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Funny enough that’s how I got into direct response marketing. You see the first business I started was a Building company a “services business” at the time I knew a lot of other building company owners in the area I lived.


Naturally when I started out I called upon them for advice on how I could start bringing in business, where and how to advertise for the best results.


They all seemed to have the same answers they would tell me it takes a long, long time to get a regular stream customers and work, they spoke about the tens of thousands of pounds spend over the years on marketing efforts to generate work.


A good friend of mine who still owns a building company told me about how he would generate 3 leads a week from a £4000 a year half page ad in the yellow pages. That would normally result in 2-3 small to medium jobs a month from the half page ad for him.


I remember thinking to myself “4 grand a year to be stuck slap bang in the middle of 1000’s of competitors” that didn’t sound very attractive to me. Anyhow when I spoke with the yellow pages they wanted £1075 for a very small coloured advertisement, that £1075 ad would get me a 3 inch by 3 inch box in amongst hundreds if not thousands of competitors…

Instead I started doing what every other building company also did, I did what all the other business owners were doing and took on board the advice they had given me, I started advertising in the local newspapers, sending flyer's out, putting business cards everywhere and I got nothing, not a single call or enquiry!


Yes I did do what every other building company was doing but it just wasn’t working for me, was it really working for them? If so what was I doing wrong. Was it because I didn’t advertise in the yellow pages?


I needed to know! so I started calling up all my competitors, to carry out a survey and to measure the response to their advertisements they had placed “in the yellow pages“…

when I called, I would say, “Hi we’re just carrying out a quick survey - regarding the level of response you have received from placing your advert with the yellow pages”

I was shocked when 8 in 10 told me that they didn’t know!, they hadn’t bothered to asked customers where they saw their ad or how they got their phone number.

So… I also asked “In which other directories or form of advertising does you company currently use”

then I would ask “would you say most of your enquires come from word of mouth”.

then “why did you choose to advertise with a particular business directory” Then I would say “OK thank you for your time” and hang up.


What did all this information tell me?

The first question didn’t tell me a lot, all It told me was 8 in 10 of those businesses didn’t track their response, they didn’t know which advertisement in which directory or newspaper, was working for them, they were blindly just throwing their money away.

The next question “In which other directories or form of advertising does you company currently use” this question told me that none of those companies relied solely on their yellow pages advertisement, they all advertised else where, why was this? “my guess was, that they had placed their ad and were not getting as many calls as they would have liked, so they felt the need to also advertise in other publications to get more response”

The next question “would you say most of your enquires come from word of mouth” 7 in 10 would say, “we get a lot of repeat custom and when we work down a street we normally get more work from that street” That made sense, being seen working gets more work right!, I already knew that, but the answers were starting to point at their expensive ad not working for them!


The last question I would ask was “why did you choose to advertise with a particular business directory” this question nailed it for me every single person had the same reason, they answered in different words but all led to the same thing, that reason was “Credibility” they thought that by advertising in the yellow pages, it would tell the customer that they were a credible company, not cowboys.

Now I’m not saying that they never got any enquires throughout the year I’m just saying that… they had spent that money to appear credible to their customers. The enquires were low for most of these builders very low not worth the value of the ad. But they knew they needed to appear credible.


The next thing I did was to make a list of what I needed, here’s the list:

• I needed to find people that actually wanted building works carried out.
• I needed no competition where I was advertising, “not next to 1000s of companies offering the same service”
• I needed an easy way to track response “not throw money away”
• I needed my advertising to get instant results “I was broke at the time”
• And I needed “Credibility” to be trusted by the customer instantly.