Best ROI on advertising

[HappyGreg]

I am curious as to what is the best advertising that you spend money on [after referrals and word of mouth]?

direct mail, website seo, ppc, various pay per lead, or whatever?

I am thinking and looking for some ways to make the phone ring with good leads, your experience would be greatly appreciated.

[cfbrew2]

Pay per click can work, but you have to be careful and not spend to much on keywords. Your website can be a good low cost source of leads. I wold not pay for seo unless you are completely clueless on how its done. most seo can be done on your own with very little cost. Put great content on your site and update it often and Google will reward you.
<a href="http://www.apexcarpentryinc.com/blog"> Carpentry and Home Improvement Blog </a>

[RobertCDF]

Absolute best for us is flyers on the doors or tucked into the newspaper boxes. 1 of the projects we got last year came from 70 flyers printed on my laser printer for less than $10 and 30 mins of a saturday morning... Project cost $50,000+ and then this year we got the people across the street from the reference $35,000.

[jollymon]

I have done a little of work well. First, off ditch mail marketing, its a waste and an expensive one at that. Second, no print or radio advertisements. Even less ROI and even more expensive. Finally, Work on you and what you do. Your image is the gold here. If you drive around in a beat-up truck, clean it up! If you have beer cans in the bed, clean them out! If you look sloppy that's what people will think you provide, regardless of the truth about your services. Maintain you own person in a professional image as well. I'm not talking about suit and tie, but dress it up. Have a professional call service (you can get this for cheap) to receive inbound calls. Have an email that auto-replies to sales inquiries. Finally and not at all last, Website. You need to have measured success and an effective presence that conveys what you can offer. You need to have cost effective SEO. I handled my brothers website overhaul and Advertisement. They have around 250 a month advertising budget (and we are in a top 10 market, that number goes down significantly as population drops off) and generate around a 40 unique visits a day and on average a call every 2.3 days that leads to a sale. Segment! A jack of all trades is seldom a master of any of them.

-Jollymon

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San Antonio Deck Builders (http://www.luxuriousbackyards.com)
Better Decks by Design

[ArtDeck-O]

For me it's print advertising in the back of local neighborhood magazines that get delivered free to home owners. Beats flyers, direct marketing, truck signs [useless] and just about any other way to advertise that I have tried. Yard signs work well as does word of mouth, but the print ad rules.

I pay $209 a month for an ad that generates $25-40k a month in business....hard to beat that ROI.

[DecksandFences]

I started out with direct mail but it was tough to get any quality leads off of that... Perhaps and made a little over my money back.

Then I moved on to PPC and saw 300$ go by extremely fast int he busy season but generated some good leads and made about a 400% ROI.

But if you have the time I'd suggest building a good online reputation. It's long term and very sustainable- not to mention the quality of the leads are unparrallel.

[thedeckbarn]

I said I would never do this but here it is.
Every new house that is built has what's called a C of O report. That stands for certificate of occupancy. You may have to to fight like hell to get the girl at the building department to print them out for you but work on it as it works real well. Enter all these address in a data base, print out what ever you are going to send, and mail it bulk mail US Post office. Cost is .22 for post cards etc. We do over 50 estimates a week from this between Feb and Aug every year. Been doing it for 15 years and have a 1.5-2.0 mill a year from it. I have been in business for 25 years.
Make sure to get them at all the building departments in the area you want to work.
Than get a store front, quit being a trunkslammer, because people will come to your store and will buy simply because you have a store. Make sure to get your store on a busy street, preferably a corner, other wise you will be lost, as the traffic races past you.
3 rd do all the home shows you can. I have had people hold the literature for as long as 3 years and say to me we say you at the home show. I have also had people sign up and get their job done 1 week after the show, built the guy 800 sq ft and a gazebo in feburary. Home shows do work great as it gives the homeowner a chance to see who's coming over b4 you get there.
these 3 things will do the most to increase leads.
Radio and TV only work if you have a big budget and the return on investment is poor. Usualy 3/1 which means if you spend 5k you will net 15k which is poor. Seeing as girl will cost $500 a week and she can do the data base thing at a clip of 1500-2000 names a week.
steve scholl
www.thedeckbarn.com

[John Hyatt]

Yo Killer decks/ deckbarn,your rating must be really high on Angies List after all those job's over the years.

[kayostar]

The best place to start is knowing where your largest number of customers are. If they are local flyers through doors are a very effective way to advertise. If they are online website seo, and so on and so forth.

The Best Home Improvement Ideas (http://www.homeinsights.org/)

[JohnS]

patio furniture (http://www.familyleisure.com/Casual-Patio-Furniture)
I am curious as to what is the best advertising that you spend money on [after referrals and word of mouth]?

direct mail, website seo, ppc, various pay per lead, or whatever?

I am thinking and looking for some ways to make the phone ring with good leads, your experience would be greatly appreciated.

As you mentioned, word of mouth is the best form of advertising. People give it the most credibility because it's coming from someone who isn't benefiting to advertise it. I would say next best would be online advertisement. Driving people to your website that wouldn't have been there without the advertising gives you a chance you wouldn't have had.

[HappyGreg]

Thanks for all the ideas. Now, after looking back for the year, website seo is the magic bullet here in our area.
http://www.centennialdecks.com/services/