Best form of advertising??

[lockkey]

What does everybody find is the best form of advertising. i.e-what gets you the most work??

[randmguy]

A good Yellow Pages ad is probably your best value. It gets your name out there in pay phones and in the directory assistance database. You can also hand out as many business cards to local auto shops, realtors, towing companies, and anyone else with a parking lot or a hardware dept. Your best strategy is still to do a professional job when you have the business. Word of mouth is still the only good free source of advertising.

[mbell]

Don has some really good suggestions - things that I would never have thought of. Gives more of an idea for a non-lockie where the bulk of work comes from.

[oldlock]

I ran my own business in the UK for 10 years, here's what i found .

Yellow pages - waste of time & money - it's too big and there are too many ' locksmiths ' in there. I used if for two years and monitored the work that came in from it, and each actual job cost me GBP30.

The very best form of advertising is personal recommendation, do the best job you can for each customer, take a few minutes after doing what you have been called in for to survey there house / office / whatever to advise on their security - if it's up to standard tell them - also tell them if it is'nt - again I made 1000's in extra work this way - just make sure you are giving good advice and what you advise is required.

Business cards - give them to everyone at every available opportunity, the very best customer I had was gained through a card handed to an office that was next to the one I was working in. Over the years I probably did GBP50,000 in work for that guy - he owned a large business with multiple locations and he moved house (a lot) and every time he moved (always to a bigger and better house) I was called in to secure it.

Thomson local - a good regular source of work - don't bother with a huge advert - the one at around GBP1,000 worked well for me, and each job had a cost of around GBP10

Estate agent folders - avoid these like the plague !!! I tried a few when I started up - they were not cheap and they never bought in any work that I know off - likewise wall planners and ' charity ' folders etc - tell them all to get stuffed.

Website - My site only bought in a few jobs - but the ones it did paid for the costs of the site about a 100 times over - keep the site simple and informative - I built mine myself and it probably only cost me a couple of hundred including the domain name and hosting.

Specialise - if you can specialise in something, and be good and well equiped at it & let fellow lockies know - if it's something hard to do all the better they may well refer work your way - I did safes, access control (complex (expensive) systems) and anique lock work.

Paul

[toomush2drink]

Whilst the yellow pages may seem a waste of time to some i still think its worth a go at the start as you get a 50% discount in the first year. Im getting a bit of work from it and enough to pay for the ad no probs. My local paper was good until another three new lockies started up and decided to try and out do the existing ones with their ads, im not too bothered as i know can afford to keep advertising with a bigger ad until they fall by the wayside but it is annoying to have to pay more than i need to. 118 24-7 hasnt been worth it really but as it was half price also it will pay for itself but that is one im not renewing. I really do think where you are located is a big factor to the best advertising platforms, im down london way where there is so much competition it is crazy so you have to find your own work/niche as oldlock mentions.
Estate agents well they talk the talk but not had any work from them so for me thats another dead avenue. Word of mouth really is the best as is a sign written van, the van gets seen everywhere i go and even if they dont take down the number if they need a locksmith and look in the yellow pages it does trigger the memory. Also the van is good when you are on a job as the neighbours notice and you can get some of the keeping up with the jones type thing providing you with work. I always try to put a few cards through the doors of neighbouring houses when im on a job to increase the areas my business is exposed to. Keep your van clean though as it reflects on your business's image if its dirty or shabby.
Someone mentioned it advertises you carry tools but i think any van is a target for tool thieves and mine is fitted with lots of extra deadlocks which people see and ask where you got them, leading to another sale.

[SFGOON]

So I knew this guy who owned a moving company, four actually, and ran them all from the same office with the same trucks, movers and gear. He took out four phone book ads with four different numbers all routed to the same phone and wound up getting four times the buisness. I thought this guy was a severe but he was a rich . Just food for thought.

[toomush2drink]

sfgoon this already being done by the big companies in the yellow pages but how on earth can the new businesses compete with companies spending 15k on ads ? It can be so fustrating especially when they are coming to you with the work gained so they can subcontract it to you.

[SFGOON]

Out here in the US, locksmithing is very much a cottage industry. There's no large locksmithing giant to compete with. Plus the phone book ads costs something like 100USD per year for a quality , black and white ad. My semi-friend would put out four ads, a funny one, a "discount moving" one, one that appealed to sentimentality and one that showed shirtless young men hauling furniture. It was SO STUPID but it got him results. If a schtoof like him can get away with this any one of you guys could do it.

[Guest]

yellow pages is a sore point with me, 4 years of ads and it still isnt what it should be ... there is 7 pages of locksmiths so as don said try to get up the front, unfortunatley you have to start putting more dots in front of your name ie: ........................000000011111111aaardvarklocks. but you also have to have the right shape ads, i foolishly went for a horizontal rectangle last year and dropped a page back as thats the only place it would fit. here's something funny, the rep told me not to worry about being at the back as people mostly read it from back to front !!!!.
i've cut right back this year and spread myself about a bit more.
ps the 118 247 is a total waste of money, they actually charge more for locksmiths, plumbers etc but mine hasn't even paid for itself yet even after about 4 months.
they also debited a whole years payments in one month because i paid it off early and there computers had me down as not having paid anything. oh, and for this coming year they had forgotten about me so i haven't been able to reveiw my proofs. but, i daren't stop advertising with them.

[toomush2drink]

Yes yellow pages are a must, but a pain to deal with. They cocked my ad up a few times and in the end i got a discount after some vigerous complaining. What gets to me this the fact that because the locksmith section has a lot of advertisers you have to pay more than other sections, shouldnt it be the other way round ? i thought in this day and age you paid more for exclusivity not to be with the masses but then i suppose the free notepad and pen makes up for it .

