Marketing Survey

[OlsonSigns601]

Thinking about my shops marketing...
I first listed all the marketing ideas I've tried and know about (or could think of at the time).
I then created a PDF out of it and made it so I can select a rating on how I would rate that.

I was looking to single out where I feel my most effective marketing is. I don't keep any numbers its just solely based on talking with my customers.

I've uploaded my results and a blank PDF for you to fill out and post if you are interested.

I would be interested to see if any of you guys have seen success from any of the listed topics I have.

I personally feel my most effective marketing is my location and the ads I place on it. Example: I put an A Frame sign advertising hoodies for $20 each. Made two orders in the first hour of it being out there.

I feel the worst advertising is the Yellow Pages & News Paper.
Example: Small ad in yellow Pages with track able phone number. 1 year 1 call. Online ad with the local news paper for $800 to advertise my yard signs on political based stories. 2 clicks.

 

[Techman]

you are lucky you only got one call.

Usually the competition will find out you have a track number and have every one they know call you all the time. Yet never show up for any appointments.

 

[Fred Weiss]

My opinion is very mixed on your approach to this. How you market and who you choose to target is certainly important ... especially if you are not yet profitable. But the answers you may receive are all highly subject to the situation, perspective and experience (or lack thereof) of each respondent. I am a total believer in working from actual numbers and place little value on opinions in the topic you've put forth.

Looking down the road, are you concerned with your long term results? Are you concerned with the type of client you acquire with each approach, how much is spent by the customer initially and on repeat orders, and what your costs are per client after some time has passed? If one form of marketing results in five sales of discounted items and you never see the clients again and another that focuses on being a solution for a need only brings in one client but that client ends up returning many times and pays you undiscounted prices ... which would be your preference?

Forty years ago I went through a somewhat related experience in a different business. It was a business that depended on clients being repeat customers. I built a nice business in a major market and sold it after five years and moved to a much smaller market in Florida where I set out to build the same business from scratch against more than a dozen established competitors. We used a number of marketing approaches from Yellow Pages, radio, newspapers, direct mail, referral programs, telephone solicitors and door to door sales people. In less than a year, we built a business that was higher in sales volume than I had built in a better market after five years. We kept track as we did it of the results and costs of each effort.

Then, in 1974, the U.S. was hit with the Arab oil boycott and our area reached 25% unemployment in two months. In that same two months, we lost more than half our clients. When I wasn't working on rebuilding our business, I took the time to pull all that data together and was able to calculate costs for each manner of client acquisition and then relate it to retained clients to determine a cost for each that survived. From those numbers came clear principles that I practice to this day.

Here are some of those principles. Keep in mind that repeat business was our number one key to success. Yet, one could and should consider that to be a good thing for a sign client as well. The products and services of the business were always presented as a solution to a need and were never sold on the basis of price.

1. The greater the amount of salesmanship used to acquire the client, the less likely they were to continue being a client. The accounts with the highest attrition were those we got from telephone solicitation and door to door selling. Not only were they the highest in sales cost to acquire before the downturn (about $50 each), but they were an unacceptable cost after applying those costs to just the survivors (more than $300 each). Think of it this way. These clients were not seeking our services. We simply convinced them it was a good thing for them to buy. When business turned bad, we were out the door.
2. Our highest retention was with Yellow Pages, direct mail and referrals where our initial sales costs per client were also the lowest. These clients responded to our advertising because they recognized that they had a need for our services. They then chose to buy them often picking us from among our competitors.
3. The highest percentage of retained clients were also the higher spending ones demonstrating that they had an ongoing need for our services.

• Market solutions to needs, quality, service and convenience. Never market low prices.
• Spend your time with solution seekers and not with price shoppers.
• Sincerely try to be of service and deliver the best products possible.
• Accept negative results from price shoppers and focus on solution seekers willing to spend what they need to spend in order to get what they want.
• Don't lose a potentially good client because their first order is a small one. Many of our best customers started that way.
• Watch as your business grows with a solid base of quality repeat clients.

 

[Fatboy]

Good one Fred.

 

[signswi]

We track metrics on everything, yellow pages conversions are terrible. Been increasing spending on PPC over the past two years with good results as well as spending more time keeping our website fresh and chasing long tail. The rest of our biggest wins are all word of mouth.

 

[p3]

Check your spelling. I can't take it serious when I find a typo in the first sentence.