I started tracking all service calls, asking 'where did you get our number?' and got some surprising results.

Have any of you done that?

We spend at least 70% of the advertising budget on the phones books but get less than 10% of the calls from there. Have you had similar results? or something different?

I'll be making some major changes on the next go around.

Yes.
I track all calls.
The phone book reps like to tell you how great their phone books are and how you'll bring in all these calls.
It's not nearly as impressive as they say.

When I show them my results they claim all the other electrical contractors are happy with their ads.
I know the other electrical contractors in the book don't track their calls. They don't have tracking number listed and I have called them posing as a customer to see how they answer the phone. They don't ask where I heard about them from.

The only way to know what advertising is giving you the best return on your investment is to track the calls coming in, track how many of these calls get booked and track the revenue generated from these calls. Throwing money into advertising and not tracking the results is not a good thing to do but I beleive many do it.

Ad content and placement is important in phone book advertising. If you have a bad ad it's not going to do well. I changed my ad and went from a full page full color ad to a half page black and white ad in one phone book. The cost went from $2,500 a month to $1,000 a month and I still received the same call volume.

More and more people seem to be using the internet.
Internet advertising gives me a better return on my investment. You need to keep up on your SEO.

In my accounting software I can bring up reports and graphs that show each of my advertising expenses and how much revenue was generated from each of these. It also has reports showing where each customer heard about me from and how much revenue was generated by each customer.

Out of all the money I have spent on advertising(phone books$2500, newspaper $2000, internet ad campaign $1000, website $500) only true method that works for me has been good `ol word of mouth. Luck sure does help sometimes too!

I have to agree with UptoCode....
The 'yellow pages' ad netted basically zero dollars in revenue. Word of mouth referrals worked great for me for almost 25 years!

As to luck, yes that helps & I guess I was and am a lucky guy.

I want to bring up what ought to be an obvious point, but one that was made to me recently by a man who started, and grew, a successful business.

In these hard times, I asked him to post what he had learned here. His response? "I got the information from ECN .... but everytime someone who knew what they were talking about said something, all the nay-sayers would chime in and drown them out!"

So ... here, more than in any other forum ... book learning and great ideas are fine - but actually successfully doing something is entirely different!

The same point was made by a customer of mine. Operator of several successful mini-marts - failing businesses that he turned around - he told me of one of his business school instructors. Seems the 'professor' actually took a sabattacal to grow a business - and failed miserably. That is, he was competent to 'teach,' but not to 'do.' Therer's a lesson in there, somewhere

Business school professors are generally the least capable businessmen around.
Most of them went to school when they were 5 and never left. They don't have a clue how the real world works.

Darned good point Reno and Greg,
It makes me wonder about some of these people, as you've said, they could be 50-60 years old, but they have "the plan" to make you rich.

OK then, if they have that plan, what on earth are they doing in a university, teaching others how to succeed?

Umm, I would be on an island with.... we really aren't going to go there are we?

Mike ...I hate to tell you this, but you ARE on an island

I've only been in business since 04 and am just a one man show but I have kept pretty busy through the recession.

I won't always be a one man show but I have watched guys that have ballooned out to big crews with a bunch of trucks and big shops downsize back into their garages the last couple of years so Ill stay where I'm at for now.

I don't have an ad in any phone book. I don't even have my name on my van.

I have cards I hand out usually 5 or 6 at a time and my wife insisted I get "uniforms", actually t shirts with my logo and number on them. That is all of my advertising other than word of mouth.

Interestingly enough, right after my name showed up on every yellow pages salesman's radar I was getting calls every week by guys trying to sell me an ad. At that time I was so busy I was turning away jobs every week, though I hated to do it.

I finally had to tell one of them "Look, right now I spend time I don't have telling people that if they can't wait a few weeks I won't be able to do their job and then spend more time I don't have trying to think of someone I would trust to refer them to. If I were to spend $70 a month on your ad I would only have to spend that much more time I don't have turning away work, much of it from people who are just shopping for rock bottom prices."

He got the idea. I haven't heard from any of them for some time.

When the economy tanked i considered an ad but the phone always seems to ring right when I need it to so far. (knocking on wood)

I have been tracking my calls through 800 numbers. I have a different 800 number for each ad, so I know where they called from,their name, time of call etc. All the calls are forwarded to the office. I used to get most of my calls from word of mouth or Idearc (yellowbook in my area was terrible), but now its about 75% word of mouth and website and 25% Idearc (I dropped yellowbook). By using 800 numbers I don't have to ask anyone where they got the number and it is very inexpensive only $2 per month per line plus usage with the provider that I use.

Paul

I still like to ask where they heard about us from.

Sometimes it's a referral but they look you up in the phone book and call that number.

Sometimes they see your truck but look you up in the phone book and call that number.

They might have heard about you through word of mouth but looked you up in the phone book and called that number.

They might hear about you from some other source like a business card, panel sticker, etc. but visit your website and call that number.

If it's internet I also try to find out which search engine they used.

My Point is that where they heard about us from and where they called us from are two different things.

I don't think anyone hears about us from our website. They may visit our website and call that number but I don't think they hear about from the website.

I also track the number of call that are actually leads and not salesman.
I also trakced the number of calls that are leads and the number of leads that are booked.

Some sources generate better leads and book more calls.

Everything A-line just said is very true. I still like to track by different numbers because it will justify where I advertise. If someone sees my truck and uses the phonebook to find my number it tells me that without that Yellowpage ad I would not have been found.

All very interesting observations.
Contractors I use- personal- I get a name,then internet search or other means. If I se a truck,Get the name and INT search,or web site off of truck.
My company has the web add on the truck-local # but not the 800 #.

As far as calls and 'Actual' bookings- that is something to track.

BTW- are there any follow ups to non bookings as to why, or bookings for the same reason?

I also use local numbers, but I have them forwarded to my 800 number. With this system I can go online and see the name of the person who called, the time, which number they called, and where I had that call forwarded to. This is good for several reasons. If I was too busy to answer the phone I can find out who called (by name)and call them back.This has worked great for me during slow times. I can also have the calls forwarded to any number I want on the fly. For ex. If I go away for the weekend I can have all calls forwarded to the employee on call that weekend.
Although I could do what A-line does by having all local numbers forwarded to just (1 )800 number and then ask where they got my info. This would be the best of both worlds but I would have to make sure that it was asked every time the phone was answered.

On the subject of 800 numbers, I use one, from Ring Central and really like the 800 number for 2 reasons:

1. People can't block caller ID, I can see who's calling.

2. I service and area with 12 area codes and people automatically assume if you're not in their area code, you don't work in that area, an 800 number removes that geographical prejudice.

With Ring Central I have their app on my iPhone so it's easy to call people using my 800 number.

RH

Thanks for all the great feedback.

From about 200 calls:

50% are from Google (a couple from Yahoo).
20% return customers
10% referrals
5% Saw the truck(s) in the neighborhood.
3% phone books (6 of them)
- and handfull from
Angie's List
BBB
local Chamber of Commerce's 2 (2 of them)

We find that phone books are used by older people (50 plus, hey that's me!!), and those who aren't very internet savvy (or that can't afford the internet).

Return customers and referrals are always the best customers.