I got screwed by Clipper Magazine, paid $1,350 for 3 calls!!

Moser Bros.

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Sep 23, 2007
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Is it really possible to only get 3 calls out of 100,000. I don't believe that the mailmen delivered most of them. I thought putting Joe Polish fliers and 3 step letters at people doors were a joke when I only got at best 2 jobs per 1,000. I made $380 out of the 2 jobs I booked. And yes the phone is answered live. and Vontage lets me now if I miss a call. This is my first carpet cleaner business expericance at paid advertising, and I don't buy that it's the economy and the fact that they delivered the magazine in a rainy week in the slow season. That might have cut my calls by 70% but not over 90%. I called a business that advertised in one of the areas I did and he didn't get 1 call from 50,000. I don't know if the BBB can do anything, but you'd be better off loaning your money to a crackhead than wasting it on Clippper.

Here is the ad http://couponclipper.com/loc/MOSERBROTH ... E/Extras#t
 

handdi

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Anderson sc
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Randy
DO"Nt get discouraged i use the clipper deleivered by the mail service over here.
we spend 500 on ad and get 1600 to 1900 of work.DOes have a month long shelf life you will get some more calls i'm sure.
We only been in bus 7 months and advertising is tough no body knows who you are so you have to keep at it and will finally work.BUt we think you have to be consitent on ads and will finally pay off it has for us any way.
We run ads weekly in paper and clipper and internet and march we were booked all month and have several jobs for april.JAn and feb we did'nt let off on ads but diid'nt work that well but
is now.Just about all the calls say the same thing.We been seein your ad so we thought we would give you a try.
We tried val pak not to good for us here.
But keep on keepin on and will work out i'm sure.
LAter RD
 

Scott Rogers

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you are in a nasty cut throat area. with tons of low ballers. This type of advertising requires a low ball price to bring in calls. People in Sac are accustom to seeing 4 rooms for $$. etc. Your add of every 3rd room for free leaves to much doubt in there minds. It would be easy for you just to add it into the price and call it free, they wouldnt know the difference, and as a consumer thats what i think when I see your add. Just like Coits 50% off coupons, 50% off of what? It aint 50% off their regualr price and people know this.

If you want to succeed in a coupon book in that area, you need to list a package price, it must be cut throat bare bones and you must be in the book consistently. If you are just in once or twice it wont pay for itself.

Now dont get me wrong you have a nice add, but that add would work best in direct mailing to high end neighborhoods. Not a coupon book. High end cleaners dont advertise in those books. It doesnt work for that business model.

I know you are desperate for work right now. You may do better in the areas that have less pressure from competition like Dixon. Actually If you dont mind a hour or so drive, Solono county is a great wide open territory if you market to the right neighborhoods you could make a killing there. When I worked at Stanely Napa/Solono was my area I pulled 350-380k a year out of there. Even with your smaller advertising budget you should be able to pull 100-150k once you get going and get some word of mouth working for you.
 

Jimmy L

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Jimmy L
Does low ballers and not filled out profiles have something to do with credibility too?
 

Scott Rogers

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Hey Ladwig, I did it once I aint doing it again. KMA. If you dont know be by now then thats the way I want it.

And so you know Marty Likes me better then U
 

Brian R

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Lyon, Do you have a website? I didn't see it listed in the ad.

I've never done the Clipper Mag so I wouldn't know their credibility.

Nice looking ad really and I know there is no turning back but here is a suggestion.

play on peoples emotions by using things like "What's in your carpet?" "Is your child crawling on dirty carpet?"

Get them to think about "why" they should clean not "how" it should be cleaned or "how much it will cost" to get it clean.

You look a little higher end...which is good...but if the Clipper is a price shopper mag then you will get lost in the shuffle with no prices given.

Are you in a networking group? I think I asked that before, but I forgot.
 
M

Mr Carpet

Guest
Shotgun advertising (indiscriminately advertising it hopes that you will hit something)can be one of the riskiest ways to spend your advertising dollar.

