Marketing

[lust1kiddo]

Anyone in the nyc metro area have success using valpak?

 

[FLYERMAN]

Very few carpet cleaners anywhere have ever had any success using ValPac.

I honestly think the big companies that use valpac do so that the little guy will try it and lose money and go bankrupt. I know it sounds conspiratorial but I have never talked to anyone that used valpac successfully.

Ken Raddon.

 

[DCS.LLC]

I'm not in your area but I did try Val-Pak it was a huge dissapointment. I think I recoverd 1 month of what it cost me! Just say NO. To be fair I did get 3 or 4 repeat customers out of it, so maybe in a couple years it'll payoff! But most of them, the people that you will get from the valpak, just want the cheapest thing they can find.

 

[handdi]

val pak was peed money away for us
they have the 4.95 rm guys in there

 

[lust1kiddo]

yeah they want 1200 for 50000 homes. the only other guys in there now are sears and someone else. I didnt know much about it..numbers made it look enticing. If I got 6 jobs..it would pay for itself. I'm on the fence about it.

 

[hogjowl]

Having not advertised with them since my very early years in business, I really can't say. It didn't do much for me back in the 80's. However, I only did it once, and that may be the key to it's failure for me. I imagine that if I had continued it for the past 22 years I may have a different story to tell.

Or, I may have gone bankrupt and not be here today.

Who knows?

 

[SFC]

Never have but we throw the envelope out in the trash the day it gets here.

 

[Jonee]

I actually had some success with it, when I had a "by the room pricing" structure, but again that was over 12 years ago and I was having success in the yellow pages at that point as well. I think that everything is shifting towards the net. The net allows you more room to expand your USP and tell your story....... and really target your key customer.

I have a friend from college that has sold yellow page ads for the past 21 years, he quit this past year.....he said even with advent of internet advertising, the profit levels were way down. He told me the only big customers his last year were water damage companies & Tow Truck Companies.

 

[greenclean]

yeah they want 1200 for 50000 homes.

it takes more than 6 $200.00 jobs to pay for the $1200.00 in advertising...Keep in mind you still have other costs even if you dont take pay....the truck costs you...the cleaners you use cost money....fuel cost you...etc I'm sure you get the point. You are most likely at 3 or 4 times that to break even. Valpak works I know plenty of cleaners who do well with it....You need to do 70k in this area to even see some work. The ROI is low and on small 10k lots there is no ROI. Its a numbers game....200k pcs brought in 60 calls and 46 were closed last spring FYI.

PS Where are you in the city...email me and I can give you some more info if you would like.