Marshall In general, advertising is a crap shoot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Back in St. Louis I used to advertise on the commercial classical music station. The ad manager told me that one of my competitors ran the same ad three different times of the year. The first time he got a lot of business from it, the second time he didn't get anything, as if no one was listening to the radio. The third time it was so so. I've discovered the same thing. I even ran a radio spot on the top rated station in St. Louis, and even during a Cardinal's baseball game, and it was a total waste of money. The best place, now, is the Internet, as you're doing. But you don't have to pay for it. As you found out the google places are working, Craig's list has been successful for me. And I get quite a few calls from the PTG web site. Obviously you aren't able to do that, yet, but perhaps it will give you the incentive. What doesn't work are "specialty" ads, like the bus, placemats, programs, etc. The only ones who make money are the people who sell you the ads. Just hang in there, Marshall, It takes time to build up a tuning business. Your good work and honest business ethics are the best way to promote yourself. Unfortunately, you entered the field during one of the worst economic slumps this nation has seen since the depression. But the economy is slowly turning around, and soon your business will too. Wim -----Original Message----- From: Marshall Gisondi <pianotune05 at hotmail.com> To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Tue, Jan 25, 2011 6:16 am Subject: [pianotech] advertising I agree. Yellow pages are a poor investment. I tried it, and received little I mean little very small return. The internet works. I put my name in the free google places and received a few calls. I tried advertising on facebook, nothing there. Does it take time to receive referrals and word of mouth? I'm not having such luck in that department, and i'm not sure why? My customers are happy. The car sign brought in one customer. I'm missing one now. lol it was stollen in a good suburban neighborhood while mywife took my son to lunch at McDonalds. In the bad areas of philly, no one bothered it once. go figure. This lady from Supermedia wants me to advertise online for $40 a month,but I'm not certain about it's returns. they guarantee a certain number of clicks and placement. What are your experiences with this type of advertising. Another company last year wanted me to advertise on placemats in diners. Has anyone tried that? I still telemarket churches schools and nursing homes, little fruit there too. I'm going to start calling residences I think. Does anyone here have a good hande on any do not call laws etc? Has anyone here tried faxing? I've heard of businesses doing this. Is anyone having any sucess with newspaper ads? On Thursday I'm meeting with SCORE to see if they have any advertising ideas/promotional ideas. the counsel is free, and I worked with SCORE while at the school and the were great. I'd also like to get a hold of the client list of one of the piano techs in my area who passed away at year, but I"m not certain how to approach that one. Thanks everyone Marshall ps if I sound negative in my tone I apologize. I'm having trouble dealing with the cold and lack of sun here in PA. I'm not feeling negative about this at all, I'm just open to ideas on all avenues. Marshall Gisondi Piano Technician Marshall's Piano Service pianotune05 at hotmail.com 215-510-9400 www.phillytuner.com 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/20110125/47f531ca/attachment.htm>
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