Archive for November 2009
How to Market your Home Improvement Business: 4 Simple Recession Proof Marketing Principles
Monday, November 30, 2009
Let’s face it, the recent downturn of the economy has adversely affected many small businesses. Only adding to the problem is the lack of marketing direction and strategy for many small businesses. They think that marketing is a mysterious voodoo power reserved for the bigger businesses with fancy hi-rise offices and gargantuan marketing budgets. This is simply NOT true. A marketing strategy is essential for the success of any business, no matter the size.
So what’s the difference between a business with a marketing strategy and one without? Well, take a black jack table in Las Vegas as an example. Let’s say there are two people present:
Player A) a wandering tourist fresh out of a fancy buffet, fingers greasily fiddling with his multi-colored chips as he looks on to the dealer, signaling for him to hit.
Player B) a card counter. A modern day rain man, who also signals for the dealer to deal him another card.
To the untrained eye, it might look like both of these men are gambling, but are they really? Player A is definitely gambling. He is blindly throwing his money into a game of chance, fingers crossed in hopes of lady luck casting a happy glance down upon him. Player B, however, is putting in an investment based on past successes, and knows that every play he makes has a greater chance of offering him a return.
Now let’s take a real life marketing example. In Austin, TX, the recession hit the real estate market pretty hard, so people that were on the cusp of buying new properties instead decided to invest their money on home improvement and rebath to increase the value of their existing properties. You would think that home improvement marketing and rebath marketing would have jumped on the opportunity for lead generation in a heartbeat, generating home improvement leads hand over fist.
For some it worked, and for some it didn’t. Many of the small home improvement businesses simply didn’t know the best way to react to the situation because they had no marketing strategy. Any promotion or lead generation endeavor was merely a gamble, whereas the businesses that had a cohesive marketing strategy used it to their advantage and stole the market share for their own.
The Moral of The Story: Don’t Gamble with your business. To ensure constant and positive returns on marketing investment, you need a cohesive marketing strategy. Here are four simple steps to forming a successful marketing strategy for your home improvement or rebath business:
Step 1) Find your audience.
- Who are you trying to reach? New home owners? Huge commercial properties? Are you catered to an older audience or a younger audience? If your audience is too general you will exhaust both your human and monetary capital and wear yourself thin. Pick a target audience that you feel confident you can build market share with.
Step 2) Find your message.
- Simply put, what makes your home improvement business different? What is your expertise. Yes you are a home improvement or rebath company, but are you the “budget” company? Are you specifically for high budget clientele? Are you a “green” home improvement company focused on environmentally sound methods? Pick what makes your company stand out and include this in your marketing messages. Make it part of your identity.
Step 3) Find your medium.
- Which medium will you use to deliver your message? This will largely depend on your budget and situational appropriateness. What are you trying to accomplish? Billboards, television, radio, print, social media, networking groups… it all depends on what you need to be done and how much time and money you can afford. Choose the medium that’s most appropriate for both your message and your budget. Brand recognition and awareness can use bigger scale, more static mediums such as billboards and television ads. The more reactive marketing methods such as sales, promotions, and coupons can leverage more dynamic and quicker-responding mediums such as radio, print, and social media.
Step 4) Analyze and adjust.
- This is the most important part of your home improvement or rebath marketing strategy. This is where you analyze your promotions, how people are finding out about you, and what marketing methods are working for your business.
Keep track of the amount of time and money you put into each marketing endeavor and how much business each endeavor generates
If your return on marketing investment is not sufficient, make necessary changes or don’t use that specific method again. If it works, then keep on using it (and note in which situations it is successful for future reference).
If you follow these steps, and keep track of your successes and failures, you will soon have a cohesive marketing strategy for your home improvement business that will not generate significant home improvement and rebath leads right now, but enable you to leverage the market conditions in your favor for all future situations.
Thanksgiving Themed Marketing: What do you bring to the table?
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
America is a huge melting pot of different cultures, so it’s no surprise that Thanksgiving tables across the nation look a little different from one another. I’m sure you’ll find the traditional Thanksgiving spread, but perhaps with a side of sweet and sour sauce, chile con queso… a jar of kosher pickles, maybe?
If someone were to visit these households for Thanksgiving, they would bring back the memory of that one special dish. So in the Thanksgiving spread that is your industry…what do your customers remember about your dinner? What is your “special dish” ? What makes your business stand out from the competition?
There are many facets to the home improvement and rebath business, just like there are many different types of home improvement and rebath customers! Each and every one of these people needs to know what makes your company better or different (hopefully both) then any other business in the same field.
The next time a customer is looking for home improvement or rebath services, how will they choose the business to which they return? It depends on the marketing of each business. Here are some niches that your home improvement business may cater to:
Quick turnaround, expedited jobs
Intricate, custom jobs
Low Budget jobs
High Budget jobs
Try some of these home improvement and rebath labels on your business and see how they fit! “Fast and easy home improvement”, “Custom Rebath”, “High Quality home improvement”. You aren’t limited to these labels, but the idea is there. Find out what part of the market your home improvement business best speaks to.
The point of this is to refine your marketing strategy. If you can hone in on a specific niche of your market, it will make refining your marketing endeavors that much easier, so you can get the best return on your marketing investments, because if you know which niche is providing you the best returns, you can pursue the most efficient marketing with as little overhead for your business as possible.
If you can figure out what your “special dish” is for your business, then every Thanksgiving your customers will be sure to come back for more, and that means plenty of leftovers for your home improvement or rebath business for years to come.