How much do you spend on ads? Where?

[Mr. Ingram's Computer Repair & Shoppe]

Curious on where you spend your advertisement money?

I am looking at doing a couple dollars a day for facebook ads as I post on my page 2x a week.

I found local newspapers to be a waste of money.

Schools were good for the money, but they dont happen often.

 

[jmitservices]

Every year I spend around £1,900 advertising in local village/town magazines. These are the sort of magazines that people tend to keep by the phone when looking for a local tradesman. I advertise in 5 different ones in total. One covers my direct local area and the rest the surrounding areas. Altogether I think they get sent out to around 60,000 homes bi-monthly. Works out quite well for me.

 

[Archon Prime]

Don't waste your money on Facebook. I'll tell you that right now. Google Adwords is where it's at. I've received a lot more impressions and clicks to my site, then from facebook ads any day.

 

[River Valley Computer]

We, as of late, do very minimal advertising. No telephone book ads, no newspaper ads, no radio or TV ads, and no ads in local magazines. Google is good. But our favorite, and most productive advertising is with satisfying existing customers. We probably get more new customers from referrals than anything else and they are for the most part very faithful.

 

[GTP]

Word of mouth is really the only thing that works for me. I've tried all other advertising methods. Flyers, Fakebook, magazines, radio, newspapers, local Pubs and Clubs newsletters, etc etc. Total waste of time and money.
My .02

 

[River Valley Computer]

Word of mouth is really the only thing that works for me. I've tried all other advertising methods. Flyers, Fakebook, magazines, radio, newspapers, local Pubs and Clubs newsletters, etc etc. Total waste of time and money.
My .02

PUBS - DID YOU SAY PUBS? never thought of that - if nothing else we could drown our sorrows.

 

[GTP]

PUBS - DID YOU SAY PUBS? never thought of that - if nothing else we could drown our sorrows.

Yeah, I thought pubs were a great place to advertise. But I guess after they've had a few they f'get all ..what... Hic...about it all. Hic....
...and the other thing is we have "Pokies" in the pubs and clubs here, so they don't have any money for computer repairs.

 

[Mick]

I'm with @jmitservices. Oddly, given our line of work, you can forget the internet, in any way shape or form. It's huge (and it is huge) USP is that it is global - as in World Wide web. But what do you care? What use to you is it if someone ten thousand miles away stumbles across your Facebook ad? They aren't going to turn up at the Shoppe. With a limited budget, concentrate on local. And if you're not sure where local people look for services, ask them. They'll tell you.

 

[ChrisTech]

Every year I spend around £1,900 advertising in local village/town magazines. These are the sort of magazines that people tend to keep by the phone when looking for a local tradesman. I advertise in 5 different ones in total. One covers my direct local area and the rest the surrounding areas. Altogether I think they get sent out to around 60,000 homes bi-monthly. Works out quite well for me.

+1
Local mags provide the most constant flow of calls, then repeat business. Expensive but works for me.....

 

[Moltuae]

Word of mouth is really the only thing that works for me

Same here.

I think if you do a good job, for a reasonable rate, word-of-mouth should be all you need (eventually), though of course it may be necessary to get the ball rolling with a few small ads if you're not established.

I've only ever placed one ad, which was over 20 years ago, back when I used to do residential work. It was a full page ad in a small local directory (probably about 20,000 circulation, max.). I received 3 calls (and gained 3 regular customers). One was the publisher of the directory I'd advertised in, one was my neighbour (who didn't know I worked in IT!) and the third was a call-out to the home of a local business owner, who soon had me doing work at his business premises too.

I got referrals from all three of those customers but more than half of the customers I have now, including some of my largest business customers, are probably in some way linked to that first business customer. It was a very small local business (about 4 employees) that closed down a few years later, but as each of his staff moved on to new employment they recommended me to their knew employers. Within a few years I had more business customers than I needed so I stopped doing residential work.

