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Tech Sector Corporate Web Designs: Best Of The BestResults From Advertising In The Newspaper
Last month we ran our first newspaper ad for Tri Megatech in order to generate some new business. Unfortunately I have some bad news to report…we had zero leads from our ad! Basically $200 down the drain other than potentially some branding opportunity for anybody that did see the ad.
I spoke with a few people to get their opinions on this, and they said that in the newspaper, you have to advertise day after day so people will see and trust the brand. Unfortunately for us, we don’t have the budget for this right now. Although the ROI may pay off over time, we need results now. I would much rather spend our advertising dollars on things that will provide more direct results.
We now have another thing to worry about…Many of our little jobs have been coming from our ads in the Yellow Book. Verizon just released their Yellow Book (which we did not advertise in) in the same area, and we’re afraid people will be throwing the old books (with our ad) away. We spent over $2,000 in advertising in the Yellow Book, so this would be horrible if the little amount of jobs we get from it now go away.
We’re already doing little advertising in Craigslist and AdWords, and we’ve tried a couple of local door-to-door flyer promotions. We’re also doing some services through OnForce, but it normally works out to substantially lower hourly rates. The next idea will be using something called “Rip Hangars”, which are door hangars that have a rippable business card on the bottom of them. We’ll be using this as a 50% off grand opening sale coupon. I’m hoping that since they are door hangars, people will be forced to see at least the front of it, and hopefully it’s enough to entice them to look further. Even if they don’t have computer problems now, they may rip the coupon off and save it for later. I’ll be posting the design (it will be full color both sides) as soon as I’m finished to get your thoughts.
Do you have any other suggestions for generating some more business? Do you think I’m being too impatient with the newspaper? Was the ad not good enough?
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Loren Nason
07/17/2007 7:34 pmDavid,
I have never done Newspaper or Yellow pages. The cost didn’t seem worth it. I did have some luck using a niche paper - Orange County Business Journal. That brough me two GREAT contracts and they are still customers today (over 2 years) The rest of my business is referral.
Loren
David Pitlyuk
07/17/2007 7:37 pmLoren: Interesting….How did you make the transition between part-time and full-time? You had to start somewhere to get the referral business in the first place? I’d be interested in hearing more of your “how I started” story if possible.
Scott Freshman
07/18/2007 12:46 amI am a strong believer in Yellow Pages and Internet for being the only two places customers will look when they need services. For a B2B service, Chamber of Commerce meetings are a great place to see people enough to build relationships so that potential customers will remember you. Newspapers ads? Like shooting a shotgun in the air and hoping a bird flies by…biz journals CAN be successful on a hit-or-miss basis.
Patricia
07/18/2007 9:16 amI have a few suggestions:
- Send a press release announcing the Grand Opening of your business to all newspapers in the local area. Be sure to include the smaller publications, such as the Bowie Blade and Annapolis Capital. They are always looking to feature “up and comers” in their Business Section
- Consider renting an email list of local businesses in your target area and send an email promoting the Grand Opening and GIVE A DEADLINE OF WHEN THE 50% OFF DEAL ENDS (call to action/sense of urgency is very important). It sounds like you might be able to target small law, real estate, and medical offices. Targeted email campaigns are a cost-effective way to reach your audience. If you go through with the email campaign and can spare the resources, follow-up with telemarketing.
David Pitlyuk
07/18/2007 10:39 amScott: Thanks for the feedback. We are a member of a local BIN, but it seems very unorganized for our area. I’ve had a few companies, but I’ve never joined the local Chamber of Commerce, although many recommend it. That’s definitely something we’ll look more into.
Patricia: Excellent feedback, thanks you! We’ve already spoken with Annapolis Capital (it’s actually where our advertisement was in) about that very topic. Just a matter of getting a press release written.
Great idea with renting an e-mail list, the only thing with that is 50% off deal is for home users only. 50% off of business services would kill us just due to the amount of time required on most of those jobs. We could definitely rent a list and target something to businesses, just have to come up with it. We have already had one company contact us to purchase leads, but before dropping $500 on it, I wanted to see if it worked. I think there is a site online that provides 100 free leads first, so I was going to test the water with something like that before heavily investing.
It sounds like a press release may be the best bet to potentially get some free advertising in place, and I think I’d like to put that closer to the top of our priority list (need to finish the business section of our website first).
Scot Smith
07/19/2007 2:51 amI was just talking to a guy who owns a computer business here. He says the money is in business work. Maybe you could hire someone for 100% commission to sell your services to business clientèle?
He also said he makes a lot of his revenue from contract work with the local military base.
David Pitlyuk
07/19/2007 9:55 amI can definitely say that it is in business work….The majority of the money that we’ve made so far has been business work, but residential is quick little jobs here and there that add up and are much easier to get. We eventually don’t want to do any residential, but it will take time to get to that point. In fact, we want to be doing government contracting ultimately. We’ll be doing some more business-targeted advertising soon.
RBL
07/23/2007 10:27 amDavid, study up on direct marketing science. DM techniques can quickly build your business. Also, you can leverage the local newspaper more cost-effectively through public relations. Likewise, a steady beat of local speaking engagements can do wonders. That said, classified advertising, done scientifically, and targeting LOCAL papers (as opposed to big regional metros), supported with local targeted mailings or hand-outs, can drive a steady stream of leads. The trick to DM is to test, and do so with the smallest possible ads. This can cost you less than Google AdWords, and will generate phone calls, not clicks. Bone up on DM! Lastly, have you read http://snipr.com/1onem? Lots of great ideas there.
David Pitlyuk
07/23/2007 10:33 amRich - Excellent feedback, and much appreciated. I’ll definitely look further into direct marketing. I haven’t read that one, but I have read Little Red Book of Sales Answers. I’ll give that one a look though.