Welcome to marketing 101

Target your marketing!
Work referrals
 

Greenie

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Phone number should be bigger, and lose the chemdry Testimonial (R. Harris) lol

Where is the "call me now" message?
 

Brian R

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Greenie said:
Phone number should be bigger, and lose the chemdry Testimonial (R. Harris) lol

Where is the "call me now" message?


yea, the phone number looks like it's your direct line which could be bad.

I would think that people would want to call an office to schedule...not the owner.


I do like your logo...did you do it yourself?
 

Scott

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A smart business owner friend of mine owns an advertising agency. His favorite line is: "there are no guarantees in advertising, but you can certainly increase your chances"

Here are some ways to increase your chances:

Target marketing

Having a strong headline

Providing a clear and compelling difference between you and your competitors

Testing your marketing before going in deep

Tracking your returns carefully

Telling an interesting story that benefits the target

Having an irresistible offer

Networking with mavens and decision-makers

Using testimonials

Consistently keeping in touch with your customers and prospects

And...even after all of that - there are still no guarantees with advertising.

Scott
 

Brian R

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Scott said:
A smart business owner friend of mine owns an advertising agency. His favorite line is: "there are no guarantees in advertising, but you can certainly increase your chances"

Here are some ways to increase your chances:

Target marketing

Having a strong headline

Providing a clear and compelling difference between you and your competitors

Testing your marketing before going in deep

Tracking your returns carefully

Telling an interesting story that benefits the target

Having an irresistible offer

Networking with mavens and decision-makers

Using testimonials

Consistently keeping in touch with your customers and prospects

And...even after all of that - there are still no guarantees with advertising.

Scott


That about says it.
 
C

clean image

Guest
have clipper provide proof of postage

did you get copies of all your zones?

vonage? is that voip, has it proved reliable

clipper here you can get, as i said in another post, a tracking #, that also records the entire call, and you can see results, who called and wether it was answered or not.
 

XTREME1

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Ma
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I flushed 2500 down the toilet on a town calendar that has provided 0 calls. They had a huge response from the others who advertised last year but this year they changed the format and it is awful. I saw the calendar in almost every home last year and none this year. It is a POS

Then I flushed another $2400 down the toilet on Welcome Wagon where It was too too bad but not the results I would have gotten with 6000 postcards which I could have bought mailing lists, postage and printing with that $2400
 

Jay D

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Jay D
Nice looking add and alot of good points. One more, you led with tile and grout cleaning and sealing? That is not the market for those mags, value priced carpet cleaning is. Tile and grout is not the market for those mags. :|
 

Royal Man

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Dave Yoakum
Clipper didn't screw you.

You just paid $1000.00 for a lesson in advertising.

You fell into one of the riskiest ways to advertise.

Sure it may work for pizza. Some people eat pizza every week. But, only a small percentage (20%) have their carpets cleaned once in a lifetime.

There are much better ways to advertise.

Use a riffle with a scope instead of a shotgun with bird-shot.

-Advertise to targeted groups, they can have common interests or the groups can be based on demographics.

-Find ways to develop warm contacts so you won't have to waste money on cold marketing.

Dave Yoakum
 

Wayne Miller

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Wayne Miller
Very nice ad!

Don't feel too bad. Seriously, we call it the slow season for a reason, right? People aren't buying and there's not much we can do to change that. If you advertise in the slow months, expect a minimal return unless you're giving some unbelieveably irresistable offer. Keep your expectations in perspective.

Try it again in April, May or June and your results a will probably be better.

I'd take a hard look at the offers, too. If Mrs. Piffleton doesn't have tile or doesn't want sealer, that 30% off doesn't help her. How much upholstery do you do? Maybe you do a ton, I don't know. It might make up 10% of our business. Not much. If Mrs. P. doesn't need furniture cleaned you'll lose out there too. And, I don't know about you, but the minute a company says I have to be one of the first "XX" callers to take advantage of some special offer a picture of Vince and ShamWow pops into my head telling me I've only got twenty minutes "cause we can't do this all day."

