [/quote

Lottaa Info, Thanks.

Glad to see it posted, that Yelp works great for someone besides me.........since there's so many here that seem anti-Yelp.   

Also, "but their company is different,  every job must be estimated in person...  no prices are ever given ahead of time"

That's really no different than my Co., as I go out and Quote about 95% of jobs for new/first time customers......the exception or other 5%, are small jobs that sound like my min charge, $120-150 will cover.

Yelp is non existent in my city.

 My problem I spend a very small percentage of revenue on marketing.

I only spend  0 Mo so it's OK. LOL

No Yelp in AZ?!?!?!..........that seems weird!!?   

Yup I spend "0" on Angie's. Yelp is not very popular in Prescott probably good in Phoenix.

Our other approach now is we are biting the bullet and hiring a local SEO company that is deeply imbedded in Seattle

For 299.00/month we get (its a big list, so i numbered it instead of a big paragraph)

1. A wordpress website professionally designed

2. 5 hrs/ month of graphic design, website design, and photos

3. Ad management (ad budget up to 1k/month) - this means they professionally manage your ad words, yelp, etc with new content and grapics

4. Email marketing blast, 1 email/ month (I felt this way enough but can be increased)

5. 1 blog post per month professionally written (all I have to do is give the the jist of the content, i e filtration lines)

6. 2 - 90 second videos/ year professionally shot (saw some examples, they do really good work)

7. 2 photoshoots/ year for website content, etc

8. 3 posts/wk to facebook with original content with 5+ organic followers added

9. 8 posts/ wk to twitter with original content 20+ organic follower growth

10. 3 posts/ wk to google+ with original content

11. 3 posts/ wk to linkedin also original content

12. 3 posts/ wk to tumblr same deal

13. pro youtube channel set up

14. pro yelp page set up

15. SEO 5 pages of on page optimization coding, optimized video/text, etc

16. search engine submission to all of them

17. local submission for searches

18. Bi monthly reporting on everything above with traffic, clicks, click thru rates, etc

19. citation building using our postal address

20. comment marketing optimized for seattle

21. directory submission to 25 local directories

22. competitive analysis of 3 local competitor websites monthly

23. 30 minutes/ month of general marketing consultation


I should have done this 2yrs ago, they also have programs/ packages directed at marketing business to business, or to target online consumers if your selling a product

We went with this company because they are heavily embedded in seattle

Wanna know how I chose them??? I googled to see who popped up lol, they are #1 every time, I tried it 10+times in a row no matter what they come up first organic or cpc

a true test of how good they are at their own work

That is a bargain!! I have an ad man working on my Spring campaign and it doesn't include hardly any of that stuff and is costing me a heck of a lot more.

Sometimes it is good to hire a pro, saves the headaches so you can focus on your craft.

heres their site if your interested, they mostly are effective in seattle because of their local presence online

http://marketeeringgroup.com/electra_services/business-to-consumer-marketing/

they make a good case for hiring a local seo company instead of someone across the country

That's is a good value and I like how you chose them   My home made website is so out dated. I haven't done anything to it in years.

GEEEZZZZZ MO, I just searched for "carpet cleaning", in "Prescott AZ" and there is ONLY 1 CC that has a review, and he only has ONE!!

SO GET UR ASS ON THERE MO, GET IN ON THE GROUND FLOOR NOW, I can't stress this enough!!!!!!!!!!! It's free!!!  

I'd love to have the opportunity you have right now!!! Being on Yelp, with out any Competition, I'm fighting for work against 100 other cleaners in my area, and you only have one that's new on there with 1 review!

Seriously MAn, get on there ASAP, it's FREE and thank me later!! LOL    

Mo wrote:That's is a good value and I like how you chose them   My home made website is so out dated. I haven't done anything to it in years.

