[5stateag]

Hi everyone,

I would like some feedback please. I have been a site sponsor now for almost two months with very very little success for any orders. I would like to know if there is a reason for this, being technical side of my site isn't working, product isn't wanted? I know that the folks down under and our northern friends cannot take advantage my offer but I wish you could. Any positive or negative feedback is appreciated.

 

[farmallman1949]

I see you are a A&I Dealer and have some good deals on parts. The problem I can see you having is that the last couple of months have been a very hectic time for most of the sites members (myself included) dealing with a late harvest season and mostly all of the members you are hoping to get some business from are running equipment that is still under the manufacturers warranty policy.

 

[albertabuck]

I would suppose it depends on exactly who and what type of customer you are after and your local demographic, but what I and others found out, here locally, the best bang for the buck on advertising dollars and a lingering existence of that advertising, was a single page flyer in the mail. For myself I only put one flyer years ago advertising mechanical repair and that I was a High Capacity dealer, and to this day, even folks that have never called me, still have it hanging on the wall in the house or shop. Kind of nice to see that when you're there for some total different reason. Many of my actual customers still have theirs too. That is lasting and effective advertising IMO. A friend who is the local Brett Young dealer found the one page flyer best as well. You can target your desired recipients and it was a lot cheaper than ads in the paper or local radio, of which I did both. I found the radio was the least effective with paper shortly afterwards. Only radio spots that ever caught customers attention was for a few years I would do the Christmas/New years greetings package, otherwise it seemed the ads fell on deaf ears.

Like I said depends on your demographics in your area, and I suspect the age of your targeted customer as well. In my case as I was targeting older machinery owners, well believe me, I have a lot of customers who don't even have a cell phone, so not very tech savy, they are like me for the most part, nothing like talking face to face or at least on the phone

 

[Haystack]

I think the vast majority of regulars that check in on this site don't land on the home page or forum, but more likely active topics or recent threads.

I just visited JCC online to look at an inverter a few minutes ago. When I logged on here, their banner ad was at the top of active topics with some of the exact same images that I viewed. I had never seen that ad on here before.

 

[knucklebuster]

Been on here pretty regular the last 2 months but can't say I've tuned into any of the ads, etc. on the side panels. I would suspect that if you chimed in and diagnosed/fixed a few problems on the threads that your local customers would come to appreciate you. Photo album was a bit slow to load but are you mobile, ie service truck? Would suspect that in the heat of the moment at harvest time that someone would be willing to pay someone who has "been there, done that" to get them up and running pronto. I admire your guts to take on what you're doing! Kudos! KB

 

[Northern Farmer]

5stateag, simply put, a forum like this which is so far reaching ( around the world ), would include such a minimal amount of farmers in your area that would even know of this forum for one thing. Then if they were like myself who usually avoids ads or zeros in on the current threads being discussed, would never see your advertisement and web page to express what you have to offer. The only reason I have now looked at your services described on your own webpage is because of this thread and that drew my curiosity.

I think your advertising dollars would be much better spent trying to hit the local area around you, like Albertabuck suggested in a mail out flier and for sure including your web address on it !. Yes an ad in a news paper but it is surprising how we can flip past all what doesn't catch our eyes, the same goes for the radio ads that can add up to huge dollars I am told and it seems a lot of us have selective hearing .

If you really wanted to get some initial exposure and to try and time it when farmers have time and wouldn't mind a nice grand opening with free lunch, have a picture of you and your business with a write up on the FRONT COVER of the local news paper inviting farmers to come on down for themselves to get a first hand look at what you can offer them. That might overwhelm you but didn't think it would hurt to throw out the idea.