One of the biggest mistakes in advertising is to spread your message around too thin. It does not matter how great your message is if you don’t have the right frequency and reach in your market place. Therefore, Residential Home Service Companies are far better served dominating an intrusive mass media like TV or radio, and investing in it to the point of diminishing returns before seeking to dominate passive mass media like print, direct mail, and billboards. But this comes at a cost that makes far more sense when you're at $2.5 - $3 million in annual revenues.
The Wizard of Ads™ believe having a simple, conversion-focused website, a clear logo, and an amazing truck wrap should be your priority when just starting out. Then turn your attention to a smart PPC strategy and get to work generating revenue to fund your next phase of growth.
PPC is best leveraged at what Google describes as the “zero moment of truth”. This means investing in unbranded keywords that are most common at the moment customers need you most. “Plumbing” for example, is a waste of money to invest in as a small business (even if you're desparate for leads), while “emergency plumbing repair”, or “best plumber near me”, are very important keywords to get right for your service area. In short, go for quality, not quantity when on a limited marketing budget.
NOTE: This includes the names of your competitors who already have goodwill built with your potential client base.
Branded digital advertising will generate your best leads digitally, but work best with a supporting mass media strategy. You can reduce your digital spend to less than 30% of your marketing budget when you are properly branded. This is a serious game changer when you're ready and able to become a household name. Until you have the marketing budget to run a branding strategy in mass media, build your brand like a Guerrilla Marketer. The best part - with this strategy you spend upwards of 10X per lead less, convert higher, at a higher average ticket, at a higher gross profit (we have the data to support this).
Granted, you don’t attract the cheapy cheapy customers who refuse to let you even do the bandaid work, but I’d rather spend my time with a prospect who is more likely to buy what I recommend today, anyway.
The alternative is to send out your truck to lose money. And spend 80% of your time trying to close at 20% for low margin business. Instead of selling 50% of your high margin, loyal, repeat business clients on the first visit...
Unbranded digital advertising does not build your brand.
In the end, the very best asset you have to win the hearts (and wallets) of your customers FOR LIFE is your buying experience. That means using transactional offers sparingly. They can damage your brand as much as a bad buying experience. A subtle change in either the way you present the offer or your sales process will make a MASSIVE difference. Email me if you want the FREE Swipe File on how to create transactional offers the right way. You cannot control when an air conditioner breaks, so do your very best with the one you're with today to earn the follow up service, maintenance, and replacement opportunities.
Today’s closing ratio determines tomorrow’s sales leads.
So make today's buying experience better than your competition to win the long game. Digital rockstars like RYNO know this well. Branding gurus like KickCharge will make your visual brand shine bright! Marketing Strategist at Wizard of Ads® help you creatively bring it all together with the RIGHT brand message.
Ryan Chute
Helping small businesses become BIG brands with a holistic marketing strategy that speaks the same language across all sales and marketing channels.
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