So many questions flood your mind..
How much do I spend?
Whats everybody else doing?
Will it work this time?
Will it work aswell as last year?
Will somebody else be better?
Will I get a sh** position again?
Who will the rep be, don't want him/her front last year they sold me a dud?
I have to advertise don't I?.
A lot of people share the same fears & frustrations, about Yellow page advertising, Including myself!
I have been advertising now in the yellow pages for about 9 years and have spent in the region £85,000
- £160 year 1
- £360 year 2
- £600 year 3 splashed out to dominate, Lol, so I thought!
- £2450 (started learning about marketing/testing)
- £12,000(1st real set of testing)
- £3600 (result from last year testing worked really well this year)
- £42,000 (extreme testing, loads of variables, headline, numbers, content, offers,usp)
- £17,000 (rewarded for testing, same results as spending 42k, but still testing)
- £7,500(expected gto £250k) this year!
The increase in spend, reflects not only, testing various things, but also down turn in repairs, with people increasing buying new!
I think the general public are scared of high repair bills and being ripped off when they could buy something new.
So, Yellow page advertisers have got competition from all sides, down turn in repairs and other advertisers, obviously people are getting naturally smarter with advertsing each year!
Killer Yellow Page Advertising is basically a blue print for staying ahead of the competition and discovering new ways of getting people to ring and sometimes, you have to go back in time to older ways of setting your stall out, because it's the only thing that makes a difference.
rule#1 Heading
rule#2 Numbers
rule#3 Layout
rule#4 Graphics
rule#5 Content
rule#5 Size, can matter!
rule#6 Outcome.
These rules are in no way ranked in order of importance!
So what next well first thing you need to do is decide who your target market are.
and be very specific, it is best to aim at a niche customer problem and get them rather than try to grab everything and end up with nothing!
In my AAA Repairman business, we aim at customers with specific brands as opposed to problems, but tests have shown both work. ie BOSCH is one ad and Hotpoint would be another!
or you could go for Cold Oven, or even Help! when writing the headline, remember to clarify and spark interest with the heading or a smaller sub-heading. I've tried using the heading Free Parts and clarified the statement with a nice sub-heading. But bombed out. others have been Get these repaired today, Sunday roast needed and £10 Off with this AD.
I've tried loads of things, not everything, but loads of things. and with the experience gained, I could dominate 3-4 pages of advertisings with my ad strategy. And I hasten to ad it's not all about being at the front of the classified section. people quite often ring around for the best quote, not everyone but a lot.
Customers Minds. Customers will be thinking about a lot of things when they're looking for the right person, Price, Service,Availability, trustworthyness, who's less likely to rip me off, dogs just been sick on the baby, in debt, and feeling stressed about all manor of things. they could be thinking it's just leaked on the floor.
Your ad or headline has got to resonate with what they are thinking as they are looking for someone to come out. and not only that and your ad has got to match as much of thier criteria for employing you as possible, ie location, professionalism, will it cost a load, guarantee. you have to tick as many boxes as possible.
A very simple way of doing this is to some research and find
the fears and frustrations / wants and aspirations of your clients.
that is 2 lists go on, go get it and come back,
If you want to dominate your field and dominate profitably. you need to service the needs of people that bring the best reward, with the least effort and it's them people that you need to find out about. eg.
I get 1200 calls per month for my repair business.
25-35% book straight away, about 10-20% are asking about price. so what I want is the first group they pay, they're happy with a good service and recommend Me.
In my experience you get a small percentage of people like 1-2% that you will feel sorry about. STAY CLEAR of these as they're the most hassel, you reduce your price to the bone, and go completely out of your way and something goes wrong 9/10 times, but when you charge normal fees and do normal stuff, things just seem to run smoothly WHY.
Who cares, stop reducing price for people and concentrate on giving a good service!
Now you should have 2 lists that are headed F/F and W/A now go through your section in the yellow pages ad by ad and see how many competitors and you, tick what boxes for your customers. who wins does it correlate with how successful they are.
Fact #1 The yellow page is a lead generator and is there to get the phone to ring!
You need to design the ad so your phone rings, this is where a good offer like free report or discount or something relavant!.
Objective: remember you want the phone to ring, but with quality Leads!!! not every tom dick and harry who wants something for nothing>>>
OK, that's it for now!
Just a bit from me, from testing and research i've taken my company from 15k to 225k in 5 years and i'm sure I can take it further, but that is down to setting up systems!
My experience has come from the study and execution of reports, ebooks, books, audios attending marketing and sales seminars the list is endless and the monetry investment is in the tens of thousands. I think the main difference between winners and losers, is not academic, but the willingness to take action, testing and more action untillllllllllllllllllll you get what you want!
set an objective for your business, then call me, take me for a drink and lunch and we can talk about whats next.
yours positively
Richard Saupe Director of a real repair company servicing real needs!
Hobbies & Interests: Language, Salsa, Marketing, Property Aquisition & Entrepreneurship!
developer:Procrastinator Annihilator , MAP (Monthly Action Plans)& Killer Yellow Page Advertising (research & domination)
079564990722
Ps. Turning Yellow into Gold, Chris Newton(Australian) friend of Jay Abraham.
PPs PPPs.. Creating Head lines and Yellow Page Killer Ads, Has never been so easy with these books. They gave me my initial insight into the monster known as Yellow Pages.Click Here!
PPS Master Mentores and Marketing
I would like to say that the Info I'm sharing, is current, and not based on research I did 5-10 years ago. even though successful advertising methods created by Claude Hopkins and other revolutionaries at the turn of the 20th century are still valid today along with modern heros like David Ogilvy. If you would like to learn more about the greats of marketing, because you too would like to be great, then please visit my mentor Michael Sernoff, he has accumulated the biggest selection of published, non published and audio on the subject of marketing I have ever seen.
I'm not much into yellow pages but sooo much of what you have written here applies to my business, thanks Richard there's some real gems!
ReplyDeleteI especially like: "I think the main difference between winners and losers, is not academic, but the willingness to take action, testing and more action untillllllllllllllllllll you get what you want!"
thanks for positive comment, it's much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteregards
richard.
Ps video blog of frank kern, coming to YOUTUBE