[Varjeal]

Yellow pages are indeed an "essential" for locksmiths, and yes, a lot of times they are very much a pain to deal with.

For example, in my particular area there are two phone books with yellow pages. One is for the town I live in and immediate surrounding area while the other is a "regional" book. Since day one I've advertised in the local book. The company looking after the advertising was extremely friendly and helpful. They did goober my ad a bit, but were very forthcoming and not only gave me a discount on that year, but discounted me for the second year as well. That apparently is NOT the norm in the industry.

The other "regional" book I currently do not advertise in (and haven't for 2 years) because the company gave me so many problems I refused to deal with them. Here's kinda how it went:

I phone this company..let's call it ABC...and let them know I'm interested in placing an ad. They're fairly busy and ask if it would be alright to contact me a bit later. I say no problem, hang up and forget about it...for 2 weeks no call...my wife reminds me one day that I need to settle my advertising and I realize I haven't been contacted so I phone again. This time they say, no problem we'll fax you our rate sheet..."sure" I say. The rate sheet doesn't get faxed until the next day.

So my wife and I calculate the adsize and cost, and fax the ad in to them.
Then I call in to confirm receipt and amount, etc...I get the answering machine. I get busy with other stuff and a couple of weeks later realize I didn't receive a call or confirmation. I phone, answering machine again. This time I email AND fax the ad in just to make sure they get it. Two weeks pass, no reply...so finally I say, "forget it". A month or so passes, and I get this phone call from ABC. "Hey, it's Bill from ABC advertising. Today's the deadline for all advertising and we'd like to see your ad in our phone book."

Me: "Your kidding right? What happened to all the faxes and emails we sent you."

ABC: "What faxes and emails?"

Me: " We sent you several faxes and emails with what we wanted for an advertisement and got no replies or confirmation. Also, we continually tried to call and could not get a hold of you. Our messages were not returned."

ABC: "Oh. We were moving the offices and our computers were down. When can we get together today to discuss your ad? You do need to get an ad in today since it's the due date because you don't want to miss out on all those potentional customers who use our books."

Me: "Your joking right? Well...let's start with this.." (trying to be nice) "give me a price for this sized ad with x # of colors".

ABC: "Let's see...that would be $XXXX" (note number of x's)

Me: "Umm..but according to the rate sheet you faxed me it should be $XXX. Why the difference?"

ABC: "Oh...that's our OLD rate sheet. They shouldn't have faxed that to you."

Me: "But it has your name on it."

ABC: "Oh. My mistake. So can we get together today to discuss your ad?"

Me: "Nope. I'm not advertising with you."

ABC: "Why not?"

Me: *silence for a minute as I try not to laugh out loud* "Let me explain something to you. I am trying to get a new business off the ground. To do that, I need to establish a reputation for speed, customer service, and consistency. You have not shown me that you can provide any of that. I will not advertise without first be provided with a proof, which I'm sure you don't have time to give. Secondly, when I give someone a price, I stand behind it. If I screw up and quote too low, I take the cut. Thirdly, I cannot associate my business with someone who doesn't have the same set of standards that I do. I've repeatedly tried to contact you guys to do business, and now you try to demand it from me. Guess what? I don't HAVE to do business with you and I'm not. Btw, don't bother contacting me next year either. You're wasting my time. "

ABC: "I understand that this is kind of last minute, but you NEED to have an ad in this paper. Think of the benefit of the advertising area you're miss--" *CLICK*

......

The SAME GUY came around the next year. He pretended not to recognize me, but I gave him pretty much the same spiel. This year they sent a girl who was much more polite and forthcoming on prices, etc...but I told her I'd wait until next year.

Anyways....in the whole scheme of advertising, don't forget a few things:

1. Your vehicle. This is a roving 24/7 advertising medium, so use it. Even when it's parked it's advertising.

2. YOU! Hats (if you wear 'em...or pass 'em out) shirts, sweaters, fridge magnets, keychains, pens, stamped keys, fliers, brochures...and all sorts of things can be handed out at relatively low costs with large benefits.

[Lockpick Dan]

I don't remember who but i think it was varjeal who mensioned earlier that when u copy a key or make a new one for someone, to get out a business card and write the code of the lock on the back, then give it to the customer and tell them if they keep that number that u can make a new key for 10% off or something like that so that they're likely to keep it with their keys. This would make it so that if the person needs a locksmith, they're likely to have that on hand and will call you. sry if i really screwed up what someone said, i just thought it was a good idea when i heard it.

[Luke]

I just brought a nice looking black jacket that is going to have Halifax Locksmiths written allllll over it! But with the magenets, i think they are a great idea, a mate i know gets 2000 printed a year, (dunno where he gives all out) but it seems to be paying off for him!

[INMANATOR]

the new bt 3 in 1 in the uk is good. cheaper than yellow pages less locksmiths in it and is advertised on tv like mad.decent sized add only 300 quid per year. my mates add for tree surgery in yellow pages same size cost him four grand!!! (same town)

[jason]

O found that "Thomsons Local" a load of s**t, didn't listen to what I wanted (I'm bloody well paying) screwed up the proof when I cancelled it (by post, fax and email) I didn't get a response, two months down the line I got a bill - within minutes they got a VERY irate me on the phone, after I threatened them with legal action (I sent the letter recorded delivery, kept the fax record and email confirmation) suddenly it all stopped - strange that!

Keep very detailed records when dealing with advertising sales they're slippery buggers.

I found that 118247 worked OK with me though but I've got "....0ABC" at the start of my name (I'v since heard that they don't count past the first four characters)