Advertising

Has anyone tried a small ad in their local newspapers classified real estate section? Or an business card ad in the thrifty nickel? If so, how did they work?

Thanks

Everyone claims the do not work.

Been there done that. They don’t work well in my experience. . .

Nada.

Zilch

I placed my business card in the local Thrifty Nickel. They had a eight week minimum x25.00 a week. End result, I wish I had my 200.00 back.

PArt of the problem is the limited circulation of these papers. you are advertising services for people who are moving away, to people who are near you and are - by definition - leaving.

It is why I have also found limited return on yellow page ads - on top of the fact that in a large metro area there are about 20 directories to be listed in to cover a single metro area.

The Penny Pincher, etc may be better for maintenance inspections or ancillary services -like mold, radon, etc.

no luck here either.

www.homewisehomeinspections.com
:slight_smile: :slight_smile:

My news paper add worked almost as well as my yellow page add.

Yellow pages— 2-4 calls (not inspections) in almost 3 years.:roll:

Seems most folks looking for HI’s are looking on the web or relying on their agent to find one for them.

Save your money!!

Speaking of Yellow Pages. I placed three 4 X 3 ads in three local phone books last year. It cost me between $1,200.00 (and change) for one and $1,300.00 (and change) for the other two. That’s a grand total of roughly $4,000.00.

I received a total of six clients through the yellow pages. I lost some big money through Verizon last year.

Yellow page ads (in my area) bring very little business. A huge waste of money. I’m happy to be able to (at least) write it off.

Hey david curtis petty I’m a nachi member also member ICC.I would like to link exchange?what do you say?find me at top of google at keyword(atlanta south home inspection)accurate home inspection of atlanta.

I personally advertised in a penny saver type. I ran it about 6 months, I got about 4 inspections from it. I spent $13.00/weekly = $1200.00.
I did a large add in verizon yellow pages. I have it in 2 cities in this area and with the online add in 5 cities. I got about 25 inspections from it. It basically added up to $9000.00.
So these types of advertizing is ok. The best for me is word of mouth and repeat business from clients. I do a lot of repeat business.
I also have a wide travel span too. I will travel where the jobs are.

My question to everyone is what is the best way to otimitize the website. I don’t really like paying someone else for some thing I can do. Why should I pay someone else to make my website available to the net.

Rick

There are four reasons why I pay someone else to do something that I can do:

1 - I don’t like doing it (like changing the oil in the cars and motorcycle)

2 - Someone else can do it faster. Here, though, one has to put a value on one’s time, both work time and personal time.

3 - Someone else can do it less expensively. Here, again, one has to put a value on one’s time, both work time and personal time.

4 - I like doing it but I like doing something else better.

With that said, knowing well one’s strengths and weaknesses will help one determine where one can best spend one’s time. I love creating advertising and marketing materials, and I’ve done it for over 30 years, but that’s not where I make any part of my living wages anymore. I’m a home inspector. So while it’s fun to do other things sometimes, perhaps even quite often, keeping up on home inspector topics, and ensuring that my employees are also up-to-date on those topics, is more important to my living wages, and something that I enjoy doing, can do it faster and less expensively than anyone else here at HomeTeam means that I should be doing that first and, as time permits, creating marketing and advertising campaigns. Obviously, everything I do will affect my living wages either directly or indirectly, but what I choose to do directly, and what I have others do directly, if I have chosen wisely, will have the best indirect effect on those same living wages.

Russ, Well said. Most of us tend to waste to much of our time.

I am considering a new kind of ad they are doing in our paper, It is a stick on ad that was on the front page of our paper today for girl scout cookies, basically I would do one on the front page of the real estate section on sunday, you can peel the ad off and stick it on the fridge, cupboard or your forehead if you like, kind of a neat idea, gets your name in front of the people looking at homes, but I am waiting to hear what the cost would be and determine if it would be worth it.

Just got the call back…$79.00 per thousand, two zone minimum and will only do on the front page

Got my attention.

$79 per thousand sounds pretty good. Make sure you track the results.

I’m having a 180X160 pixel animated gif ad put on the local TV station’s website tomorrow. It’s linked to my web page. Their home page gets 80,000 unique hits per month. They asked me if I wanted to do some TV ads. I said not at this time. Has anyone done TV spots and how did it go?

Oh forgot, it will also be displayed on their real estate page. On their real estate page they get a 30% click through rate on ads.

We use the front page newspaper sticky notes at my other job. They work very well for that, but it is on a different budget and it is a food product that we sell. We do the local newspaper and spend about $26,000 to $28,000 hitting 350,000 newspapers, all on the front cover and they are noticeable. The local paper uses a yellow sticky.

It is not expensive when looked at on a per unit cost, but to get any penetration it gets expensive. With that said, it still works for me at my other job quite well and I would love to see if it works for you.

10,000 for $790 sounds good. Our return (which again is a food product) is 8% on this ad. You could see 2% to 4%. That would be sweet.