Many Contractors tell me marketing doesn’t work.  This is based on their painful experience of spending hard earned money on strategies or solutions that did not provide the needed results.  The truth is, marketing works every time if you market to the right people, at the right time, in the right way.

Unfortunately, for most business owners I observe, marketing is more of like throw spaghetti at the wall to see if it sticks.  There is no strategy to their many ideas and they fall victim to the next new shiny idea that comes along.  Ad reps or out-of-state digital marketing companies end up being their marketing directors, which is always expensive and inconsistent.
Know your Target

When people answer the question “Who is your target market?” with “Anyone with money,”  I already know they are wasting a lot of money for little to no results in qualified leads. If they do get a lead, they are high maintenance clients who are  difficult to keep happy.  You must know your ideal customer or you sign up for expensive frustration.
The first thing to do to figure this out is to profile your best clients.  You simply want as many of those as possible.  How old are they? What is their combined household income?  What do they drive? Where do they live?  What are their hobbies?  How do they make decisions? Most importantly, how do they  shop for your product and what marketing mediums do they use?  When you know answers to these and other questions you will see quickly that your market is not just “Anyone with money.”
Know what your customer is hiring your product or service to do.

Customers buy products and services to solve a problem or fill a need.  Therefore, it’s not about your product or service but the value it creates for them in solving a problem or filling a need.  Often, we get caught up advertising and marketing our widget and they actually don’t care about the widget.  Those of you in the building industry buy expensive tools not so you can say you own a lot of expensive tools, but for what the tool does for you in solving a problem, most likely providing you a solution in the most efficient way on the job so you maximize profits.  Your customer is no different.  What your customer is hiring your product or service to do is all that needs to be in the marketing message.  Talk about the problem you solve instead of features and you will get their attention.  Do you know what your best customer is hiring your product or service to do?  If not it will be difficult to create compelling marketing messages.

Measure Results

Again back to those numbers I’ve mentioned in several other previous blogs.  You need to make sure you know what the measurable return is on your marketing dollar.  How many visits to the websites, phone calls, bids, and sales is that marketing campaign creating.  Also, it’s important to pay attention to the most important statistics.  Don’t get lead away with meaningless numbers like “impressions”.  Ad reps love to sell impressions because it is a big number and hard for you to challenge.  In the end all you care about your marketing doing is getting new visitors to your website, in your showroom or on the phone.  The rest is noise.

If you are wondering how to get more specific with your target market, unsure what need they have or solution you are providing, or have no idea what your numbers and expectations for your marketing investment should be,
Pinpoint is happy to give you a free marketing analysis and get you pointed in the right direction.

Our average client sees the following growth results in key marketing measurements:  
New customer website visits = 40% increase year over year
Google page one search term ranks = 200%-400% increase
Google Reviews = 300%-500% increase

Make it rain with exceptional marketing!

Chad Harward – Business Analyst

Pinpoint Management
info@ppmanagement.com