My advertising stats

[MatthewKeath]

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dean11, post: 202811 wrote:

Hi Matthew,
It sounds as if you have looked at my website and either don’t like it or see that it’s faulty in some way.
I would love to hear your comments on the website
I know I need to work on it further, and soon.
Thank youMaybe some pictures will give it a more approachable feel. A professional looking, but still approachable website will help convert your marketing efforts into visitors.

If you want a review, check out the reviews section: http://www.flyingsolo.com.au/forums/community-reviews/

Cheers,

Matt

[AmberS]

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dean11, post: 202812 wrote:

Amber, thank you. Red light to me and facebook at the moment. Green light maybe to Zebidoo.com and my wife … I just looked at your article on blogging and I thought my wife should try that. She has heaps of great vintage clothing to sell online and is working towards that goal on Facebook. But your article seemed to suggest that blogging was a more direct, better way. I will send her a link so she can look into it. Cheers!

Thanks, I’m more than happy to have a chat to her. Building your own brand / domain will always be a good long term investment, mixed in with Facebook ad she can do well. Best of luck
Amber

[bb1]

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………………………………2010 2012 2014
Flyer ………………… 45% 22% 12%
Community newsletter 11% 19% 19%
Referal ………………. 33% 45% 51%
Local paper ………… 2% 0% 0
Yellow Pages ………. 5% 8% 8%
Other ………………… 3% 2% 2%
internet ………………. 0% 4% 7%

My stats, not a single cold call amongst them

[bb1]

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The Hobbit, post: 202615 wrote:

[*]Have you cold called local Real Estate agents, they often manage properties or refer tenants to services?.

Just a word of warning on this one, after 8 years in this game, I avoid Real estate’s FULL STOP.

They are the worst payers out, I will gladly do Body corp work, only ever had trouble with one payment in all that time. I gave Real estates a go, and sacked all of them. Yes it can be regular work, but they also want it done yesterday, and than take for ever to pay, just not on in my opinion.

[dean11]

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bb1, post: 202873 wrote:

………………………………2010 2012 2014
Flyer ………………… 45% 22% 12%
Community newsletter 11% 19% 19%
Referal ………………. 33% 45% 51%
Local paper ………… 2% 0% 0
Yellow Pages ………. 5% 8% 8%
Other ………………… 3% 2% 2%
internet ………………. 0% 4% 7%

My stats, not a single cold call amongst them

Hi Bert
Thank you, very interesting stats. Can you expand on them a bit? I assume flyers are declining in importance mainly because you don’t send them out as much – you don’t have to, because of all those referrals. Looks like local papers have always been a dud for you. Yellow Pages – good return for what it costs? And most interesting, perhaps, the internet … 7% of your jobs from that source. Is it a website, or have you done Facebook and blogging, as some members have suggested I should try?

[dean11]

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MatthewKeath, post: 202845 wrote:

Maybe some pictures will give it a more approachable feel. A professional looking, but still approachable website will help convert your marketing efforts into visitors.

If you want a review, check out the reviews section: http://www.flyingsolo.com.au/forums/community-reviews/

Cheers,

Matt

Okay, I will get some pictures, work on the site a bit, then try this review thing. Sounds good!

[bb1]

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dean11, post: 202876 wrote:

Hi Bert
Thank you, very interesting stats. Can you expand on them a bit? I assume flyers are declining in importance mainly because you don’t send them out as much – you don’t have to, because of all those referrals. Looks like local papers have always been a dud for you. Yellow Pages – good return for what it costs? And most interesting, perhaps, the internet … 7% of your jobs from that source. Is it a website, or have you done Facebook and blogging, as some members have suggested I should try?

I havent put out flyers for most likely 3 years, as like you have noticed my referals are high. But interesting just a couple of months back I still had a call from a flyer.
Yellow pages I only use the free ad,
Local pages were a dud all together and I dont bother with them anymore, having said that another guy in the area had good success with the local paper and hopeless response to flyers, yet we both had similiar offerings.
internet bundles in my website, plus the council list, and free listing on start local, and that kind of site.

I built my website myself, and it gets page one ranking for the search term I think most people would use. But I have not spent any money on SEO and will not, as I dont want work from this source it is just there as a validation of my business, yes strange comment but a lot of people just want to know that you exist. You will get some SEO guru’s saying that spend money on SEO and increase your sales, possibly true, but possibly you will NOT get ANY busines from it, so tread carefully if considering this path.

My biggest advise is work on the referals, and I dont do this by asking my clients to refer me, never have and never will. Do a good job and they will refer. I am one of the higher priced business’s in the area, but as long as you keep the quality up the work will come. Dont compromise on your price to get clients, you will end up with all the ones I dont want, and I dont want them for a reason.

