Service Magic for Job Leads?

[stumper63]

Has anyone signed up with ServiceMagic.com? They talk a pretty good story about getting bonafide leads for you. A one time $99 gets you set up, a web profile, supposed presence on the Web, and you pay $17 per lead whether you land the job or not. You set the amount of leads you want referred each month. They give the same lead to no more than 3 contractors in your area. In my area they show getting 4-12 leads a month last year. The leads are all pre-screened, size of stump, gates, what want done with mulch. They claim their clientele are upper end, 1/3 earn more than 100K per year, so they claim higher percentage of viable leads.

Has anyone used them or a similar service? Worth it? What say you?
Stumper63

 

[mckeetree]

The leads tend to be worthless. I have tried those type of services and you attract the tire kickingest bunch of pain in the ass clients you have ever seen.

 

[juststumps]

most of the people that use those services, are price shopping.....do you really want to run around and get charged $17.00 to drop a quote off, for a job you probable won't get ???????

 

[Xtra]

Their web presence is hard to beat.
My company is usually listed 1st on google when a search for "tree service company" is done in my area, because of them.

Try running a google search on your competition. Find out how they are listed, then advertise on that service.

TreeServiceDirect & ServiceMagic are probably the two best services out there. They will draw a lot of price shoppers, but that is also getting your name out there.

 

[tree md]

17 per lead sounds pretty cheap to me... I pay more than that for a finders fee... Sure, you'll always have the tire kickers but that happens with all types of advertising... I say the more calls the better... Don't know about you but I make $17 in a matter of minutes... If there is a good way to put your name out on the web locally for cheap (or better free) I'd say it might be worth it. Prolly wouldn't hurt to try it short term just to see what happens...

 

[FARMBOSS]

re

Ive been on there for just over a month and so far I've had about a 35% confirmation rate with all of them being extremely higher bids, I have delt with tire kickers, and people not following through after they go through the request but so far from what Ive experienced in my area the "bang for your buck" has been better on service magic than the phonebook, given the confirmation rate, price, and lack of competiton, TSD used to be an awesome sight for me but hasnt brought even a request in the past few months, and even so that site has gone downhill from what it used to be

 

[oldphart]

re SM

I use Service Magic a lot for all my larger projects. My biggest gripe is the contractors that do not get back to me at all so I blast them royally on SM's customer feedback.

 

[hornett22]

sounds like they make their own prices.

guy told me $12 a month and no setup fee.he'll even make a me a website for free.he calls me a little too much for my liking though.

i have not decided yet .