Val-Pak results

[Jon Fife]

hello gentlemen,

I hope this post doesn't get moved, because i think this info is particularly valueable to us wood guys. I decided to give valpak a try, and i have mixed feelings.
the way they do the valpak here is that the areas of the city are separated into 10,000 home blocks. that way, it makes it easier to target a particular market. I sent out to only two areas, which is a total of 20,000 homes exposed. For me, that is about a 7 square-mile area, generally the only area i have ever worked in.
I got the nicest coupons, which are full-color as opposed to some which are white with color print. Mine looked very nice, showing a close-up pic of the difference between a clean and dirty deck. They have been out for about a week and a half, and i think i've have 10 or 11 calls. The thing is they are spread out, averaging about a call a day. (the first call i got was from probably the most popular (and Hottest) newswoman in our area, got that one!) I closed on about five of them, so i have paid for the advertising easily. ( my package is $760 each mailing) it has got me jobs in areas in which i have never worked which is good.
Like i said, i don't quite know how i feel about this yet, but i am at least glad it easily paid for itself. I only signed up for two mailings, so my next and last one comes out sept.1. If i had signed up for, say, 8 per year, my price would have been closer to $450 per mailing, which i don't feel too bad about.
So what do you guys think?? would you be pleased with these results?? I hope this helps some of you guys that have run upon dry times. This may be an avenue to consider. The most important thing to remember is to keep advertising if you don't have work. Don't fall in to the trap of getting slow in your work and the first thing you cut is the advertising budget. That is the time to beef it up. Please give me your opinions,

take care,

Jon Fife
Nashville,TN

 

[rvagnoni]

Jon,

I tried these myself one year but to be honest even though I also did get my moneys worth out of them the yellow pages have done me better.

 

[Mike Hughes]

Ditto to what Rick said. I tried Val Pak once for three months.........did not get a good response. If it paid for itself, it was barely. I do great with the Yellow Pages.

Now........get yourself some yard signs to put up in those new areas..........


Mike

 

[Beth]

We tried Val-Pak this year. I'm inclined to try it one more time, but not becuase we did really well with it. We got to it late, which meant that the zones we wanted were gone. Also, it was just past the "rush" of spring. One zone did ok, the other was a flop. I suspect that in one of our favorite zones it would have done well.

It is a good way to target a very specific area. I would supplement that with flyers and post cards, so that you get your name out there multiple ways. Don't rely on getting people to see you via one single method. I one go through the coupon mailers occasionally. My mom loves them. I also know people who throw them into the trash right away. Different consumers will react to different advertising. This is why you want to hit and area with numerous ads. (flyer, postcard, valpak, whatever)

Hope this helps.

Beth

 

[Ronniels]

We tried Val-Pak several times and had very poor results.
Spent half the money with Money-Clip, got triple the coverage and awesome results.