AT this point, I still don't really even have a WebSite, but that doesn't interfere with getting a couple dozen jobs a month from Yelp now.   

right now over 80% of people are finding local companies from google or other search engines

that is with the baby boomers, you dont even want to know the numbers for the next generations coming, its not far from 100%

ACpower1 wrote:right now over 80% of people are finding local companies from google or other search engines

that is with the baby boomers,   you dont even want to know the numbers for the next generations coming,   its not far from 100%

Yup, and when it comes to Google, it's pointing to my Yelp page, which is where all my new customers via unpaid advo are coming from.   

Mo has the opportunity of a lifetime right now, I hope he takes advantage of it!   

Done

Dave are you on Angies list too?

the problem with not paying yelp is the paid companies are posted all over your page

also imagine how much more you would get from having a website that google picks up, yelp ranks high but not the highest all the time... depending on the area you could have several hundred to a thousand people visiting your site per month.

No, I'm not on Angie's, just Yelp.   

I don't care for the fact you have to pay to be on AL, and I've never paid for Yelp either, although it took awhile to get enough reviews on Yelp to really make my phone start ringing, and doing a lot of jobs from it, it's defiantly been worth more than the cost, FREE!!!!   

you dont have to pay to be on AL, you cant even put yourself on there... customers have to.

its no different than yelp really, they are both kinda bs with both of them the customers will see the paid ads way before yours unfortunately

good to hear its working out though and keeping you busy

Angies list has been awsome for us,   but get rdy to see the major changes they are doing right now...   its borderline bloodsucking

Dave there are 18 carpet cleaners listed and a total of 4 reviews among them. But your right I should be listed there too.

Yup you don't have to pay to be on Angies list either. It's a snow ball affect just like Yelp. Yelp for yuppies and Angies for seniors.

ACpower1 wrote:the problem with not paying yelp is the paid companies are posted all over your page

Common man,

Does that REALLY matter, if you're not paying a fucxing dime for the advo but you are still doing 12-20 jobs with a $300+ job ave per month?!?!?

I know you're not a fan of Yelp, AC (not really sure why logically), but I have a much different opinion as you can see.......and it's mighty hard to knock free advertizing, I THINK!!!     

You can focus on the negative if you would like, but I choose to look at the good in it, and for starters there's not much to complain about for free advertizing that works, and brings in 3-5k a month!    

Dave we just told Angies list was free? You might already have a review on there. Just check it out. It doesn't have to an either or proposition.

Davey Cracker wrote:

ACpower1 wrote:the problem with not paying yelp is the paid companies are posted all over your page

But can't that happen on Angies list too with the paid advertisers. It's not all over the page but the pad advertiser can get a highlighted listing. But the number of reviews still trumps a paid highlighted listing

Mo wrote:Dave there are 18 carpet cleaners listed and a total of 4 reviews among them. But your right I should be listed there too.

OK, well Sorry, I do know searching from different areas, and using different search terms nets different results. But even so, what do you have to loose with free advertizing??. LMAO........Besides as AC sez paid advertisers being shown on your free listing page? (Who F'in cares, it's FREEEEE!!)   .............it sure doesn't seem to effect my free listing jobs I still get (that I know of)...........almost averaging 1job a day now.   

let us see your page davey, I just want to see the number of reviews and what deals your offering

trying to improve our yelp page, we dont have enough reviews on there to get a lot of business but going to go old school and call our customers, offer a discount and ask for a review.

I realize its free and its nice, I wasnt knocking it.. just saying why most businesses who generate money from yelp are paying to be on there.

plus if you pay them theyll block a bad review if you accidently suck a cat into your blower

But can't that happen on Angies list too with the paid advertisers. It's not all over the page but the pad advertiser can get a highlighted listing. But the number of reviews still trumps a paid highlighted listing

actually now a customer has to change how the companies are sorted to see highest review first...   the way it works now is,    the companies who have sold the most "storefront deals" are at the top of the list,   and conveniently only companies who pay for advertising can offer a storefront.