Advertising!!!!!

[so-solar]

Hi

Not that anybody wants to give away their trade secrets,

What advertising worked for you and what form of advertising do you think is a waste of both time and money?

 

[oldplumber]

thompson and yellow pages cost a fortune for no response. Local advertising mags, church mags work well, word of mouth best of all. forget posting leaflets thro doors, smacks of desperation and theyll all want dirt cheap quotes

 

[shorticus]

thompson and yellow pages cost a fortune for no response. Local advertising mags, church mags work well, word of mouth best of all. forget posting leaflets thro doors, smacks of desperation and theyll all want dirt cheap quotes

I hear this a lot from people about yellow pages although some swear by it, the cost is very expensive and in my particular area there are literally dozens of companies competing with eachother, how a customer chooses one over another in such a congested place escapes me.

 

[dontknowitall]

Works for me:
Word of mouth (most customers), van (£500 for snazzy graphics), website, church diary, business card drop (house to house)

Doesn't work:
Business cards in local shops (including plumbing merchants), Yell.com, Yellow Pages, expensive local magazines (the ones a step down from The Field and Country Life), trade membership (one response), etc.

Not tried:
The local newspaper, radio, national newsprint, leaflet drop, those "triangle" vans, television, leaflets under car windscreens, posing with sandwich board, inflight magazines, ferry magazines, musical farts ...

 

[ecowarm]

1.
google / organic
366

2.(direct) / (none)
79

3.yell.com / referral

45

4.hotfroguk.co.uk / referral

26

5.ukplumbersforums.co.uk / referral

26

6.yahoo / organic

23

7.search / organic

15

8.hotfrog.co.uk / referral

11

9.linkedin.com / referral

11

10.realassurance.org.uk / referral

10

11.bing / organic

9

12.be-everything.co.uk / referral

8

13.businessfriendslincs.net / referral

6

14.aol / organic

4

15.ask / organic

3

16.search.bt.com / referral

3

17.talktalk.co.uk / referral

3

18.search.sky.com / referral

2

19.uk.mc870.mail.yahoo.com / referral

2

20.webmail.group3energy.com / referral

2

21.advancedsearch.virginmedia.com / referral

1

22.akme.enablemedia.com / referral

1

23.be-everything.com / referral

1

24.blog.grandtaps.co.uk / referral

1

25.everyclick.com / referral

1

Where the visits to my web site came from during the last 6 months

 

[world9563]

Well i have tried leaflet drops and delivered over 10000 and only got one job. My local evining paper as worked well for me although its very quite some weeks but word of mouth picking up and put ads in local parish mags

 

[justlead1]

The "escapes me" is the million dollar question, selling is by far the difference between a good business and a struggling one. We have all heard of people charging ten fold more than we are getting to carry out work. and more or less complain about it, as the jealousy take hold. When a plumbers working for a Company, selling is not in the job description but whose who are self employed it should be high priority. If the week is not totally filled with work. Knock on a few doors, introduce your self and services, have a little chat and then the next one. Monitor the results and adjust the bunny to suit the objective. Your face will not fit with all but it's a necessary medicine if you want thing to get better. After all you have spent years learning the plumbing game, with out selling skills your (fill in this space your self) Good Luck

 

[shorticus]

1.
google / organic
366

2.(direct) / (none)
79

3.yell.com / referral

45

4.hotfroguk.co.uk / referral

26

5.ukplumbersforums.co.uk / referral

26

6.yahoo / organic

23

7.search / organic

15

8.hotfrog.co.uk / referral

11

9.linkedin.com / referral

11

10.realassurance.org.uk / referral

10

11.bing / organic

9

12.be-everything.co.uk / referral

8

13.businessfriendslincs.net / referral

6

14.aol / organic

4

15.ask / organic

3

16.search.bt.com / referral

3

17.talktalk.co.uk / referral

3

18.search.sky.com / referral

2

19.uk.mc870.mail.yahoo.com / referral

2

20.webmail.group3energy.com / referral

2

21.advancedsearch.virginmedia.com / referral

1

22.akme.enablemedia.com / referral

1

23.be-everything.com / referral

1

24.blog.grandtaps.co.uk / referral

1

25.everyclick.com / referral

1

Where the visits to my web site came from during the last 6 months

OK I admit it, I'm a numpty, what's the difference between organic and referral?

 

[REDSAW]

it means there is 2 valid enquiries and one is from here, the rest are spambots.
looks simular to mine on google, ranks 5th and i have had 16 hits per month and no leads?.

if you are gsr, try boilerguide, i have one a month but you pay for the lead if you choose to quote for it.

 

[Avatar]

There is a trick with google and the web: there is no point having 200 unique visitors per month, if they dont even come from the uk . . .

You have to narrow the search down to your local area - there are many tricks that you can do. Basic web developing is key (I have experience in this area, as I have 5 websites of my own!)

my web page doesn't get a lot of visitors, but the ones it gets are primarily local to me.

You should pay someone £500 to set yours up properly.

- google ad words works, as you can localise your results by using keywords relating to your local area. Also you can check here monthly search amounts for various keyword searches like - 'plumber brighton' for instance.

- the best is to have a website name which contains the keywords you desire. This will get a better conversion rate immidiately!

- correct use of meta tags, titles, and page text are essential as well. Bare in mind what your target audience will be searching for>

 

[Dannypipe]

I get huge amounts of work through word of mouth, also I leaflet drop a road after I have worked on it. That way people have seen the van, and may want a plumber but be too shy to come find me.

Finally be chatty and have people skills. I popped into my local curry house for a take away last weekend. This Friday I just fininshed fintting their new boiler. All because I was there at the right time, and had a chat with them. (Just asked why the resteraunt was so cold, and why they were wearing their coats!)

You have to sell yourself all the time.

 

[tackleburger]

Whatch for the calls as well proclaiming to be the only company that can get you on google's first page. If all of them were right it would be about a mile long. I don't know about you guys but someone is at the top of that search but all these guys can't get you there so how's it done?

 

[Avatar]

adwords will get you on the first page of a google search, as will sponsered links, and creative web design (bit harder the last one!)

Its not rocket science though - people are quite intimidated by the internet still!

 

[dontknowitall]

I'm afraid it wouldn't float my boat as I hardly advertise. In addition, with the internet I wouldn't know where to start advertising. I have a website that pulls in a few jobs and feel it's good value for £6.50 a month but with the rest of the internet (Adwords, flash adverts etc) I feel it all sounds too good to be true.

As a punter (and user of the internet for around 15 years) I've never yet bought anything as a result of an advert.

Probably not the answer you were hoping for but I wish you luck with your project. Great money if it comes off but fighting the competition is an uphill struggle. Hope it works well!!!

 

[Avatar]

I have 20-30,000 searches in my area per month for plumbers on google alone - the younger generation (like myself) will go straight to google first before loooking anywhere else, and with Iphones and the like people can do this easily. I have had a few jobs just from my google maps listing (free!) alone.

You have to ask yourself how do you redirect some of this traffic to your own website. It is well worth paying a web designer £500 or so to get this right, if you dont have the technical ability youself.

Being a self employed plumber (in the credit crunch) requires you to have a serious entrepreneurial streak a mile long - something not all plumbers have . . .