# How Do You Guys Advertise?



## EGLC (Nov 8, 2007)

So how do you go about advertising?? I have a landscape business and my customers know I'll be offering the service this year, but how do you get the word out to others? And what about being a sub-contractor??


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## grandview (Oct 9, 2005)

How many are you looking to get? If enough of your lawn customers sign up then you won't need to advertise. Just call them now so you know how many will sign up.


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## powerjoke (Nov 13, 2004)

i only put flyers in mail boxes 

my advertising budget is about $1000 per month (averaged out over 12 months) and i can tell you that the best is the yellow pages!

and then the Trucks running around with our name on them

and then word of mouth.

i have billboards, laminated table top ads(under clear coat), several trucks, i sponsor baseball teams, soccer teams, i have banners at the home football games, parades, i have Job trailer's, and i hand out 50-75 t-shirts and sweatshirt's per year, i MAIL several hundred fliers, and PAY to put 5-700 fliers in the news paper inserts. i have many many many many lol buisness cards floating around and i hand out 1000 ink pens per year. the list goes on and on. but it's roughly $1000 spent each month and still nothing is as good as yellow-pages

my wife does about the same thing to for her buisness "crossroadskennelsllc" witch is a boarding kennle and her best results are NOT the yellowpages.. so without knowing witch one you need to do you could spend alot of money

oh and BTW: even with all of that stuff.....it doesnt guarantee work

you have to remember that..for most, especially residential, snow work is a "impulse buy".

i dont know how the people are in youre area but around here.....nobody thinks it is gonna snow, like it did last year, or the year before, or since the begining of time  so if youre not on the top of thier first checkd list...you dont get the work

PJ


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## EGLC (Nov 8, 2007)

grandview;570349 said:


> How many are you looking to get? If enough of your lawn customers sign up then you won't need to advertise. Just call them now so you know how many will sign up.


I know right now I have about 10.....which really isn't alot.

So I guess its basically the same advertising methods I use to go after landscape work.....


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## Enzo (Feb 27, 2008)

I do some advertising in the local papers around the towns i work in. I also did flyers and now I am going to be doing door hangers. Also the current clients I got, I will be sending out a letter mentioning other services I do including snow removal.


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## basher (Nov 13, 2004)

Yellow pages
yellow book
trade magazines
road side advertising (small signs and a large letterboard)
constructing a web page
web sites (like this one)
Word of mouth.
Direct mail
Personal Sales calls
Giveaways (shirts, hats, pens, Key chains, Nascar Tickets, etc)
trade shows
Church bulletins
Sponsor over 30 co-ed soccer team
Any high school, athletic or service group (rotary, Lions,KoC. Jaycees, etc) 
Local Community "news" paper


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## JD Dave (Mar 20, 2007)

basher;570499 said:


> Yellow pages
> yellow book
> trade magazines
> road side advertising (small signs and a large letterboard)
> ...


I'm sure you missed something. LOL


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## basher (Nov 13, 2004)

JD Dave;570500 said:


> I'm sure you missed something. LOL


Yes I did
The internet (Super pages .com etc..)

There are others but the cost vs result is prohibitive. We do the weather crawl sometimes, but it's less effective than it use to be.

the yellow pages are losing some of they're effectiveness the Web is over taking it quickly.


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## QuadPlower (Jan 4, 2007)

ATT Yellow pages
my son's little league team
My web page listed in yellow pages.com, and several local landscape and garden places list it.
of course business cards

I get customers going face to face with business and asking if they would like a quote. 

To get residential, I have a realtor friend that gives me a list of the houses that have sold each month. I send out a brochure in the mail to them for lawn mowing & snow removal. It is very direct marketing. New peoople in town and they don't already have someone.

Good Luck


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## EGLC (Nov 8, 2007)

QuadPlower;570743 said:


> ATT Yellow pages
> my son's little league team
> My web page listed in yellow pages.com, and several local landscape and garden places list it.
> of course business cards
> ...


That is an AWESOME idea!! I know my dad's friends with a few realtors, maybe they can hook me up! Thanx


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## Neige (Jan 29, 2008)

I have been using driveway markers as advertising for over 20 years. It started with wood, lots of work and looked ok. Three years ago I went to corrugated plastic signs on re-bar stakes. Looked very professional, except the re-bar was a major PITA. I found a company that makes fiberglass poles, so I am changing all my re-bar for fiberglass. This same company makes flags that snap onto the poles. Since the corrugated plastic lasts around 3 years, I am starting to replace them with these new flags. Below you will see a photo shopped picture of what they will look like.
It has been the best advertising I have ever used. I have done them all, but this one works the best. Its always out there, people see them every day. Its like having a billboard at every client. I install them mid October, and once they are in the phone really starts ringing. In are area its all you see.


