Valpak adds

[STOUT]

Have any of you done any Valpak adds? How has it done for you? I'm looking for some examples and ideas. My Valpak rep has not been very helpful.

[wdbgelaundromat]

Run!!! dont walk away from Valpak. We did 4 mailings to the 3 surrounding zipcodes. We only got in about 10 of our coupons. When we talked to the Valpak rep she said "Well how many do you expect?" So not worth it.

[otaat]

at one of the seminars at the clean show this year the speaker had somewhere between 3.5% response on his direct mailing. He was told that was a good return! Print advertising is such a gamble sometimes.

[juleec]

I did ValPak years ago when I owned a couple of appliance stores. It was expensive and the return was near 0%. I would say skip it.

[thinkclean]

I'm so glad this is being discussed. We got a quote from Valpak for $400 to hit 10,000 addresses. We were skeptical and decided to pass.

[DaveLevenson]

The local Valpak salesperson dropped by my store on a very busy day, a couple of years ago. He sat and talked with me for about fifteen minutes, holding a blue Valpak envelope in his hand. At my urging, he joined me for a walk around the store. We showed each of a dozen or so customers the familiar blue envlope and asker if she recognized it. All but one of them said something like: "Oh yeah...I get so tired of having to throw away all that junk-mail." One admitted to having read some of the coupons she received, and actually buying one product advertised therein.

This response from actual customers did not inspire confidence in the offered service. I decided to pass, and spend my advertising dollars elsewhere.

[VinceNJ1969]

Dave,

Not sure what part of Jersey you're in, but are you advertising in the Bergen Record? One mat owner I spoke with was unhappy with the way they've changed the layout of their classified section. Just wondering if anyone else felt the same way.

[Howard]

I love ValPak, each time I get one in the mail I search for coupons for establishments that I already use and would go to anyway so that I can pay less for their service that I would normally pay full price for.

[DaveLevenson]

Dave,

Not sure what part of Jersey you're in, but are you advertising in the Bergen Record? One mat owner I spoke with was unhappy with the way they've changed the layout of their classified section. Just wondering if anyone else felt the same way.

Hi Vince:

My store is in Morris County. I advertise in the NeighborNews - three different editions, each edition once each month, in rotation. These cover Denville/Rockaway, Dover, and Morris Plains. I'm also in Parsippany Life (same publisher). All of these papers are distributed free, once each week, to every household in their territories. I also have a web page, and I think that brings in as many customers as all the newpaper ads do, based on informal polling of customers in the store.

John Wanamaker (founder of the Wanamaker's Department Store) is quoted as having said, about 100 years ago, "I know that half of what I spend on advertising is wasted. But I don't know which half."