[pianotech] advertising

[Paul T Williams]

I'll tell you right now, Les.  Your home church folks are the worst at 
spending money at home.  The more evangelical, traditional, conservative, 
the harder it gets!  My old church on Whidbey Island always came up with 
the funding for the church, but all their pianos were really sadly put on 
the back burner. Even the church pianos were not important....so they 
bought a digital for the Sunday stage.  It's very sad, as many of their 
families home schooled these kids, and music was very important in it. 
Now, they sadly have grown up thinking the sad church piano is just 
"normal".  It's a circle.....and no matter how much you preach,  it falls 
on deaf ears!  I gave up after many years of yelling at the top of my God 
given lungs!.........Don't bother with the big church ads. 

Good Luck,

Paul




From:
Les Koltvedt <t4348lk at yahoo.com>
To:
pianotech at ptg.org
Date:
01/25/2011 02:56 PM
Subject:
[pianotech] advertising



I've advertised in my church bulletin, with a congregation of more than 
3500, for the last 3 months of the year.  I can say that I've done that 
twice, it's my first and last time, not one hit.  I'm in the same boat as 
Marshall, not a RPT...yet and trying to build a clientele.

Les

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2011 13:59:13 -0500 (EST)
From: tnrwim at aol.com
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] advertising
Message-ID: <8CD8AD91675E7ED-7A4-19AA at web-mmc-m07.sysops.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"


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


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