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We were getting a few of those a week for a while. It seems to have come to an end. But if it were a company HB was using widely, it would be posted in the City Newsletter. I got one saying they had talked to the owner and his approval and that he had told him to call back and talk to his secretary. I busted him on that since I’m the owner.

As much as they may have air-flow going for them, I just don’t think they look as professional. Jeremy & I both fought the idea of a button-down shirt, but we’ve loved how well made they are as well as how professional they look.

But I’m sure during the summer months the breathabilty is a huge plus!

We haven’t advertised on Christian radio here but the price sheet we got was like $400/month for 16 spots during the month.

We do advertise in a church bulletin here. We picked one of the larger congregations and it’s $50/month. We’ve pretty much broken even on it so I’m not sure it’s the way to go.

We get a lot of questions on whether or not we’re a “Christian company”. So if the Christian radio station is big where you are, I would think it would be worth it. Here there are several Christian stations so we just have stuck to flyers and mailers.

I would ask the station in your area what their main demographic is. If it’s college age or HS students that they cater to, it may not be the best demographic for you.

Here, a couple of the stations cater to the younger Christians rather than the older generations that actually would be spending the money. That’s why we decided against it.

We have a gal here who does door to door flyer bags in the upper-scale communities. We gave her our flyers and had her distributing them in Dec., Jan., & Feb. trying to anticipate both the normal time of year slow down and the economy. We got calls from neighborhoods we had tried to target for years and did enough business to at least match last year’s slump plus 35%. Not a huge increase, but with as slow as all the businesses have been around here, we were thrilled to be able to pay the bills. This same lady is starting with SuperCoups next month which in addition to a Val-pak like mailer, gives you a coupon link on redplum.com as well. With the internet being a huge resource for coupons, it’s a good way to get things out there for pennies per household. This particular SuperCoup franchise owner limits the amt of each type of advertiser in their packets as well as giving incentives on the back of the envelope such as prizes and giveaways inside so that people will open the envelope.

We have found that even giving 10% off will get returning customers calling. But we live in a “very frugal” area. We always put a minimum on our coupons so that it’s at least worth our while to go. If it’s people that should have had their carpets cleaned a long time ago, we reflect that in our extraction fees when we do an estimate. We got tired of doing scary, scary rentals and not making any money on the job because of time spent extracting. Even our higher end clients like the coupons because they’re feeling the sting economically. And since we’ve seen less growth these past few months we feel the discount is worth it. Here, if we raised our prices I don’t think we’d do as well. We were lucky to get them up where they are now. I’ve talked to other operators in our state and we’re all right about the same price because we can’t get it raised much more than that.

The operator in our neighboring territory does the val-paks and says that’s where most of his new business comes from. But again, it depends on your area. What works best in the South, may not work well somewhere else.

We do send coupons & specials to our current clients as a reminder and have been since we started. But the reason we feel most inclined to spend the money and effort for clients we already have is that many of our clients are feeling the pinch and putting off cleaning due to the economy. I’d rather clean for a discount, than to have the phones slow down and not be cleaning enough!

Plus, with the idea of “Give a friend” your client is likely to give pass on the referrals. That’s worth it right there in my book! Especially in this economy!

That sounds like a great idea, especially now that it’s getting close to the holidays. I’d love to hear how it’s working and see if it’s something we could use. Good way to drum up business if people are in the giving mood!