small business owner advertising question

[heavy_chevy29]

who are you guys using to advertise and what are your monthly costs for advertising. im starting my own appliance repair business this year. ive been looking around at different options. so far ive talked to valpak(expensive but its worked for companies ive worked for), there is a place that does place mats for dinners(a bit more affordable but im not sure it will be to affective), then there is always Facebook and Craigslist. im a start up company so i am on a shoe string budget. im just curious what everyone in doing for advertisement. i have a lot of people that are willing to help via word of mouth. any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks

[grazi]

Did you try setting up a yelp or google plus listing so yor name will show up on a google search?

[grazi]

How about the companies like service magic and home advisor. They take a cut and/or make you pay for leads but at least it will get people calling

[Paul Huryk]

You definitely need a website and link everything else to that - facebook, CL, bing, yahoo, google. Make sure you are registered with the major search engines.

I can also suggest that you put up any sort of videos on youtube that promote your business, and also twitter and other free online things.

[heavy_chevy29]

thanks for the feedback guys. i have not contacted Google (which i absolutely should). i was also thinking anglies list. ive heard great things about them. i never even thought of youtube. i could do tutorials on some of the basic stuff. thats a great idea. we live in weird time, there are some old school people that go for the phone book/coupons and most that Google search everything. im just looking for the consumers point of view. if your fridge died tonight, how would you go about finding someone who would fix it? keep it coming. thanks. also the race car would have it all over the windows

[sweetbmxrider]

Did you look into the local papers and phone books? A professional appearing work truck/fleet with a thought out advertising theme can catch someone's eye in traffic. Business cards to both hand out and place in high traffic businesses helps. Could you hook up with local appliance retailers to either advertise or some sort of contract/friendly arrangement for repairs?

Just some ideas for you. No true experience here.

[V]

I often work with my friend who is a contractor/finish carpenter and he gets most of his work through word of mouth. He looked into angies list and I believe they wanted a fee even though they advertise/claim its free so there is no bias. But check into it. He has a large banner on his trailer and on the front on the trailer he has a business card dispenser with a sign saying take one. people actually do. Yes i know its different having a truck or van vs. a 17ft enclosed trailer, but an idea. Getting back to the word of mouth, He started doing work for a client and now does work for all their friends and then their friends. Every time he gets a new job, reference through the original client, he does small projects for them for free as kind of a referral fee thing.

Once again this is just from the viewpoint of a carpenter and not appliance repair. The guy that my family used to use for our appliance repair was great. He was a small one person company and was around for decades and has only recently retired. I'm not sure where my parents found him but I know it wasn't online or out of a phone book. I'm pretty sure they were longtime friends and met through word of mouth.

I ran my fathers landscaping business for a few years before he retired(due to an on the job accident) and we did no advertising yet still got calls from people who would just find us in the yellow pages so that does have some use still.

Obviously as you already know, how you interact with customers is the most important aspect of how your business will do and grow. Giving a customer a discount or a break is a good way to make repeat customers. And advising about future repairs without making them feel pressured is important as well. Also charging for estimates isn't always good practice, yet some guys do that. Appliance repair is not a huge industry as far as I have seen so many people don't know who to call if they need a serviceman, outside of sending it back to the manufacturer. From what I've seen in the home improvement industry, In those cases, the customer will mainly rely on personal references over trusting anything they read online.

All in all, An easy name to remember without being flashy or cheesy is good and it can distinguish you from any of the "fly-by-night" serviceman. Whatever way you decide to advertise, I wish you luck, and if my family ever needs work done, I will keep you in mind.