advertising

[Greg Casper]

Mark:

I advertised in my local PennySaver for a while, but either you've got your
rates wrong or they are SUBSTANTIALLY different up here in Northern CA. I
paid $196/week for my ad. Remember that your ad will go in as a COMMERCIAL
ad, and those cost MUCH more than private party ads. I did add a border and
a little bit larger typeface, but it was a fairly short ad and still cost
that much. I found that I was getting one and sometimes two tunings a week
from the ad. So on a good week, with some additional repair work to do or a
PR or something, it paid for itself. Needless to say, I no longer advertise
there. I guess if you can afford to break even at best and you want to
establish a clientele for the future, it may be a way to go. But I didn't
find it to be a great revenue generator.

FYI, I've also tried door to door flyer distribution and that was useless. I
also advertised in the local paper, with less response than the PennySaver,
although the cost was about 1/4 of the PennySaver ad. Seems to me the best
thing you can do is get your business listed in the yellow pages.

Best of luck.

Greg Casper
San Jose, CA


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pianotech@ptg.org [mailto:owner-pianotech@ptg.org]On Behalf
Of Mickey Kessler
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 6:52 AM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: advertising


After lots of dedicated study and practice I'm about ready to hang out a
shingle and go to work for money.

I'm considering running a classified ad in the local PennySaver.  This can
reach about 80,000 households a week in the driveable neighborhood here in
L.A., all with generally quite high annual incomes.  The ads cost about
$250 for six weeks.  I figure if only 5% of the households have pianos, and
if only 1% of those answer the ad and result in booked jobs, I'll more than
break even.  (I pulled those percentages out of the air, but they seem like
safe guesses.)

Has anybody used the PennySaver?  Did it bring you in any business?  How do
you generally promote your business?  I seldom see ads for piano
technicians -- is that because it isn't effective, or is it because there's
plenty of business around without advertising?

Thanks for any info or advice you can offer.

Mark (Mickey) Kessler