You may be the best damn plumber in the trade, you can make the best kitchen cabinets the world has even known and you might be the best mason since Solomon’s temple, but you started your own business to make money. And that means you have to go above and beyond whatever it is the next guy is doing to succeed, and that means stealing his customers or clients if you have to.
Creating an ad plan based on your competition
When sitting down to create an advertising plan (and by default, how much you want to spend), it makes sense to analyze what your competition is doing to win in the marketplace. The reason you want to know what your competition is doing is to decide how much THEY are spending. This allows you to zero in on what your spending level needs to be to be competitive.
Outsmart versus outspend
If you’re just starting out with your home-improvement company then you’re obviously not going to have the ad budget to compete with the market leader in your space. This is where marketing to buyers comes into play. You do this in two ways:
1. Go where the buyers are – in other words, you could have the Eagles cheerleaders out front of your place and it’s going to draw attention, but it’s not going to bring you customers. Targeting the right keywords on Google, using direct-mail effectively and having the biggest, boldest ad in the YP (depending on industry) will target buyers.
2. Aim your message at buyers – make your offer compelling for those who have already done the research and are ready to buy your product or service. Dollars off always trumps percentages in ad copy, and you can never go wrong with free anything.
Bonus – Don’t piss away your limited ad budget on media that’s not going to get you results. Don’t know what works best in your category or don’t believe the guy that says he never advertised? Then call me, I’ll be happy to tell you.
4 responses to “Develop an Advertising Plan of Attack”
For house framers, what do you think would be a good way to market? Because generally you are marketing to contractors and house builders.
Hey Jordon,
Thanks for stopping by. For what you do, a lot of it is going to be networking; shaking hands and kissing babies kind of stuff. The nice part about it is, once you have an established base of GC’s/contractors giving you work, you won’t have to spend as much as someone who does retail. Check out this post of mine from a few days ago: https://darrenslaughtercom.stage.site/new-ways-to-approach-contractor-marketing/
Thanks… after reading it I did get a couple good ideas. Here is another question… For the guy that we are doing some work for now, how would you solidify the relationship? Take them out for lunch and ask them how things are going with their business?
You are in a situation not unlike my own. Here is the best way…make each client feel as if they were your only client. Notice I didn’t say treat them like they were, I said make them feel that way. Which means you have to under-promise and over-deliver! Hope that helps. If not, dig around here a bit, there is bound to be something for you to use.
Thanks again for stopping by!
-Darren