> didn't you say in your May 13th post that
> when you placed your ad, your phone was
> "SWAMPED with calls"??? Well, If
> you go back to John's post on May 15th you
> will notice his newspaper ad he showed us he
> was going to run was VERY similar to yours!
> How can you explain how you were
> "SWAMPED" with calls versus the
> fact that John did not receive even ONE
> call???

> If what you said was true about getting many
> calls on your ad, then does it stand to
> reason that John should have gotten AT LEAST
> one response?

Not at all.

Advertising is a funny beast.

The same ad can totally FLOP in one location within the paper and work gangbusters in another.

Don didn't say WHERE within the newspaper his ad ran, and neither did John.

My own local paper has two different places where this type of ad could be placed...

One place for tradesmen & trade-like services and the other for anyone who wants to advertise (general) - including tradesmen & trade-like services who do not want to spend the Extra Money to be listed with the other trades.

One is called the Service Directory (fancy name) and the other is the General Classifieds.

I make it my business to watch both sections to see which people repeat their ads. Not only does it give an indication of which section is more viable for the different advertisers, it shows, to some degree, which 'services' people are buying at the moment.

For instance: During the Summer months, the ads for Cleaning-type Services are repeated every week. Once the Spring/Summer season ends, those ads do not repeat.

And it makes perfect sense because Spring/Summer down here is viewed by many as 'Spring Cleaning' time. After Spring/Summer the market dries up.

In the 'services' section, removalists are a constant. Within the 'general' section, removalist ads come and go from week to week as different removalists Test the section, find it does not work and leave.

On top of this, there is the question of Decks being used in the area. No decks, no market, right?

My city has an extreme lack of decks. So any ad would probably not pull at all.

Maybe Don lives in an area of high deck usage and John lives in an area like mine with almost no deck usage.

And then there is also what the people in the area are trained to do when needing certain services.

Do they automatically pick up the Yellow Pages or look through the local paper?

Are there any Deck Installation services in the area - no Deck Installers should indicate a lack of decks.

Are their geographic and climatic reasons why decks would need renewing in one area more than in others.

What was the weather like while the ads were being run? People aren't going to look for lawnmowing guys while it's snowing, or for snowshovalling guys in the middle of Summer.

Was there something else distracting the people while the ads ran? Spiderman and Star Wars perhaps?

Maybe in Don's area a company had run a few large space ads near the front of the paper, which educated the locals to the possibility of deck renewal. Once those ads were gone, the people, who now knew of deck renewal, would look elsewhere.

There are Many Variables to consider besides running the same ad.

Michael Ross.