I hope you guys aren’t sick and tired yet of my marketing posts, but we’re officially back in season on March 1st so the last two weeks have been spent tackling marketing stuff. Just wanted to toss a couple things at you guys that may or may not be helpful for you. Let me know.
I just know they work for us well enough that we only run full time for 8 months a year and during that 8 months we’re sprinting. Let me know what’s working for you guys.
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HomeAdvisor is our number one source of business. Hands down. Use the search bar and you’ll learn why some folks hate it, but those that love it REALLY love it.
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5 Arounds. Search for it.
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Angie’s List. Angie’s List just bought HomeAdvisor so we’ll see if they combine forces or stay separate from each other, but larger residential jobs tend to come from Angie’s List in my opinion. Slightly different demographic usage maybe.
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Website. We just had the website redesigned and are hiring an SEO guy on Fiverr before it goes live. The new website is in it’s first round of revisions at the moment, but even with the SEO and new effort I still think it’ll be below HomeAdvisor over the next couple years.
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Other marketing materials. This is one of my favorite even though it doesn’t get as many leads as the marketing listed above does because these are all about marketing touches, planting seeds, and thinking about us in the future. The others tend to be people looking for RIGHT NOW.
On printed marketing material your logo should not and can not be the center of attention. They don’t care what your business name is, they just care how you can help them and how to get in touch with you to do it.
Our current yard signs are a little fancier than we’ll probably use moving forward, but the principles apply. Logo can be seen walking by it, but not driving by if you have a logo at all. What you can do for the customer and how they can get in contact with you should be YUGE. These only get used at the entrance of a neighborhood and the house we’re currently working on, then they go with us.
Magnets. I have thought long and hard about wraps and vehicle lettering, even paid the $400 to have a wrap designed, and have ultimately decided against it. Magnets are easy, cheap, they get the point across, and if a truck breaks down and we have to rent one we just move the magnets.
Same principles though: The magnet on the rear of the truck which is more likely to be seen by 2 or more people at a stoplight or on the highway doesn’t even have the logo. House Washing is the largest and everything else is descending based on profit. House Washing usually gets our foot in the door. House Washing and the phone number are the largest. The magnets on the side of the truck are written in big bold letters with the only real intention of putting our logo in the minds of people in a neighborhood who are going to get a door hanger with the same logo. Congruency helps them connect the dots.
With all that being said… If you have customers from last year who trust you and love your work. They should be your first calls of the year because they deserve the first shot at getting on the calendar. Loyalty works both ways and it absolutely will help you build momentum.
Here’s the script:
Hey Mrs. Johanssen, It’s Brodie with Squid’s Pressure Washing? How have you been?!
I’m really glad to hear it. I want to thank you again for the review last year. As a small local business those are so important and I’m really grateful.
_As promised last year, we call all our current customers to see if there’s anything we can do for them before our calendar fills up for the spring. _
_“No thanks. The house and driveway still looks great and I don’t think we have anything else to clean.” _
_I’m really glad to hear it. In our notes, it says we never cleaned the gutters or the back patio. Did you have your gutters cleaned after the Fall? _
“No we didn’t actually. How much do you charge for that?”
_Our notes say that our estimate last year was $89. Would you like us to do it for you at last years rate? _
“_Absolutely!” _
__Just a heads up we added dryer vent cleaning to this years menu. Think about it and if you have any questions we can talk about it when we’re there.
(Schedule it)
Mrs. Johanssen, can I ask one more favor? If you happen to see any of your neighbors and would give them a heads up we’ll be in the neighborhood I’d be really grateful.
(A HUGE HOMEADVISOR HACK NO ONE EVER USES) You know all the leads you got last year from HomeAdvisor (or your websites info request or whatever) that never called you back or you didn’t close business. You should absolutely call them back. Some of them never got around to actually tackling their pressure washing project. Those are YOUR leads forever until they tell you to stop calling. You can even ask on the phone if it’s okay if you check in once a year.
This post went way long because I love the marketing so much I blacked out… just kept going.
Again, let me know what’s working for you guys!
