How do you advertise?

[oakiemac]

What are some different ways that you all who custom saw advertise your services?

I'll start out by saying that I put up flyers and buisness cards in local shops and buisness. I also run a classified ad in a weekly trading paper.

[Tom]

It's all word of mouth.  I have passed out business cards.  In the beginning I joined wood working clubs and they were so interested in what i was doing that they would have me give talks.  That got my name out pretty quick.  I also was made visible by joining the local Bee Keepers Association.  

I keep a bunch of blades stacked in the back of my truck everywhere I go and that draws attention too.

Perhaps I've been lucky.  I've seen many guys advertise as if they were K-Mart and go out of business in 6 months.

I do use my available time when not busy to visit my customers and "shoot the bull".   They are farmers and businessmen in small towns and back yard cabinet makers.  

They always seem to like to see a sunny face that breezes in and out real quick. Handshakes and smiles go a long way in this business.

[Norwiscutter]

Speaking of advertising, I just got a DVD from Woodmizer that shows all the different mills they have in operation.  Was drueling right there in front of the TV. Never used anything other than a manual mill and I guess never realized how much work I was doing. Now gotta convince the wife she really doesn't need a new car after all...

As for cost efficient advertising, the yellow pages is a pretty good way to go. Not going to be alot of other portable mills advertised so you might be able to corner the market in the book.  If I was going to do it as a business, the first thing I would do is take out the biggest add I could afford in the yellow pages.  put a nice picture of a mill or log on there, and before ya know it, people will be calling.

[Jeff]

I would have Jeff build me a nice little website, then put the address all over your truck and then just drive around town with the mill connected. Go get grocerys, haul the mill. Wash the truck, take the mill. Go get coffee, haul that mill. Go ta church, NOPE leave her home.

[shopteacher]

Smoke signals. Don't reccomend it though. No responses.
Course I was in a no smoking area.

[RMay]

Its good to hear that I was not the only one drueling over Wood-Mizers DVD  ;D anyway all of my advertising is word of mouth and handing out busines cards ;)

[Captain]

My yellow pages advertisement keeps the phone ringing.  Only about ten to twenty percent of the calls, depending on the month, turn into sales.  

I have started to create a "lost sale" report.  The short explanation of that is products/services that the public is calling for and I do not have on hand or offer.  I am trying to use this to manage my inventory and service portfolio.

Captain

[J_T]

Might talk to some other mill owners I send a lot up the road to a guy has a band saw I don' trust a lot of logs people want to bring me .I had rather do my own thing and it isn't coustom sawing. ???

[oakiemac]

Jeff I like your idea, as a matter of fact...

Another thing to do is to sawmill in a high profile spot like on a busy country road. I did this last fall and I had people stopping left and right to ask questions and take cards. I told the owner that I'd saw there again for free!

[ARKANSAWYER]

  
My name is on my hat, shirt, truck, mill, sign out at road, and on my business cards.  Bro. Noble can tell you that I can not go any where with out people coming up and asking about the mill and sawing.  80% of my business is repeat and I could saw 24 hours a day and still not get it all done.  I am booking for late April now and need 10 mbdft of logs.   If I take my mill any where (mine has been to church) I get asked about it.  But it is word of mouth that will make or break you.  You get the bad mouth and it will end quick here in this neck of the woods.  About twice a year someone buys a new mill and is going to put me out of business.  I just wish I could get them to work under me and help me out.  But NO! and in 6 months I can not find them any where.  The last one is now selling real estate. ???
  Maybe soon the Banker and I will agree and I can order the new LT70 and kick the walls out and go into business. 8) 8)
ARKANSAWEYR

[RevCant]

I guess I've done alot of different advertising.  The local weekly "Pennysaver" booklet, posters (a general loser), business cards, the yellow pages (in two different books - wrong move.  Most people only use one.  Advertise in that one.)  Now, after 10 years, people come to me by word of mouth.  ARKY is right.  Word of mouth will make or break you.  Next to that, the phone book does generate a lot of calls and gets billed right on your monthly statement.

Sawmill at church.  Yep.  Will be doing 5 36" plus trees in March.  Maybe I can get Music Boy to help me ;D.

[Bro. Noble]

Well now Arky,

I don't know if they ask you EVERYWHERE you go,  but there was an inquiry when I met you at the LIck Crick station. :D   Course it was another sawyer and we bout got in a fuss and scared those biker guys

I suppose we could gather that everywhere you go,  you get into a squabble with them Baker guys and intimidate bikers :D :D

Seriously,  David is a walking (and talking) advertisement.  He believes in what he does and loves it and that's very apparent.  He jumps in and gets things done  and that builds a business.

[Bibbyman]

We don't advertise.  Never have.  Have business cards.  Only give them out to people that ask for our phone number, address, etc. Thinking about putting a chain across the road. But that won't stop some.  We had two customers come thru the backside of our farm on 4-wheelers just last weekend.  Maybe we'll have to move to Wyoming and start over. Change my handle to BullShirtMan – BSMAN for short.

