Advertising

[Rewire]

I live in a small city and word of mouth is by far the best advertising. It will keep you busy or put you out of buisiness in a hurry.

I have never believed 'word of mouth' to be the best,it is just the cheapest.People call me because we advertise ,phone book,news paper,church bulliten,high school sports schedule,radio,TV,internet,trucks,trailer, sign on building,T shirts, etc.Shasta makes a good soda but they do not out sell Pepsi.

 

[480sparky]

For every dollar you spend on Kodak film, 56? of it goes to the advertising to make you think it is better than Konica or Fuji.

 

[growler]

I live in a small city and word of mouth is by far the best advertising. It will keep you busy or put you out of buisiness in a hurry.

I can believe that. I look at the yellow pages where my mother lives and no one even bothers to advertise. There are about four electrical contractors all with just a line add ( name & number ).

In a larger city I don't think word of mouth will work as well because most people don't really know their neighbors and if they do it's not in a good way. I've had a homeowner get mad because his neighbor left a message on my van that was parked on the street. I have herd that the average time for someone to own a home in this area is five years before moving to a new location. Not a lot of time to build freindship and trust.

In any area the best way to advertise is whatever works. I know of an electrican that get 20% of his work just from his church paper.

 

[Greg Swartz]

Word of Mouth Advertising

Word of Mouth Advertising

Word of Mouth advertising...
Do I believe word of mouth advertising to be the best form?

I guess I need to evaluate that question. I live in a city of about 500,000. Small to some, huge to others...

Word of mouth kept me working for 4 months after I went into business... Everyone said "great job" and "I'll refer you to my friends."
That's fine, and I probably will get the referrals... in about 2 years when their friends need an electrician.
I joined BNI, which is a referral system. A great organization, they focus on the business to business relationship between business owners. It is a great tool. They also teach us that our "sphere of influence" is about 250 people. If you have 30 people in your BNI group, and you teach your peers to advertise for you, that just expanded to over 6000 people.

Advertising in various forms will help a business tremenduously. I joined Blue Book. A great service too. Aimed at construction, and 90% of all contractors (in our state) are in the book. When a job needs bid, they send you a request to bid a job... So, you are "with the in crowd" so to speak. You make relationships with other contractors, and build from there.

So... yes, I like word of mouth advertising, but I need to say other forms are quite effective also... And may reach a bigger audience.