I think that ad cost me something like £50.

 

[Diggs]

Now I rely on word of mouth but you have to start somewhere and I still maintain printed ads in the small local papers. The paid content paper (circ 2,750) and the free ad paper (circ 24,000+) that is stuffed in every mailbox are published by the same company and I pay $112/month for a small color display ad in the professional services section.

I've talked about it else where but my site/company was used by the marketing department at Univ. Wisconsin. They did a study that pumped $300/month into Adwords. The clicks were amazing but nothing came through in the way of business. The moment the dollars for the Adwords stopped the clicks stopped. Adwords were disappointing to us.

 

[neotechnet]

We've scaled back a bit, but now use AdWords and Craigslist exclusively. We put about $5,000/month into AdWords with very positive results. You can't beat Craigslist. It's free advertising and brings in about a dozen calls a day. Not too many cheapwads either. It's all about location. I know that Craigslist in my old state (Washington) had nothing but cheapwad crazies calling me every day. Thankfully where I live now, Craigslist is a great, free resource for netting clients.

Just curious on your Craigs List ads, are you posting a few times yourself everyday or using a service? Do you actually get business clients or all residential repair?

I post manually a few times a day, get an occasional hit but that's it.

 

[sapphirescales]

Just curious on your Craigs List ads, are you posting a few times yourself everyday or using a service? Do you actually get business clients or all residential repair?

I post manually a few times a day, get an occasional hit but that's it.

I get a mixture of residential and business clients from my Craigslist ads. I post myself manually. About 20 ads a day (spread across 3 or 4 different posting sessions).

 

[GTP]

though of course it may be necessary to get the ball rolling with a few small ads if you're not established.

When I moved from NSW to Adelaide, I spent about $2000? on letterbox flyers, radio and newspapers.
Family and I walked all over the 'burbs sticking flyers in letterboxes.
I think I got 1 customer from the flyers. Nothing from the rest.
All the clients I did get was from a "T" sign on the verge that people could see as they drove past.
From those the word of mouth spread.

@edit, ironically, I just picked up the "T" sign from the sign place. I changed the wording on it to reflect current practises.
Dropped off the main sign for some "updating" as well.

 

[sapphirescales]

View attachment 8779

Hey, that's not bad! I had a very similar sign out in front of my house when I first started doing computer repair out of my home many, many years ago. Eventually I had to move to a commercial location. I can't tell you how many past clients ended up showing up at my house anyway by mistake after I moved to the commercial building. I bet people still show up by accident at my old house now that I've moved to another state. Bet the guy I sold it to is lovin' it! LOL!

 

[neotechnet]

I get a mixture of residential and business clients from my Craigslist ads. I post myself manually. About 20 ads a day (spread across 3 or 4 different posting sessions).

Damn that's a lot of postings I only do like twice a day. Would you mind posting one of your example ads? I like bullet points and keeping it simple, with keywords at the bottom.

Maybe I should start posting more then.

 

[kwest]

We spend the following
$3500 adwords
$400 association newspapers (high end homes)

Adwords works very well for us. Have tried Facebook and others and it doesn’t give results.

 

[Velvis]

I'd like to see some sample Craigslist ads for generating business clients. I have always heard nightmares of craigslist clients and how can you compete with $29 virus removals.

I never even thought about businesses using craigslist for computer support.

Seems like they would be the types of clients you dont want.

Might have to rethink things...

 

[DonS]

I have to admit, I am a little amazed seeing some of the dollar amounts being used on Adwords.

 

[kwest]

I have to admit, I am a little amazed seeing some of the dollar amounts being used on Adwords.

I started using adwords 9 years ago with $15 a day. It worked and i raised my daily budget. Over the years as I raised my budget it would get more business. I have tested it by turning it off and I get less calls. I have fine tuned it over the years and am currently not at my top daily budget. I am happy to spend 5% of my gross on advertising. Most businesses spend 7% to 8% on advertising.