A few years ago I sacked a heap of my troublesome clients and a startup by coincidence picked them up, he thanked me, and I warned him that in a few months he will be cursing me, which he was. the people who want cheap bring with them heaps of other problems.

[dean11]

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Could you tell me what sort of Community Newsletter you mean. 19% of leads is an excellent result. Thanks

[bb1]

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dean11, post: 202886 wrote:

Could you tell me what sort of Community Newsletter you mean. 19% of leads is an excellent result. Thanks

They are just community newsletters of about 16 pages, done by the local progress society (or whatever they are called). has articles about local things, and the 2 I advertise in take business card size ad’s. They are published every 2 to 3 months.

1 is for a community of about 900, the other about 3 or 4 thousand. I get the most from the smaller community.

[mypresences]

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Hi dean … If you are not too adverse to online I would suggest taking advantage of as many of the free internet services as you can to not only provide exposure but also increase the number of citations for your business.

This will help you rank better in local seo so when people search for “lawn mowing ” they are more liking to find you on the first page.

Make sure you use Name, Address and Phone Number are as consistent as possible on each page and that these details are on your homepage and you will start to rank better.

On the below page if you filter by Builder Trades (closest category to you at the moment) and choose Australia you will see 93 services you can list on.

Filter on Free SEO to find the ones that will give you a free follow backlink to help with SEO. Filter on Specific for some sites that will be specific to your type of business (servicecentral, serviceseeking, hipages, oneflare, houzz, tradecritic etc).

You can click through to see more information on each service and link directly to the add pages when possible.

https://www.mypresences.com/services/
disclaimer: this is my website.

Hope that helps and good luck with marketing your business. Also thanks for the stats on what is working for you .. I am looking to do some of these and found it very interesting.

Cheers,
Paul.

[mypresences]

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Hi dean … just checked your profile on yellowpages:
http://www.yellowpages.com.au/sup/eko-lawnmowing-15304389-listing.html

Your website is using a .com.au address which does not appear to be registered so clicking the website goes nowhere.
and the profile has no address associated so no local searchers will find it … I had to broaden the scope to just the name to find it.
It is also fairly empty so people finding it may go elsewhere.

I think it would be definitely worth checking your online profiles for completeness and correctness.

Cheers,
Paul.

[PRO]

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Here’s mine for new files opened in the law firm. The only thing different is that the competitors have upped their adword spend dramatically over the last 2 – 3 weeks and I am not wanting to match at this stage, It is likely only a temporary increase and if I match as well as the other 3 we will all be spending a lot more money to be in the same positions we were in a month ago. If it doesn’t come down in the next couple of weeks then the competitors must be determined to stay up there and I will have to spend to match. It is worth being up there and even at the double spend people are at now it is still worth it, I just don’t want to put a floor under the spend level and we all spend heaps more for the same result. For me the position makes a huge difference. If I average top 2 then I get ~30% click through, if I go to 3 it drops to 7%, if I go to 4 it is less than 1%.

Anyway, 3 snapshots of my stats for all marketing below

November thus far
Referrals 52%
Direct Mail 22%
Adwords 13%
Previous Clients -balance

And for October
Referrals 36%
Adwords 32%
Direct Mail 16%
Previous Clients – balance

And for September
Referrals 32%
Direct Mail 27%
Adwords 23 %
Previous Clients – balance

[dean11]

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Hi Paul
This is all interesting and I’m sure valuable, thanks very much.
I will have to take a day or more off normal work to devote to this aspect … I have a doubt as to whether people really look for mowing services online, but will try it and let you know what happens.
Yellow Pages: I assume you mean the online version, which I can easily change. Does anyone use the printed Yellow Pages any more? It used to be such a big thing. Currently I don’t have anything in the printed version, except a free listing which I did not insert, which gives my area of operation as the vicinity of Bowral and Berrima, hundreds of kilometres away!
I have had two or three puzzling and puzzled callers from that source this year – which suggests that a free listing in the printed Yellow Pages is hardly worth worrying about.

Edit: By the way my website is ekolawnmowing.com so the .com.au version is a pain. I wonder how that got in there?!
Cheers

[dean11]

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Thanks Darryl those stats are interesting. How much you spend on adwords and direct mailing affects the outcome, of course, but we see again that referrals are very important.

[PRO]

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dean11, post: 202921 wrote:

Thanks Darryl those stats are interesting. How much you spend on adwords and direct mailing affects the outcome, of course, but we see again that referrals are very important.

I spend 3-4 times my rent on those 2 combined and climbing, spending just over $1k a month on SEO at the moment which should bring my adwords spend down in time. BUT we measure the origin of every new contact and every new file so I can see that it is worthwhile. If it wasn’t for the lag between new client and payment I would happily spend multiples of that.

Advertising is expensive but when you measure where your new clients come from and know what the true cost of your product/service is, you can see that each additional $1 spent is profit positive.

[Author]

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