Growing your contracting business online & offline
Contractor Marketing 101
Success depends on being at the right place at the right time! This article will touch on various online and offline marketing strategies to create an effective brand name for your contracting company.
About the Author
Mark Dayley is owner, partner, & director in several small businesses from Washington to California. In January 2009, he founded nuResponse.com, a website design firm that has helped dozens of small business owners increase sales using the Internet. He owned and ran a house painting company in the city of Vancouver, Washington. His house painting company employed 8 full time painters & Painted 400+ homes in 4 years. Through effective contractor marketing strategies, Mark was able to limit his service area, and only take on Residential Repaint jobs (which are the most profitable, but hardest to find).
3 Steps to designing your strategy
Identify your “key client’s buying actions”
Example;
Residential Exterior Painting Contractor in Seattle WA knows that their client makes buying decisions based on weather, & age of paint on their home. So identifying their targets for the year will be based on home age, income of home owner, and a buying window between April & September.- Identify your “ideal job type”
Example;
Exterior residential re-paint. These are ideal because they are VERY profitable, very few things can go wrong, & they require no special painting skills. - Create your “Value Proposition”
Example;
“We deliver what we promise!” – In an industry where “Flakey” is the norm, you can make waves by being extremely reliable, value priced, & highly recommended. It seems that everyone either has a “Contractor Horror Story” or has heard one from someone they know.
3 Types of Contractor Advertising
I’ve spent allot of money on advertising that has worked great… I’ve also spent allot of money on advertising that flushed my hard earned dollars down the toilet. Every business owner should understand that advertising and marketing has different purposes especially when it applies to contractor marketing.
1. Direct Response Advertising – Grow sales on demand!
You should expect to receive leads from this type of advertising and be able to measure cost-effectiveness. (Direct Mail, Door Knocking, Internet Ads, SEO, Yellow Pages, etc…)
Example;
Yellow Page Advertising:
Cost: $7,600/year.
Calls: 200
Cost per call: $38
Summary: If you are closing 1 out of 4 calls then your cost per job is $152. You want to make sure that your Direct Response Advertising is not losing you money, many contractors purchase poorly and don’t know until it’s too late.
2. Name Recognition Advertising – Creating a top of mind brand!
This type of advertising cannot be directly measured. The goal is to be top of mind when your “Key Client” thinks about your services. (Vehicle lettering, yard signs, baseball field banner, event sponsorship, etc…)
Example;
Company Vehicle Lettering & Graphics:
Cost: $800
Calls: unknown
Cost per call: unknown
summary: If you are doing this right, your direct response advertising should increase in effectiveness.
3. Marketing Collateral – Grow your word of mouth marketing!
This is one of the most important… when you are good at your trade, your clients will spread the word, and the materials they use to spread the word can make your word of mouth more effective. Who should have your marketing materials? Happy customers, Employees, Family, Suppliers, Key influencers, etc. (Professionally designed brochure, brochure box on your job-site yard sign, Employee shirts/hats, Stand Out Business Cards, Professionally designed Contracts, Client Folders, Testimonial Letters, Refer a friend cards, etc…)
Example;
Happy Customer that is a talker:
Cost: $15.00 – includes 20 Brochures (full color), 10 business cards (full color glossy), Yard sign with flyer box (prices based – 1000 brochures, 1000 business cards, & 50 yard signs)
Calls: (if you use a call tracking number, you can measure results)
Cost per call: $15 if you get at least 1.
summary: This is a no-brainer, this type of marketing has worked for decades… by adding some quality marketing collateral you can ensure that you are maximizing the most cost effective advertising you have… Happy Customers & employees.
Can I Afford to advertise?
Contractor Marketing … Can I afford not to?
When you are growing your business, you’ll experiment with many different types of contractor marketing and will eventually end up overspending and being too busy to take on the work. However, I can tell you from experience, that it’s better to overspend on contractor marketing and be too busy. Especially compared to spending too little and and ending up with not enough work. When you find yourself overspending you’ll be glad you planned ahead and tracked the results of your current marketing so you can:
“Cut the dead weight out of your contractor marketing budget.”
3 keys to online Success
1. Do I need a contractor website?
Ask yourself where your ideal client is going to find a service provider like you? If you answered, Google, Yahoo, AOL, Internet, Mobile Phone, 411, GPS, Online Yellow pages,etc… then the answer is yes!
2. Don’t be fooled
Very few website designers care about your success, or even understand local search for small business.
There are more than 100 million websites on the Internet… so just having a website isn’t enough anymore. Fortunately, the recent development of local search has made “Internet Contractor Marketing” for local service companies (like Construction Contractors) viable. Many small businesses investing in contractor marketing online have been able to get a big bang for their advertising buck!
BUT… not all websites are created equal!
An effective contractor marketing website should include:
- Call to action
- Simple Contact methods (phone, email, web forms, etc…)
- Instant notification tools (like nuResponse’s “Quick Connect Web Tools“)
- Indexed properly in search engines, online directories, social media profiles, GPS, 411 info, & mobile search.
- Tracking & reporting.
3. Increase your online lead closing rate by 2100%
Companies spend a significant amount of money each month on advertising and contractor marketing to gain more inquiries. What’s often overlooked is how fast they respond to those inquiries. Leads that come from web forms can be a great asset if you can respond quickly and qualify the lead.
An MIT study on Lead Response Management (LRM) revealed the odds of connecting with a lead increases by 100 times if attempted within 5 minutes versus 30 minutes. And the odds of converting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes increases by 21 times.
“You are the marketing expert in your business… I hope this doesn’t scare you!
My point is… you should not rely on an advertising salesman to tell you what’s best for your company! “
Summary:
- Design your marketing strategy
- Balance your contractor marketing types
- Don’t be afraid –
Be Smart, make decisions, learn from them, and refine your contractor marketing!
Tags: advertising, contractor marketing, contractor website design, Lead Response Management, marketing, Quick Connect Web Tools, small business, Small Business Website, web design, website design