what form of advertising do you undertake to promote your surveying practice?
RADU
$1,000.00 US. 15-second spot on the local NPR station; runs about once a month.
> what form of advertising do you undertake to promote your surveying practice?
I spend absolutely nothing on advertising. I want all my clients to come by referral. The real question, I think, is "how to you cultivate good clients?" Advertisements seem a very inefficient way to do that.
A box of 500 business cards $50
Visits in person....$gas & time
Word of mouth.....priceless
Zero for conventional advertising. A few hundred to help specific non-profits promote their events. No telephone book listings. Word of mouth and repeat clients keep us busy. Longevity in practice in the same geographic area has been the key.
Personal participation in community and other similar organizations is quite helpful as well. The more people you know, the more people know you.
> A box of 500 business cards $50
I even quit giving out business cards about five years ago. So far, I haven't been tempted to have any more printed up. The referral clients will find you.
> No telephone book listings.
I get, as I imagine you do, more than a few solicitation calls from outfits claiming to represent some variation of the "Yellow Pages" via some call center in Southern Asia. I naturally tell them all that I'm not interested in paying whatever sum they want to send me a bill for for the privilege of having a listing with them. One year, I got a call from the actual Yellow Pages and I, thinking them one of the other scam Yellow Pages, told them in no uncertain terms that I didn't want a listing.
About a year later, I realized when I was looking up some other surveyor's number that I didn't even have the free listing in the Yellow Pages. I hadn't noticed. I got the free listing back, but probably would never have otherwise noticed that I wasn't in the "Land Surveyor" listings in the Yellow Pages.
I give away a bunch of work, usually too far away to interest me.
Later, maybe two days to two months, my client says the surveyor
who got referred didn't act interested. One was a shale gas company
and the other was a coal company.
I guess surveyors like to think they got the client without a referral.
Even a referral doesn't work sometimes. It sure has for me.
> Even a referral doesn't work sometimes. It sure has for me.
Yes, the referral clients tend to be clients who:
a) are looking for your specialized service that was recommended to them, i.e. you don't have to convince them that they need to hire you, and
b) are already expecting to pay a decent fee for it.
Throw away the price-shopping riff-raff.
we used to do a 30 second ad during the Super Bowl, but that starting getting pricey.
$ 0
Advertising: The paid, non-personal announcement of a persuasive message by an identified sponsor; the non-personal presentation or promotion by a firm of its products to existing and potential customers.
Marketing: The systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of services or products.
$ 0
I fudged the definitions a bit to fit the question. Technically, I spend $1,000 a year on underwriting, i.e. the financial support of radio programming that I value. I don't expect it to directly generate business, though I believe that a lot of the folks I want to have recognize my business name listen to the same programming that I do.
I belong to BNI
Which has worked out for me.
Years ago when I started out I ran ads in local newspapers and such. I found that not only did they fail to elicit good work, they cost me time and money spent on fruitless long phone talks and site visits with people who basically just wanted to talk (and maybe get some free information) and never hired me (or anybody else) to do anything. Paradoxically the ads seemed to signal that I was not a "real" professional and that I was available for this sort of camaraderie. I dropped the ads and the sky did not fall.
Business cards, yellow page listings, and a website are worth the expense but I don't think of them as advertising -- they're what the "word of mouth" prospects use to find you.
My ad budget is zero. Not one penny. I've never been in the phone book.
Referrals from quality clients are gold. They are my only source of new clients, which winnows out the people who say, "I'm looking to put in a fence and how much will you charge me to survey it."
>
> Business cards, yellow page listings, and a website are worth the expense but I don't think of them as advertising -- they're what the "word of mouth" prospects use to find you.
Actually, your accountant will classify them all as advertising expense.
Just managed to get the last yellow page ad cancelled (not as easy to do as you would think). I belong to the local Chamber of Commerce and have the cost of maintaining a website and thats about it.
Life got a lot easier years ago when I decided it was impossible to develope a good working relationship with any Title Company.
> Life got a lot easier years ago when I decided it was impossible to develope a good working relationship with any Title Company.
Yeah, the side you want to work is the *claims* side. That's when suddenly everyone wants to know what the real situation is that hundreds of thousands of dollars are riding on the answer to. The title agents are basically realtors. They just want to be able to close the sale and collect their end of the premium. No questions, please.
> what form of advertising do you undertake to promote your surveying practice?
Copy of an email I just received follows
We did a line survey for these folks on Sunday
for a fence to be installed between private holdings. In another area where their lot
is common with a public right of way my clients wanted to place an additional fence
and needed to know where the curb face was in relationship to the right of way line.
The lot is a corner lot and the intersecting street is in a large radius curve and
a curb return to the straight lined right of way. The half width of the streets are
not the same and there is a centerline of the rights of way and a centerline of improvements.
It took me maybe 10 minutes to find the street improvement plans at the return and
email it to the clients.
This is how I advertise.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Paul M Plutae LS 4722
To: OTOMMLB@XXXXXXXXX.YYY
Sent: Mon, May 16, 2011 1:59:28 PM
Subject: 150 Strad Road Improvement plans
I have attached a picture of the intersection of Strad Road and Via Vera that shows
how the improvements, the curb face, were designed. The right of way line for Strad is five feet behind the face of the curb. The right of way line for Via Vera is three feet behind the face of the curb.
The sharp curb radius shown is a transition area from Via Vera to Strad that goes from a three foot setback to a five foot setback, so mid point around that sharp curb radius, you would use a four foot setback.
Since improvements may or may not be built according to plan I would allow an extra foot to the plan setbacks to avoid any problems with a city inspector.
attached
Regards
Paul M Plutae LS 4722
-----Original Message-----
From: Michel Baban
To: Paul M Plutae LS 4722
Cc: Aida Ohann
Sent: Mon, May 16, 2011 11:46 pm
Subject: Re: 150 Strad Road Improvement plans
Thank you so much Paul. I very much appreciate your kindness. Thank you again for your and Raz' professional attitude and assistance. Youa guys were absolutely terrific in taking your time and explaining everything. You wiull always and for ever remain our official surveyor referral!
Michel and Aida
