Advertising

[Qweaver]

I bought $200 worth of sawmilling advertising on our local radio station.  After a week of ads I've had one phone call where the land owner wanted to sell me downed logs that the lumber company left behind and several requests for free slabs.  I have had two sawing jobs during the week that came from "word of mouth" contacts but none from the radio ads.  I'm going to try the local paper next...it's cheap and I have had some luck there before.   We have several fairly large sawmills in the area and they charge a lot more than I do,  but they do not take small jobs anyway.  I think that I may have wasted that $200.

[Jeff]

For less then that $200 we could have put a member sponsor page and link together for you for an entire year. We can usually get it so if anyone is looking for someone in your area using the internet, they will find you.  I don't know if we could do as well for you as we have for Stumpy, but Jim uses the service and if you search "portable sawmill in wisconsin"  in google, he is one of the first to come up after Wood-Mizer thanks to the popularity of the Forestry Forum with google.

[bill m]

When I tried advertising my tree service in the local papers the only calls I got were people shopping around looking for a deal. Never got one customer. My yellow pages did a little better but not much. Finally dropped all advertising and just relied on word of mouth.

[Qweaver]

Yep Bill, I'm thinking the same way.  I have got a few jobs out of the newspaper ads but nothing so far out of the radio.  I can now make lumber for less cost with the LT28 and I hope that will help bring in more business.
My biggest problem is that I don't want to chase work too hard and have to saw everyday.  I have a friend in our hunting club that mainly saw mine timbers and they have more work than they can handle.  They often saw seven days a week.   Not what I want to do.

[Brucer]

I just signed up for a second year with Jeff's "shameless commerce link". It really does get you onto the front page of Google. I've had several people find me while searching for "timber framers in the Kootenays", "Douglas-Fir timbers in Rossland", etc. Unfortunately, the vast majority were timer wasters:

• a local business magazine wanted me to buy advertising space with them.
• someone wanted information for the sawmill business he was starting.
• one person wanted pricing on standard timbers. He was in the heart of timber-frame country and I suspect he was just getting some numbers to keep the local guys honest.
• two people want to buy "inexpensive wood to ship to India". Well, it ain't going to be inexpensive after they truck it 400 miles to the coast.
• a local contractor was in charge of replacing cedar utility poles and wanted to sell me the ones they were removing.
  

So with that response, why'd I bother renewing my ad for another year? One job. Just one solitary job -- worth over $50,000 ;D.

[SwampDonkey]

Local advertising has never worked for me. The only job I got off my web was from a family in NYS that had land here in New Brunswick they needed inventoried. They were very honest folks and when they got my cruise were very pleased. They were surprised to hear they were victims of trespass and theft though. Very common where you have an absantee property in a remote area. You have rogues gleaming maps and ownership info for their next free wood harvest.  : Another was an inquiry for a cruise about a piece of land they owned. The way it was worded, nothing I could give them for information was anything they didn't already know. Pass, next.  ;D :D

Back to advertising, any add I had was placed obscurely or not at all, like an area where you might find a used computer for sale, instead of grouping with firewood sales or something similar. To some outfits they are just words on paper and dropped on news print pages at random. Also, Paid for flyers to be delivered once and they were never delivered.

[Chuck White]

Your best advertisement is "word-of-mouth".  ;D

When you have satisfied customers, they will refer others to your business.

Another way to "drum up business" is to saw in sight of a busy road.  ;)

In the process of sawing up the job I'm on now, I have added 2 more saw-jobs to this summers list. 8)

[Magicman]

Set up for a day or so at a local "Seed and Feed" store.  Saw 1-2 logs, pass out cards and fliers, talk to folks.

I've sawed "charity" logs for elderly woodworkers.  I've also sawed and donated the lumber for church projects.  When you do something like that, go by the newspaper.  They need articles about something other than "killing & stealing".







The above "Front Page" coverage and article cost nothing and generated many saw jobs.



This "Front Page" article covered my sawing a Cherry log for an elderly woodworker.



This building was built with 100% of my sawed and donated lumber.  It is our church's Music Minister's utility house.  Yes, it generated many saw jobs.

[Brucer]

There's a weekly advertising paper here-abouts that is delivered free (by mail). It's basically a classified listing without the rest of the paper :D. Folks figured it wouldn't last the year when it was first published. Now, 25 years later, they have a staff of 15 and are growing.

I haven't advertised in it yet, but I know people who have. What I noticed is that when folks advertise a service, the ads are generally ignored for the first month or two. People see the ad, maybe think they might use that service sometime, and put it out of their mind -- for a while.

A lot of business people would run a 3-week ad (pay for two, get the third free). When they got no responses they would pull the ad. Folks who ran the ad continuously found that they started getting calls after a couple of months and after that sales began to increase.

One thing advantage a paper ad has over a radio spot is that the paper tends to get left lying around. You never know who might pick it up.

[thecfarm]

When we had the greenhouse we tried the radio.I would ask the customers how they found us.I don't think one said the local radio station or ad in the local paper.Most said our signs out by the main road.I put up big signs.Letters 8-10 inches high to be seen at 60 mph with a big arrow.Newspaper article is nice too.Been 5 years since they did a 2 page spread on The C Farm greenhouse and veggie stand.I still have people mention it to me.Had one women that grew up behind us that looked us up from the article.All that is left is a grown up field and granite pieces that the house was on.Must have old country fairs or get back to nature or old times events in your area.Set up for a weekend at one of those.