We dont' get very creative with our offers and I refuse to give away the farm so we typically offer $15 off $135 or more and $25 to $35 off $250 or more. It's not every intriguing but if the need is big or small, carpet or upholstery, with or without protector protector, anyone can take advantage of it.

I know how you feel, though. We did the same thing. A quarter-page ad in a book going to 100K households with $100K+ incomes produced nadda. The magazine felt so bad they gave us a full-page, inside back-cover ad for the same price,

magad.jpg
.

We got one job.

It stings. Then again, who hasn't spent a lot of money figuring out how to make advertising work?

I'm not familiar with Clipper, but advertising in general is an investment in your business. Be consistent, test and track, it'll pay off. Not advertising will cost you money, too.
 

Brian R

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You can't advertise when or where there are no customers...unless you have the money to wait it out.

I am trying some things right now and some are working ...some are not...but even the ones that are not working I have to give a chance. Very seldom does a campaign pay off right away.

What do you think Wayne?
About 4 to 6 months on an ad before you know it is working or going to work?
 

Wayne Miller

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I don't thing there's any magic number. Certainly, though, you can't judge something from one try. Popular consensus says prospects have to see your ad several times before they really notice. I'd want to try someting at least a three or four times before I threw in the towel. Most of the folks I've seen with successful marketing programs didn't pull up stakes the first time something failed, they tried harder.
 

Moser Bros.

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Sep 23, 2007
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I'm going to try Ken Raddon's flyer. I bought Joe Polish's marketing package 10 years ago and never broke even with any of his flier's, 3 step letters and free consumer message in the yellow pages, so that's why I rarely advertise. Ken isn't called the flierman for no reason, so I'll test the flier the way he recommends.

P.S. When I used Joe's crap, I only sent to high end neighborhoods.
 

Scott

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Our company is over 25 years old - and flyers have never worked for us.
 

Brian R

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Yea, I'm really getting away from direct mail. The only thing I send in the mail are thank yous and reminders.
 

Brad_Smith

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Moser Bros. said:
I'm going to try Ken Raddon's flyer. I bought Joe Polish's marketing package 10 years ago and never broke even with any of his flier's, 3 step letters and free consumer message in the yellow pages, so that's why I rarely advertise. Ken isn't called the flierman for no reason, so I'll test the flier the way he recommends.

P.S. When I used Joe's crap, I only sent to high end neighborhoods.

Kens flyer would be fun in Sac. Lots of big neighborhoods with houses 2 ft apart= 120+ flyers per hour. Homes here are much farther apart but flyers still are good when business is slow and bank account is empty. Sure I would rather be cleaning carpets making money but watching doctor Phil doesn't help either. With Ken's flyer you should get .5-1% return.
 

Brian R

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Brad_Smith said:
[quote="Moser Bros.":5s54bocy]I'm going to try Ken Raddon's flyer. I bought Joe Polish's marketing package 10 years ago and never broke even with any of his flier's, 3 step letters and free consumer message in the yellow pages, so that's why I rarely advertise. Ken isn't called the flierman for no reason, so I'll test the flier the way he recommends.

P.S. When I used Joe's crap, I only sent to high end neighborhoods.

Kens flyer would be fun in Sac. Lots of big neighborhoods with houses 2 ft apart= 120+ flyers per hour. Homes here are much farther apart but flyers still are good when business is slow and bank account is empty. Sure I would rather be cleaning carpets making money but watching doctor Phil doesn't help either. With Ken's flyer you should get .5-1% return.[/quote:5s54bocy]


What part of MO. do you live in?


You know, I was thinking
3 calls from the clipper mag...as long as you made about $450.00 on each job you would break even. :mrgreen:
 
G

Guest

Guest
I have been doing the Clipper for 4 years (every issue) and I cant keep up!!!

Of course the longer you advertise the more calls you will get

And Im the highest cleaner in the magazine.
every one is doing the $85 whole house deal
but I do a 5 roomer for $149.95
and do 5 a day
 

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