<\/a>I spend a lot of time thinking. Sometimes I can sit for an hour just trying to work through a series of problems or questions in my head. I do this because once things are in action, they tend to take on a life of their own, so I want to make sure I have my ducks in a row before five or ten people get involved in a campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It takes me this long because I know the process flow in my head that I use to formulate a campaign<\/a>. Problem is, if you are a home-gamer trying to figure out your marketing you may not know exactly what you should be asking yourself when developing your campaign strategy for 2011.<\/p>\n

I am here to help. So without further ado, I present to you, 15 things to ask yourself AS you develop your marketing strategy for 2011.<\/p>\n

1. Obviously, you need to know who your target audience is, residential, B2B, or a combination of the two. Whatever it is, knowing who you are targeting will make it easy to put the rest of this puzzle into place.<\/p>\n

2. Figure out early on in your campaign what you want your call to action to be. Things like “24 hour emergency service” or “same day service” come to mind, but whatever it is, make it about what your competition ISN’T doing in the market.<\/p>\n

3. Ask yourself what are your convenience factors.<\/p>\n

4. How many locations do you have or how far will you travel?<\/p>\n

5. What are your high-profitability centers within your company?<\/p>\n

6. What makes people confident in you and your services? “20 years in the area”<\/strong><\/em> or “family run business”<\/em><\/strong> are examples of confidence factors.<\/p>\n

7. What makes you different? Put some time into this one since it really can be a deciding factor for home owners when they pick up the phone to either call you or your competition.<\/p>\n

8. Additional or secondary lines of business – People may not know that you do roofs as well as windows unless you convey that message in your marketing.<\/p>\n

9. Ask yourself why you are advertising – Is it to bring in new clients or customers – is it to protect old ones? Maybe you are carrying a new line or expanding into another service area. All of these come into play during the planning phase.<\/p>\n

10. Where are you thinking about advertising? Where are you thinking of marketing? If you don’t realize there is a difference between the two, you need to call me right now!<\/p>\n

11. Seasonality – is your product or service seasonal? When should you start marketing to make sure you hit the best time when clients or customers are ready to buy?<\/p>\n

12. Co-op – Know what suppliers or vendors will be willing to help cover some of your costs BEFORE you create your ads, this way you don’t have delays if changes are needed due to co-op guidelines.<\/p>\n

13. Customer demographics – Do men or woman hire you? Older or younger? This matters since you need to know where to place your advertising and how to come up with the right creative to make sure you hit the mark.<\/p>\n

14. Headlines – Nothing in your advertising on any platform is more important. Spend plenty of time developing quality headlines.<\/p>\n

15. Ask for help – You aren’t supposed to know it all. If you get stuck, talk to others (who are successful) with their marketing. Just don’t talk to your buddy who is sitting in a bar at 3 o’clock on any given day about his marketing, because it obviously isn’t working.<\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Rogilde<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spend a lot of time thinking. Sometimes I can sit for an hour just trying to work through a series of problems or questions in my head. I do this because once things are in action, they tend to take on a life of their own, so I want to make sure I have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[35,24,28,40,49,112,4,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-1497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-contractor-marketing","7":"tag-ad-campaigns","8":"tag-ad-copy","9":"tag-advertising-online","10":"tag-brand-building","11":"tag-brand-management","12":"tag-construction-marketing-2","13":"tag-marketing-advertising","14":"tag-online-advertising","15":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\n