Getting more local

I again re-visit the theme of this to remind those reading along that the goal is to establish a local agency where my business is based on local advertising and becoming part of the community. I also think there's a big difference between promoting "free quotes" and promoting your business. Any can drive quote traffic to their site and it's still people who don't want to be contacted. That's not what I'm after.

Picking up the phone and chasing down 20 quote requesters - 75% of whom are trying to avoid you is a lacking marketing plan. I will still offer quote requests but my quote page will be re-configured to let people know before filling out the form that they will be contacted by me and I'll want them to choose the best time. It won't be a perfect system but it will at least let people know they won't see instant quotes, and a video on that page will explain why. I see little value on showing people rates they can't get.

I've filled out applications for two local chambers of commerce and advertised on a few local websites. I'm meeting with a Yellow Pages ad rep next week so talk about local print and internet ads.

I put an ad out today to hire people to put up the residential postcard/flyers which I've done before with lacking results. The main problem was finding people to actually work and managing those who did work. However, now that my son's in school my wife is freed up to help me and that's all the difference.

The residential flyers pull .005 (half of 1%) and I've been slapping them up for about three years as a supplement to other marketing. It's not something that can be done in all areas since you need townhomes to make the math work.

Math:
Flyers are 3 cents a piece
1,000 placed is 5 leads
$12/hr for labor and 200 per hour placed
Closing is 1 out of 5 - they are very high-quality leads

So a 10 hour week is $120 in pay, gets 2,000 flyers put up which cost $60 for a total expense of $180. It's 10 leads and two deals. Even if it was one deal it's still extremely worth it. Can I lose money? Not really. The entire box of 5,000 is $150 in cost and putting them up would require 25 man hours X $12/hr = $300 + the $150 = $450 total. I make twice that off one deal.

That breaks down to $18 per lead and internet leads are far cheaper....right? No. I get in contact with all 10 of those leads hence the 1/5 closing ratio. When you get 20 leads you only get in contact with around 30% of them. So at $8 per shared lead X 20 leads = $160 however if you only spoke with 6 those leads now it's 6 into $160 or $26 per lead! So it's $26 to speak with someone and then 3 or 4 others agents also get a crack. Ummmmm, no.

FREE hit counter and Internet traffic statistics from freestats.com