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## aus316 (Sep 24, 2006)

I have some simple bussines cards i use as well as plain word of mouth and just being out workin brings @leaset 2 me alot of bussines cause people see u workin and stopp u/but basically i have 2 magnetic signs i just apply to truck bed and simple lettering and phone number applied to salt spreader so u see it when u pull up behind me @ a light


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## Ipushsnow (Oct 29, 2007)

Google. Google, and Google. A yellow pages here in Milwaukee is about $1,200 per month, and you have to book it for 24 months cuz the books come out every 2 years. I am NOT shelling out $29,000 for one form of advertising. Not gonna happen.

I use the pay per click on google, if you live around here and do a search for "snow plowing", "snow removal" etc. we come up, they click on our ad, and go to our website. It works great, it fills us up, and its only a few hundred bucks a year. Although I had one little snafu last year.......

Were you are listed is determined by how much you bid per click, and what your maximum daily budget is. Well, I was playing around with the settings and set my daily budget at $1000.00 just to see if I would be moved to the top, and I was. It was fine cuz I I was paying like $.65 per click and never had more than $4-5 per day with of clicks. Well, on December 1st we got like 14" of heavy, wet snow, then the next day got like 12" more, then it snowed like 6" on the fourth......So I was out plowing for like a week straight, and my phone was ringing off the hook, so much I just stopped answering it. Well by the time I got some down time, I checked my Google account and in like 5 days I had $2,400 worth of clicks, at $.65 per click!!!! OOOOOPS, never make that mistake again!!

But all in all, it works well for us, it's relatively cheap, and all the marketing research (as well as common knowledge) shows that the yellow pages are going the way of the dinosaur and people are using the computer to look stuff up. Its working for us!


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## EGLC (Nov 8, 2007)

Neige;572775 said:


> I have been using driveway markers as advertising for over 20 years. It started with wood, lots of work and looked ok. Three years ago I went to corrugated plastic signs on re-bar stakes. Looked very professional, except the re-bar was a major PITA. I found a company that makes fiberglass poles, so I am changing all my re-bar for fiberglass. This same company makes flags that snap onto the poles. Since the corrugated plastic lasts around 3 years, I am starting to replace them with these new flags. Below you will see a photo shopped picture of what they will look like.
> It has been the best advertising I have ever used. I have done them all, but this one works the best. Its always out there, people see them every day. Its like having a billboard at every client. I install them mid October, and once they are in the phone really starts ringing. In are area its all you see.


That sounds like a really smart, cheap, subtle way to get your name & number in front of people. I wouldn't be able to get them out though until late November as I already have signs for my business on all my customer's houses all fall.

How much do they want for them? I'd probably want like 60 or so………..send me a pm if you'd rather not say.


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## dutchhook (Oct 28, 2007)

NEIGE, 
Can you give me the company who sells those fiberglass poles-signs, or an approximate price? 
It looks like a great idea.

Steve


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## dunlaps lawncare (Sep 5, 2007)

flyers,newspaper add letter magnets on the truck t shirts, sweetshirts,hats,pens,etc


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## Neige (Jan 29, 2008)

dutchhook;595912 said:


> NEIGE,
> Can you give me the company who sells those fiberglass poles-signs, or an approximate price?
> It looks like a great idea.
> 
> Steve


Just look on the left hand colume of this page and scroll down till you see them. Its star products.


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## theplowmeister (Nov 14, 2006)

Hi I never found Flyers or grocery stores or newspapers to work well. You get responses from all over. So you would spend all your time driving between customers, and get responses from driveways you dont want.

I usually try to make my adds funny, or at least amusing.
I usually get a 15% return on advertising by doing it this way.


1) Find an area you want to plow in.
2) Drive around and get the addresses of the houses you want to do. (why advertise to 
. a driveway with no place to put the snow)
3) Go to the town hall and buy "list of persons" or "voter registration" or "list of registered 
. Voters" towns call them different names. These "lists" are ordered by street address
. and have the name.
4) Send a letter to the houses you want to do. Now you can address the letter to a 
. person, I send the letter to the wife.
5) Be sure to tell them why your service is best for them.


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