What Advertising Works Best!!

[otslandscapingservices]

Hello Fellow Gardeners, Be warned, this will be a little long-winded but well worth the read I have recently partnered with a long-time friend of mine in a landscaping company. He has all the experience in doing the work and I have more experience in making a business run more efficiently. Things have been going very well but I am getting tired of the trial and error marketing strategies. I can no longer justify throwing money away on a marketing idea with nothing more than my fingers crossed that I am going to see the kind of return from it that I am expecting. With my background and education in business, I have learned many tricks that allow me to know (about 99% accuracy) exactly which advertising methods work best, how much you can expect to earn for each dollar spent in advertising, and which advertising methods are not returning any significant gains. With large, publicly traded companies this is easy because they are required be SEC to publish their financial records and I have easy access to the data I need to complete these analysis. However, there are no landscape maintenance/gardening companies who are publicly traded, therefore, that data is not accessible. Unless I can convince the members of this forum to share this data with me. I understand that financial records are highly sensitive and typically not something that most business owners are happy just handing over, especially to someone who could be their competition. So, here is what I will do to try and convince you to share that information with me. Whatever my findings are, I will re-post them here on this forum for all to see. I will be able to tell you things like; how effective is advertising the phone book, how effective is advertising on craigslist, how effective is advertising on Yelp, etc. I will also be able to tell you things like; if I spend $100 on google ads or facebook ads or yelp ads, how much money can I expect to earn. I can tell you things like; if I reduce my advertising budget by $x amount, how much less will I earn. I can tell you things like if I have only $100 to spend on advertising where should I spend that $100 to get the most return. I will make sure to take any identifying data out of the reports that I re-post here on the forums to make sure that none of your competitors can see how well you are doing. I will do everything I can to make sure that anything that I wouldn't want someone to see about my business is not identifiable. If you are willing to provide me this data here is what I will need to provide accurate results: I will need 6 months of gross revenues along with specific marketing expenditures. For example, if I was submitting I would say in April revenues were $10,000. I spent $150 on yellow pages, $150 on SEO, $100 on Yelp Ads, $250 on Google ads, and I posted on Craigslist 3 times per day. If the marketing is not broken down like that the results will not be accurate. I will also need at least 20 companies to participate. That will provide me with enough data points to ensure accurate test results. Once I have the data I need it will take me probably about one month to compile everything and run the necessary analysis to determine the results. If you are interested in volunteering data for this project please forward the data to my email address m_benge@hotmail.com. If you know anyone else who is not on the forums that may be interested in participating please pass on my information to them. Thank you and I look forward to hopefully working with many of you on this project.

[Sprinkler Buddy]

Lawn care business tips

Collect all the data you want, I seriously doubt anyone here will apply. Do good solid work at a fair price and word of mouth will grow your company better than any paid advertising. This is a blue collar field even if you grow a huge and prosperous business it's still just that. Time to just get dirty! Lol

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[WeekendWarriorLawn]

nevermind what i wrote initially, but the HA still stands...

HA!

[CHEESE2009]

Way too many variables, your figures would never be exact.

You'd really have to break it down, you cannot just figure which method of advertising is best, to start, you would actually have to focus on the content of all the ads being sent out. Not to mention people are different all across the world.

What works for one person may not work for another.


Joe has 1000 clients, and uses door hangers.
Bob has 0 clients, and uses door hangers.

Problem: Bob is ugly.

[thom]

Originally Posted by CHEESE2009

Way too many variables, your figures would never be exact.

You'd really have to break it down, you cannot just figure which method of advertising is best, to start, you would actually have to focus on the content of all the ads being sent out. Not to mention people are different all across the world.

What works for one person may not work for another.


Joe has 1000 clients, and uses door hangers.
Bob has 0 clients, and uses door hangers.

Problem: Bob is ugly.

And smells like dog crap

[CHEESE2009]

Originally Posted by thom

And smells like dog crap

He also has a really annoying high pitched laugh that you can hear when he's throwing rocks at squirrels, or beating up small children for fun.

Nobody likes Bob. Bob is weird.

[SECTLANDSCAPING]

If we were selling a product this might work. Unfortunately are work is seasonal and serviced based. I can expect to make 3 to 6 x's my june revenue in march and oct. Advertising wouldnt make a difference. It wouldnt convince people to get mulch in the middle of the summer or a fall clean up before the leafs fall.

[Hedgemaster]

Originally Posted by CHEESE2009

Way too many variables, your figures would never be exact.

You'd really have to break it down, you cannot just figure which method of advertising is best, to start, you would actually have to focus on the content of all the ads being sent out. Not to mention people are different all across the world.

What works for one person may not work for another.


Joe has 1000 clients, and uses door hangers.
Bob has 0 clients, and uses door hangers.

Problem: Bob is ugly.

I wish more people had as good a grasp on how things work as you do.



"I sent out ten thousand flyers and got no replies!"

Without knowing all the specifics, that statement means squat.
Do Bob's flyers SUCK, or is he ugly? or both? All of it is a factor.

************************************************** ***

I think whatever numbers you get for this experiment will be pointless unless you get a massive number, or compare apples to apples in one, specific area.

[Steve]

I can no longer justify throwing money away on a marketing idea with nothing more than my fingers crossed that I am going to see the kind of return from it that I am expecting.

Can you ever do more than this?

Once you find something that works a little, you can then try to improve upon it a bit, but there are so many variables out there how can you ever guarantee to hit your target your first shot, every time?

[thom]

Originally Posted by Hedgemaster

I wish more people had as good a grasp on how things work as you do.



"I sent out ten thousand flyers and got no replies!"

Without knowing all the specifics, that statement means squat.
Do Bob's flyers SUCK, or is he ugly? or both? All of it is a factor.

************************************************** ***

I think whatever numbers you get for this experiment will be pointless unless you get a massive number, or compare apples to apples in one, specific area.

did you hand deliver, or mail them?what was your investment?

I mailed out 15 thousand postcards, at $5000.00, with the same results as you.