Question for multi truck operators?

[PTMatt]

Approximately how much a month do you spend on advertising to keep multiple trucks working? I currently have 3 trucks but really only keep 2 busy and I really want my third truck to start earning more. Considering beefing up my advertising but wanted to find out what some of you are currently spending? Any input is appreciated

 

[Ken Snow]

As a % of sales we are now spending about 7% and change. $ wouldn't be a good comparison as a company with 6 or 12 or 20 will have increasingly higher amounts $ wise. A smaller operation will probably need to be above 10% to move the needle and keep trucks running. We were above 10% until we were close to 20 crews.

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[PTMatt]

Thanks Ken for the input. It helps cause I'm trying to gauge where our budget needs to be.

 

[Ken Snow]

Welcome Matt-May need to be as high as 15% to get things really rolling and then try to maintain the $ amount or only increase the $ slighy as volume grows, which will slowly reduce it as a %.

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[Mikey P]

Im quite surprised to hear your numbers are that low Ken.


Mind telling us what your average job amount is?

 

[bob vawter]

time has a way of whittlin' that number down......

 

[Ken Snow]

About $130 Mike for on location cleaning, $170 ish for rug cleaning orders which is a blended number.

Which # seems low to you?

Oh our rug cleaning adv budget is closer to 9%.

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[idreadnought]

If you have a van sitting there that is not busy you should up your marketing to get it busy. Even if your profit margin is lower it would pay off long term to build market share. My question for you is where would you put the money? I just canned the yellow pages and I am having a challenge deciding where to divert the money to. I don't want to spend less on marketing I just want a higher return on investment than the yellow pages gave me.

 

[Vivers]

Where would you put money into advertising/ marketing anyhow? Print ads don't work anymore so I am just wondering where you would address this?

 

[SMRBAP]

Tough question to answer, many factors to consider. Your market size, demographics, number of competitors, growth rate desired, age of your firm, previous advertising history (branding vs. ads intended to get immediate response/jobs), economic situation in your area... etc.

Our advertising %'s skyrocketed this year and last for many reasons, having to lower prices due to competing firms dropping theirs, higher advertising costs, competing against more companies advertising, higher fuel costs, mild winter, record drought,.... the list goes on.

To keep 4 going I'll swallow roughly 20% this year.

But my market isn't your market. I made friends with other "elective" service type firms in my area. We for years have shared market data in a non-competitive way and it has been a great source of insight overall.

 

[Shane Deubell]

I would think in the $2k - $3k month range.

 

[Steve Lawrence]

Don't make your 3rd van so busy that you have no backup plan when one of your vans or TM's takes a crap and you need to service those customers.

 

[Desk Jockey]

We are a strange animal so I'm not sure our figures will help at all. Last year advertising was 1.7%, but we are over 80% restoration. We talk a lot about spending more but when we are busy we think "why?" and when we are slow we think "why didn't we?".

We really need to commit a little more money to marketing in 2013 at least with the plan of planting some seeds in the minds of potential customers.

 

[Ken Snow]

Richard are you including the cost of marketing efforts in staff time? Even if you don't book it there for P&L purposes it can be considered as part of ykur marketing costs.

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[Desk Jockey]

That included it for last year.

2012 will be different because we actually have a part time marketer.

 

[Ken Snow]

About $130 Mike for on location cleaning, $170 ish for rug cleaning orders which is a blended number.

Which # seems low to you?

Oh our rug cleaning adv budget is closer to 9%.

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I was off and going by memory Mike- here is the actual YTD info

Res $135.45
Commercial $315.65

Rug Cleaning etc. from drop off at one of our 5 locations avg. $185.24 (each location has its own number based on its socio-demographics, skill set of the Rug Care Consultant, etc.)
Rug Cleaning etc from PU & Del $352.29