[woodrat]

I run an ad in the local Nickel trader paper and run ads in the Capital Press farm newspaper every now and then as well. Also have an ad in Wooden boat magazine. Have a website that is starting to bring me a little business, and I sometimes sell bowl turning blanks on ebay and that usually brings in a few side orders as well. Have a sign on the side of my truck that, as far as I know, hasn't netted me a single job. When I work in the city I usually get to hand out cards as fast as I can, and those jobs usually lead to more jobs. If I stop for a cup of coffee or something with the mill on behind, people sometimes do a dangerous u-turn and come back and ask for a card. I've been living here for 2 1/2 years and I'm starting to pick up some word of mouth business as well. So in short, I advertise in almost every way I can think of.

[Frickman]

The academic types in the ivory towers refer to most of these tactics as "guerilla advertising." In other words, cheap or free methods outside of the conventional advertising world. Many times these methods are more effective than expensive ad campaigns, as people are accustomes to "tuning out" conventional ads. I especially like the idea of towing your mill to town every time you need coffee or a sack of nails. The folks who will take notice will be more likely to need your services than maybe the general public.

We do little advertising other than word-of-mouth, as we run a more conventional commercial sawmill rather than portable custom sawing. We do mostly special order, custom runs, and this is word-of-mouth comes in. If you have a good reputation the business will come looking for you.

When we do spend money on advertising we help sponsor some of the local community fairs, rodeos, etc. I have found that the goodwill this creates helps more than an ad somewhere else.

[crtreedude]

Jeff's idea on doing a website is very good ( so is advertizing constantly by signage, etc. ) and I would say that Jeff would be a good choice.  I know that everyone and his brother will tell you he can build a website, but building one that will drive business to you is more difficult.

A couple of things on websites.  The days of building a website that just advertizes your business is probably over.  The amount of websites in the world is staggering, so you have to do something to get noticed or you will end up at the bottom of the search engines ( Google, etc. )  The prefered way is to actually have content.  Write about your business, explaining things about custom sawing, etc.  Even though this will reveal "trade secrets", it will cause people to come to you because they can see that you actually know what you are doing.  By the way, have an English teacher edit it for you or someone who is good with the English language.  

Since you have a local service, make sure that your title bars and text contains your state and county, and preferably the towns nearby.  This way, if someone is searching for "sawing in Rochester NY", they will find you.  You want the local business, not some clown from Costa Rica asking if you will saw teak for him.  :D

A last word, watch your titles.  I see bunches of pages with lame titles in them - yeah, I know, nobody looks at the title bar on Explorer, right?!  Actually, the search engines like Yahoo do, big time.  Just make sure that you include the information in the title bar in the text of the pages.  The search engines do not like to be fooled.

One last thing, a Toll free number is very easy to get and cheap to maintain.  It sure makes you look professional.  We have one that we can send to whereever we happen to be at the time ( you change it on a website ) and at home we have a distinctive ring that tells us that it is a business call so we can act more professional.

Fred

[DansSawmill]

my 2 cents....
one thing i have found that helps is to give your customers one of those lil cardboard slide rules for figuring out board footage and such, only cost about 75 cents each.. but be sure to glue your biz card to them where it wont interfere, no telling the times i have gone into the local coffee shop and seen some guys huddled up around one of my customers while he shows off that lil thing...
of course most of my customers are older farmers, but word of mouth, and a spot at the local flea market once a year will keep a man busy if he does quality work.
dan

[Jeff]

Does anybody know where a guy could have some of those rules made up? I know MD has a goodone and wood-mizer has them. I would love to do soemthing like that for the forum.

[Kevin_H.]

I have looked at the one's from WM hoping that the printer's name would be on there but no luck.

I was going to have some printed up for the OutBack WoodShop but never found a place to do it

[Steve]

Now if MD John would see this he might let you know where they get their little books.

[Bibbyman]

Why wouldn't you just call Wood-Mizer and see if you could buy a bunch of those scale dealies?  I don't expect they cost much as they give them away at shows and such.

We opted to have a map to our place printed on the back side of our business cards.  That was something most new customers need.  But we thought about having a Doyle scale printed on the back.  When we talked to the printer about printing both sides,  he said "No Problem – just cost about half again as much to print both sides. "   They can make them a fold over card if you want to print more stuff.  This way you give someone your card and there is something of value printed on the back that they will want to keep.

[Jeff]

Now if MD John would see this he might let you know where they get their little books.

I figured out where they got thiers. They are really expensive!
http://www.perrygraf.com/index.html

[LSUNo1]

I paid forty bucks for two magnetic signs for the truck. I never took em off as long as I had the mill. Got a few calls and also had several folks pull up and talk in traffic or follow me to where I was going.