If you go to google and you post “get more Home Improvement clients for my business” you will find all kinds of different advice. Ranging from “design a logo”! (LOL) to ” cold call or go door to door”.
These and other approaches are not bad in themselves but there are other factors to consider; namely, time, cost, scalability, predictability and tracking. I could spend endless paragraphs breaking down each approach and coming up with the pros and cons of each strategy… or… I can do what I usually do with my clients, prospects and even interested persons in the space.
I was talking to someone on the phone a couple of days ago and he told me “I don’t want to reinvent the wheel” JACKPOT! thats it! See, he had the right idea! There are always guys that are winning and losing at any particular thing in life. A strategy that I use often and that gives me good results is.. figure out what the top guys are doing and copy them!
The basic strategy is simple, the execution can be complicated, but the basic idea is super simple. Here it goes…
1. Digital Marketing strategy Research
2. Test
3. Optimization and profit
Thats it! haha I mean go to google and put in “City + Deck and Patio” and you will see the top guys are at top, in some cities the competition is more fierce (this is when you need to be savvy about your keywords) but surprisingly you always see other guys besides the big companies that compete with them and get their ad out there.
Now I can tell you most of them are doing them wrong, but advertising is already a win, there are 5 levels of companies in this space. They are as follows:
1. Those that do not advertise.
2. Those that advertise but have no strategy, advertise in the wrong places.
3. Those that advertise and try to do it where people are looking for their services but with no strategy or optimization.
4. Those that advertise in the new avenues and know their market and what they are selling but they do not know how to optimize.
5. Those that advertise in the new platforms, know their market, have a clear strategy of execution, tracking and optimization to acquire predictable results.
All of the ways of advertising are likely to give SOME result. The problem is being able to determine if your advertising dollars are being put to good use! In the early 1900’s a businessman by the name “John Wannamaker” made this observation: “I know I am wasting half of my company’s advertising budget…. I just don’t know which half….”
Such has been the catch 22 of advertising, is it the cause of the success or is it merely a correlated event?
Interestingly enough in the world of Digital advertisement the gap is being bridged between what the market as a whole wants and how it reacts to our marketing message. In the end ALL businesses are MARKETING businesses… think about it… The very reason for us to be in business, the very reason of existence is to ACQUIRE a client. If no one knows about us that just wont happen.
Everything else depends on this…. if a business was like a table, a table with four legs, the legs would be the following. Product, Price, Promotion, Placement. All four legs are important and all of them will help the table to be stable but if there is a leg where we can put most of the load at least until we get good positive cash flow that would be in the ‘Promotion’ leg. (Marketing)
I was never a marketer at heart but I grew fascinated with what makes stuff “known” plus I love reading all the statistics books that help me to understand the data that we get from the market. Is like a giant creature made up of all kinds of minds that “tell you” things through data.
So what is the simple strategy?
1. Design a Marketing Campaign that is highly scalable (this is why handing going door to door is difficult, cause someone has to do it and it takes time and money) Advertisement take time and money but they don’t have to be your personal time, plus in with digital mediums they are HIGHLY scalable.
2. Know YOUR MARKET. You have to know what you are selling and specifically who you are selling to!
3. Keep track of EVERYTHING and optimize so you can get the highest ROI possible.
This is actually very simple, but it can be hard to do especially since the other legs of the table are just as complicated.
I will make a video about this as well so I can go into more detail and give you guys more value. The key takeaways are this.
Look at the top Players
Which level are they in 1-5?
Figure out what level you want to be at.
Copy what they do.
Will this require a significant investment. The short answer is YES. However, if you are willing to spend money on equipment lets say a new fancy drill or a transport vehicle, trust me that equipment does not care if you get more or less clients, neither does the company that sold it to you. Advertising agencies used to be the same, but marketing is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT INVESTMENT you can make. Sounds self serving. It is, but it is also the truth. Again, just look at the top guys, what are THEY doing? I highly doubt they are wasting their money. Free consult wisely my friends.