That's because, with both mailings and word of mouth, nobody knows who you are. Both take time. A reputation must be built up. And a good ond at that. First impressions are lasting impressions. Do work that you do not have to return to later to fix something. That will get you bad word of mouth. Especially if when you do return, it takes a very long time to figure out what's wrong. Read, read, read and learn learn learn. Go onto Small business websites and read how to increase business sales and find other sources of reading material there. I still do a lot of that. Jer From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Matthew Todd Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 11:17 PM To: fg at floydgadd.com; pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] mailings It's funny how most everyone here says word of mouth is the number one source of your income. It depends on where you are in your career really. Word of mouth does absolutely no good to someone who is just starting out. So his number one source may be YP, or mailings, etc. Then, of course, if he/she does good work, the word of mouth will develop. But only over time, and I mean tiiiiiiiimmmmmeeee! TODD PIANO WORKS Matthew Todd, Piano Technician (979) 248-9578 http://www.toddpianoworks.com <http://www.toddpianoworks.com/> --- On Wed, 4/28/10, Floyd Gadd <fg at floydgadd.com> wrote: From: Floyd Gadd <fg at floydgadd.com> Subject: Re: [pianotech] mailings To: pianotech at ptg.org Date: Wednesday, April 28, 2010, 10:27 PM Hi Marshall, I would suggest that if you are not already doing so, that you place an ad with Google Adwords. You can target a local area, and if you choose your search words well, your ad will be popping up regularly as people do internet searches in your locality. You only pay when someone actually clicks through to your website. Yes, you do need some kind of website to direct the traffic to, but your name appears again and again and again and again. I'm particularly pleased to see how often my ad pops up when I'm searching on the local internet classifieds (similar to kijiji). My other suggestion is to find a way to start building a list of music teachers, and find a way of getting your name in front of them repeatedly. Having read Wim's book, I set a goal to get 7 information pieces in front of every teacher over the course of about a year. It actually took me about 16 months, but any teacher I've been able to identify has seen something with my name on it 7 times. They know I'm here. I'm doing the same with schools and churches, but I'm tweaking the 7th mailing for them a little differently. They'll probably see it in May or June. I've ordered several units of Ken Schneider's "Adapt-a-stand", and I'll use the availability of that product to have something unique in the mailing that might catch their eye. I wish you all the best! Floyd Gadd Manitoba Chapter http://tuning.floydgadd.com <http://tuning.floydgadd.com/> Quote: Hey Everyone, Have any of you recently or in the past used direct mail to send out post cards to advertise your business? What list company did you use or did you go through the post office? Thanks Marshall Marshall I tried Direct Mail a couple of times, with almost no results. The one I tried was called Valpak. It's an envelope full of coupons, delivered to all address in the zip codes of your choosing. I did a 10,000 mailer once, and got barely enough customers to pay for it. I tried various other direct mail promos, and coupons with grocery stores, all with the same dismal results. Marshall, the most effective advertising is word of mouth, followed by the Yellow Pages. The other successful ad in in the classified ad in a local weekly newspaper. (Not the big daily) This needs to be a long term commitment on your part, with a short, to the point ad: "Marshall's piano service, 555.1223". Keep that ad in there for a year. People will see it, but it will take some of them 6 or 8 weeks to decide to call you. They see it and say, "that's interesting". They see it the next week and say, "maybe I'll call", but then forget. The third week, "I'll have to ask my daughter if she thinks it needs it". By the fifth week, she'll forget to look, but in the 6th week, after she has asked her daughter, she'll call, but the line will be busy. She'll finally call you after seeing the ad the 8th week. If you had the ad in there for only 4 weeks, you would have lost her. Or, someone will see the ad who just had her piano tuned. She'll remember to look in the paper 6 months form now. When I was in St. Louis, I had my ad in the local weekly paper for 15 years. I probably got an average of 6 calls per month. That's not bad for $20 a week. Good luck Wim -----Original Message----- From: Marshall Gisondi To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Tue, Apr 27, 2010 8:12 am Subject: [pianotech] mailings Hey Everyone, Have any of you recently or in the past used direct mail to send out post cards to advertise your business? What list company did you use or did you go through the post office? Thanks Marshall Marshall Gisondi Piano Technician Marshall's Piano Service pianotune05 at hotmail.com 215-510-9400 Graduate of The School of Piano Technology for the Blind www.pianotuningschool.org Vancouver, WA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100429/2a83725b/attachment.htm>
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