Your Ads Might Be As Hard To Read As Ancient Hieroglyphs… And You Don’t Even Know It.
You Have A Small Company With Limited Resources…
Here’s How To Outcompete The Big Guys.
“I’m 49 years old, I just took out a second mortgage on my house, I just got a business license and opened a checking account… and now I need to know what to do next.”
Yikes.
My new client—we’ll call him Jake—was counting on me to help market his new window and siding business. He’d spent his entire life in and around remodeling, including a 6-year stint in his late 20’s running his father storm window business into bankruptcy. Since then, he’d spent the last 20-or-so years working for others window companies doing everything from selling to installing to keeping the books.
Now, in bold David vs. Goliath style, he was venturing back out on his own to start a new company.
As usual in these kinds of situations, Jake wanted to know about where to run ads for the least amount of money possible. Or how to conquer the home show. And how to generate as many home improvement leads as quickly as possible.
And as usual in these kinds of situation, I had Jake step back, take a deep breath, and THINK SMART.
If Seniors Find It Hard To Get In The Tub, Then Just SAY SO!
Quit Trying To Sell Everything To Everybody.
Focus In On Specific Prospects’ Needs And You’ll Start Hitting Home Runs.
Note: This article is part of MYM’s ongoing “Extreme Makeover” series, where Rich Harshaw takes an existing marketing piece that’s not that great… and works his MYM magic on it.
A remodeler recently submitted the following ad to me for feedback and suggestions:
Before
While I felt like the ad was generally speaking UGLY and looked exactly like the 31,221 other bathroom remodeling ads people see in the paper and in magazines all the time (not good!), my biggest gripe was with the TARGETING.
See, the ad is attempting to reach several different target markets at the same time. They want you to know that they can remodel any kind of bathroom—from “beautiful” baths to “tub to shower conversions” and “walk-in tubs,” they can do it all. A few platitude-filled bullet points don’t really do anything to clarify who would want to buy this stuff or why they would want to buy it from this particular company. Read More
With A Little Effort & Know-How, You Can Sell The Whole Dang Neighborhood
The Old “Send Three Postcards” Trick Doesn’t Work.
Turning One Job Into Many Takes Effort, Know-How, & Persistence.
Written by Rich Harshaw
Note: This article is part of Monopolize Your Marketplace’s ongoing “Contractor Marketing Quick Tips” series. This information is not meant to be comprehensive; it’s simply meant to give you some quick ideas.
Radius Mailers. Proximity Marketing. Neighborhood mailings. Whatever you call them, they simply don’t work for most remodeling companies. In fact, in live seminars, when I ask for a show of hands how many people successfully use this tactic, I almost NEVER get affirmative hand raises. More usually, I hear “we used to do that,” or “it doesn’t work anymore.”
The tired old “send three postcards” routine simply doesn’t work anymore (if it ever did). To understand why it doesn’t work, and how to crack the neighborhood mailing code, I present to you these 5 quick tips:
Tip 1: Understand The Real Situation: First realize this: just because your customer bought windows (or siding or a kitchen) from you doesn’t mean that his neighbors are automatically thinking about the same thing. Stated differently, if your neighbor buys a new TV or hot tub (or whatever), do you automatically want one too? To get these neighbors on board, you’re first going to have to get their attention, and that’s going to take a serious, concerted effort. You’re going to have to use what I call a “multi-touch” approach… it’s geared to hit them repeatedly until they can’t help but deal with you. That sounds a bit roughshod—and maybe it is—but hey, you gotta do what works. Read More
