Many remodelers miss the chance to market to a wonderful audience: the people who own the homes surrounding their current jobs.
Because they’re likely to have a similar buying profile to your current customer, and live in the same age home, they’re excellent prospects.
A well thought-out program will establish your company name in the neighborhood and increase awareness of your company’s services.
By drawing attention to the job site with signs, mailings, and other tactics, you’ll have the opportunity to show off your company’s skills first-hand. Here are some ideas on how to reach this desirable audience:
Job Site Signs
A great-looking job site sign in the yard of a customer is the first step to an effective job site marketing program. Site signs are a proven, effective marketing tactic that produces quality leads at a very low price. A New England remodeler revamped his signage to be oversized, bright, and well-designed and saw leads jump 20% as a result. If your signs aren’t pulling in leads now, they may need help!
Are your site signs neat, clean, well-designed? Do they include a large company logo and your telephone number? Do they coordinate with your other marketing materials? And are they so well designed that they demonstrate your workmanship as well? If not, invest in redesigning because your sign is one of the first things that people will see and connect with your company.
Consider using those attached real estate-type boxes that hold literature. You can stock your company brochure for passers-by.
Door Knob Hangers
Door knob hangers are marketing pieces meant to be left hanging on the door knob of homes in the area immediately surrounding a job. This method of marketing is experiencing a resurgence in popularity. Hangers can be used as a part of a canvassing program or as a free-standing means of generating telephone calls to your office.
Target at least 20-30 houses surrounding the jobsite. