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tree beard
22-07-2008, 08:57 PM
Hi All

Was wondering when you all start advertising again? The moment is fast approaching and am really keen to get the dollars coming in but also dont want to waste my money on advertising too early. So If you are inclined to share when do you guys (thoses that still advertise for work) kick it off ???

lifestyle
25-07-2008, 07:50 AM
Depending on the work you do there are opportunities to advertise all year round.

Advertise for...

-- Tree pruning in Winter
-- Lawn Mowing in Spring
-- Cleaning gutters, fire hazard cleanups etc in early Summer
-- New Lawns, Top dressing, flat weed etc, in Autumn

....

Winter tree pruning customers can become Spring/Yearly Lawn mowing customers.

Lay a new lawn in Autumn and you could be maintaining it for years to come.

Notice an Overhanging branch when your cleaning gutters in early summer and you could have a job for the beginning of winter...

etc, etc, etc, :wave-hi:

DAJ
25-07-2008, 09:43 AM
The best time to advertise for mowing work is when people realise that they need it done NOW . ie After some rain and heat in spring .
The lawns will be going crazy ,a lot of the contactors will already be flat out and because of the urgency ,if you arrive ready to do the job you will probably get it on the spot .
So my advise ,so you dont waste advertising $$$$$$$$ is to time it off the weather .
Cheers :wave-hi:

Rob@Borlorac
25-07-2008, 10:00 AM
Ran my first add 1 week ago and picked up a town house complex.
The lady wants me to spend 4 hours per week there. I also got 2 yards and 1 quote(missed out on the quote)I am happy that I ran the add this time of the year.(I am a newbie)

geejay
25-07-2008, 04:41 PM
we advertise up to one week before school holidays and start after the holidays is over.we will cancel a advert on a particular week if rain is forcast,have only done this once.started adverts two weeks back and have had a great response,first week was better than this week,but both ads paid with jobs and on going work.

ventas
27-07-2008, 12:02 AM
ive been mowing and gardening for over ten years here in ne melbourne.For lawns i have found beginning of september to be agood time to start off a block of advertising.what geejay said is pretty good advice.There may be a few weeks to start with you may only get some calls, but stick it out by end of september you will be busy, thats what has worked for my business

simo
27-07-2008, 08:23 AM
when ever I see a sold sign on a property in my area I drop a flyer or card in the mail box 5 out of 10 I get the job, works for me...(also removal trucks are a good sign of new occupants ).

BLACK BEAR
27-07-2008, 08:13 PM
I'm with ventas, for lawns I normally start early September in local papers etc and run through till approx. end November at the latest. Don't want the time wasters you get just before x-mas but they can be good bucks if you have the time.

cadase
27-07-2008, 11:11 PM
I keep my ad in the local rag all year round,
The only thing i change is, i might swap it to the gardening section in Autumn & winter months, lawnmowing section for spring & summer
The ad always pays for itself.
Even if your flat out you should keep the ad in. There are always customers you want, or need to drop. then replace them with better qaulity jobs. Like i said, the ad will pay for itself anyway. :)

tree beard
07-08-2008, 09:49 PM
Well booked my first month of adds last friday.

Paper came out today and got my first call...dont know if I will win the work (will give it my best tho) but chuffed with a call on the first day. What will day 2 hold???? :)

tree beard
08-08-2008, 09:24 PM
Mmmm got the first job and did it!

Have another tomorrow....I wonder if the phone will ring on Sunday?

Starting to enjoy this!

Bgs
08-08-2008, 09:56 PM
Great work tree beard, I will never forget the excitement i got when I first put out flyer's and started taking bookings.

You will have to cancel your advert in no time as you will be too busy for anymore work.

Sandgroper
09-08-2008, 01:55 AM
The thing about this time of the year hardly anybody advertisers, so you can pick up few lawns.

I will start in September

tree beard
09-08-2008, 08:39 PM
hey Bgs

having a ball put out 100 brochures in every location i get a quote...you cant be too sure so best is over kill!

Sandgroper..are you sure this is legal...having way to much fun hope the old guard keep out of our local rags till then :)

Actually am more sore from the letterboxing at this stage (carry my 9 month old daughter with me in a back pack) than from the lawns and clean ups!

Sandgroper
10-08-2008, 12:48 PM
Theres two in our local paper at the moment,it will go as high as 12 in early December, probaly the two do just as well in the slow (amount of calls) season as the 12 in the peak season.

geejay
10-08-2008, 06:16 PM
here advert responses have slowed due to rain and cold weather.we have cut ads by half,wait for warmer weather and growth.we work our regs and drop pamplets around them,a slow response, but potenial customers will keep them for latter when things warm up.ads to us are more we want it done now,look in the paper and start phoning contractors.

mowjoman
10-08-2008, 08:30 PM
I advertised in the local rag a little while ago for 4 weeks which cost me about 250 bucks. I got a one off and 2 regulars which has paid for the cost of the ad but is less than I was hoping for. Perhaps in summer I would've got a better result :i dunno:
I've put an ad in our locallity guide which I'm hoping will serve me better but I wanted to say that the guy who did my trailer signs was telling me that he's done the paper, radio, locallity guide etc but his response really picked up was when he made up a heap of the small long flyers (A6 size) and got the post office to deliver them to his target market for about 12 cents a flyer, pretty expensive I know but it worked dividends for him.
Takeaway the cost of aussie post delivering them foe you be better. Anyway another example anyway. I reckon but you have to know your community to see what method will work best, look at other successfull businesses in town and take note at how they market themselves will give some sort of benchmark at least. :)

tree beard
10-08-2008, 09:27 PM
Geejay & Mojo

It is an interesting challenge(My first months advertising in two papers cost $135 odd and am about to have the second week come out tues-wed) I might have a look into the radio thing for when it warmer but I suspect that that is well beyond my meager budget but i will post the outcome of my enquiries. My brochures are A tri fold and I am hoping the quality of it means for most that its a keeper if they are interested down the track

Mowjoe
11-08-2008, 07:46 AM
I am interested to know what type of adds you are all placing. Are you using the Indi ones in the book or making up your own. Here on the Mid North Coast this year I am going to try the Lawns and More from $9 weekly add, as we have a large retired population and I think this add will appeal to them. I also have the normal one which details all the work I provide such as mowing, pruning, rubbish removals etc. :)

geejay
11-08-2008, 09:23 AM
we use deans copyrighted : lawns & more $ ad lay out,worked for us,clients we have attracted range from little nature strips, yardies,landscape maintenance to commercial,its a brillant ad and says it all when you think about it and stands out.phamlets with this ad work as well.the ad gets one toes in quoting,and working,getting to understand the game,from there its up to you,get it right referals will come and regular clients,this is when we start branding.

cadase
11-08-2008, 06:30 PM
I am interested to know what type of adds you are all placing. Are you using the Indi ones in the book or making up your own. Here on the Mid North Coast this year I am going to try the Lawns and More from $9 weekly add, as we have a large retired population and I think this add will appeal to them. I also have the normal one which details all the work I provide such as mowing, pruning, rubbish removals etc. :)

I try and stay away from the lawns for $? a week ad's.
I Think you'd get a lot of customers that i try and stay clear of.
I also mention rental cleanups,end of lease cleanups in the ad.
I love winter weeds,and renters with no mower or snipper ;)

Born To Mow
11-08-2008, 06:44 PM
I am interested to know what type of adds you are all placing. Are you using the Indi ones in the book or making up your own. Here on the Mid North Coast this year I am going to try the Lawns and More from $9 weekly add, as we have a large retired population and I think this add will appeal to them. I also have the normal one which details all the work I provide such as mowing, pruning, rubbish removals etc. :)

I used FROM $10 per week when we first started out. We got a heap of responses and 3 1/2 years later we still have a lot of those customers. Be aware, that you will also get a lot of time wasters. However if your just starting out I'd recommend it. It's a fast way to build a run.

Ability
11-08-2008, 06:49 PM
The question is - why do you stop advertising?

I use a variety of marketing mediums and find that if you rely on one, things go stale.

I don't think that I could afford not to advertise all year round. :i dunno:

geejay
11-08-2008, 06:50 PM
I try and stay away from the lawns for $? a week ad's.
I Think you'd get a lot of customers that i try and stay clear of.
I also mention rental cleanups,end of lease cleanups in the ad.
I love winter weeds,and renters with no mower or snipper ;)

our start up expirance is brillant with the $ads...

we have used the $ ads from the start with brillant results,there is only one client we deliberately stayed away from,all others are good customers with good to excellent rates.

dean rates $ ads as top from the range of ads he trialed spending many dollars on trials.

as our run matures we will change $ ads to a brand and more specific marketing .

Sandgroper
11-08-2008, 11:27 PM
The question is - why do you stop advertising?

I use a variety of marketing mediums and find that if you rely on one, things go stale.

I don't think that I could afford not to advertise all year round. :i dunno:

Basicly i stop when i am to busy , if you are to busy to quote you are certainly to busy to do the work, but i do like the concept of advertising all year around and constantly improving your round by getting rid of the worse or the furthest from base, i guess a lot of us get used to doing our regulars and forget about improving our business.

I don't like the from $9 caper,,who has time to deal with all the time wasters, also it brings down the industry as a whole with the public thinking we are monkeys who work for peanuts,,,

Much better to put from $35 or whatever, i am toying with the idea from $40 this summer,,,,,,,,,to get the better payers and get rid of a lot of the time wasters. :)

geoff
01-11-2009, 03:42 PM
redoing our advertising ,after twenty years we continue to advertise , always deaming of 100 percent quality customers 5 to 6 days a week year in year out...still trying to get there..anyway we have had some sucess with internet but our local yellow pages are once again up for renewal and was wondering are you still getiing many calls from it...we try both gardeners and lawn cutting section...we got great good sucess from our local community paper till the lawn grubs with victas also put adds in , call themselves cheap lawn mowing ...good luck to them....are the local papers still a good spinner...i remember years ago we got heaps of calls but they were tyre kickers and less the average client..

BLACK BEAR
01-11-2009, 07:23 PM
The local paper can be average! Sometimes get good clients but many times get all the sh**, it may dependent on suburbs though. It has been declining for years! Just put some adverts in there to help the subbie along - the last 6 calls where ethnic :p clients who havnt cut their grass for 6 months and looked at us with horror when we quoted them :i dunno: :laughing:

geoff
02-11-2009, 08:28 PM
last couple of days we have had record enquires on the yellow pages with a great strike rate....now i dont have the time to do them :laughing: :laughing: but we will , interesting how things change so quickly...maybe being a normal spring like the old days might be the key here...

Fred's mowing
02-11-2009, 08:52 PM
Gone nuts, has,nt it??? Knocking back work now on a daily basis :sad: , wish I could bottle it. Only gunna get more hectic from here to christmas & there,s only so many hours in a day :i dunno: .
Cant complain but, would,nt u love to spread it evenly over the entire year?
Cheers Dean.

The Local Gardener
03-11-2009, 08:25 PM
Gone nuts, has,nt it??? Knocking back work now on a daily basis :sad: , wish I could bottle it. Only gunna get more hectic from here to christmas & there,s only so many hours in a day :i dunno: .
Cant complain but, would,nt u love to spread it evenly over the entire year?
Cheers Dean.

wish i could bottle it my self. i have knocked back so much work it's ridiculous. But you know what, come a hot summer, well, how things turn around.

;)

redbackmowing
04-11-2009, 01:14 PM
started in local rag this week after a bit of rain (finally). checked the paper this morning & 23 others in lawnmowing & gardening section :dean: . nothing like a little competition.

Bgs
04-11-2009, 03:41 PM
started in local rag this week after a bit of rain (finally). checked the paper this morning & 23 others in lawnmowing & gardening section :dean: . nothing like a little competition.


g'day Redback ,

was that in the quest paper what was the damage if you don't mind me asking.

administrator
04-11-2009, 04:41 PM
With Quest price depends if it was a line add or a display add .Pritty sure Redback would be talking about lines adds thats if it was Quest.

redbackmowing
04-11-2009, 04:44 PM
g'day Redback ,

was that in the quest paper what was the damage if you don't mind me asking.

$56.80 2 liner for 4 weeks. at least i'm last in the listing so it stands out a bit. but a lot of pitas go for those ads. they want the lowest possible price. so my min. $ will stop me wasting time running around doing those pita quotes. i'm on the border of three local papers. it would of been better if i was in the middle of the paper distro zone. i'll see how the response is & may need to go to other local paper if competition not as fierce. more rain expected tomorrow & friday so things looking good on that front. also added website address. only one doing it. need to keep checking those emails now! you can tell the tree loppers make a bit of money. they have massive ads in.
cheers
rbm

redbackmowing
04-11-2009, 04:50 PM
With Quest price depends if it was a line add or a display add .Pritty sure Redback would be talking about lines adds thats if it was Quest.

with business card size ads they would be about $60/70 per week i guess. i found i got more calls from the 2 liners than the business cards sized ads. may not of been all quality customers though. did have both sized ads in one time. kept getting two calls from the same customers. then had to explain to them i had two ads in the paper. :rolleyes:

Bgs
05-11-2009, 06:40 AM
$56.80 2 liner for 4 weeks. at least i'm last in the listing so it stands out a bit. but a lot of pitas go for those ads. they want the lowest possible price. so my min. $ will stop me wasting time running around doing those pita quotes. i'm on the border of three local papers. it would of been better if i was in the middle of the paper distro zone. i'll see how the response is & may need to go to other local paper if competition not as fierce. more rain expected tomorrow & friday so things looking good on that front. also added website address. only one doing it. need to keep checking those emails now! you can tell the tree loppers make a bit of money. they have massive ads in.
cheers
rbm

Thanks for that its quite reasonable Good luck with it. Just up the road from you the northwest news had 19 advertising last week, Fingers crossed for the rain tonight it has been a real late start to the growing season this year :(

Christine Wharton
05-11-2009, 08:59 AM
We haven't used ad's in the local paper/s yet, since I think most people who phone up would be under the impression that we're really cheap. Instead we rely on all-year round advertising with a good-sized colour ad in the local phone directory (our only paid advertising) as well as numerous free ads online with local business/contractors directories. (Interestingly I noticed that our "Townsville Lawn Care" ad' didn't come up on the ILMCA contractor's list when I did a general search the other day, tho my "Tender Loving..." counterpart did, even though we have an ad' placed here :i dunno: )