Alan: If you get a Vonage VOIP line you can get it to use your old number and still get that number portability. I moved 5 tears ago and kept my old number and have added a virtual number for my new area. It is cheap and convenient. dave Sent from my BlackBerry® -----Original Message----- From: Alan Eder <reggaepass at aol.com> Sender: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:26:12 To: <pianotech at ptg.org> Reply-To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Where do new customers come from? Well, I might be the proverbial "lone voice in the wilderness" on this one, but FWIW, I get much more than 3.5% of my new customers from the Yellow Pages. In fact, I recently relocated within the same general area, but far enough away from my former abode that my business phone number could not migrate with me as an installed line. Since that phone number is what Mrs. Smith will likely call when her Courier spinet is ready for it's "once every ten years tuning, whether it needs it or not!", I dare not change it (it now forwards directly to my cell, for a fee, of course). Business had slowed down over the last two years (compared to the previous twenty!), but is now showing signs of picking up. Much of the up-tick has been repeat offenders, but many are calling from my single line listing in the Yellow Pages. If not for those two considerations, I would have gone to Magic Jack, with it's number portability and "can't-touch-this" low price. I, too, get referrals form the PTG website, but not as many as from the YP. Go figure, Alan Eder -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Wally Scherer Sent: Monday, January 24, 2011 6:28 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: [pianotech] Where do new customers come from? Each new year I go over my customer files and find out where my new customers came from. (I don't want to be spending money on advertising if it doesn't work.) Even though 2010 brought in fewer new customers than any previous year since I started keeping track (just over half as much as my highest year), the gross income for 2010 was actually a bit higher than 2009. Here's the breakdown for 2010, if anyone is interested. Internet search - 31.6%, Customer referrals - 22.8%, Teacher referrals - 15.8%, Car sign - 12.3%, Social contacts - 7%, Store referrals - 3.5%, Yellow pages - 3.5%, All others - 3.5%. (Rounded off) One remarkable trend is the % of new customers coming from my Yellow Pages listing. In 2005, 2006, and 2008, the YP listing brought in the HIGHEST number of new customers. In 2004 it was the second highest, and in 2006 and 2009 it was the third highest. In 2010 YP was among the LOWEST! Wally Scherer A FINE TUNE - Piano Tuning & Repairs Wallace T. Scherer, piano technician, music educator 5020 Canal Drive, Lake Worth, Florida, 33463-8014 Telephone: 561-432-4121 Web page: http://aftune.angelfire.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-FINE-TUNE-PIANO-TUNING-REPAIRS/1298450103661 85 ------------------------------------------------ FREE TICKETS: http://aftune.angelfire.com/freetics.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20110125/5a567218/attachment.htm>
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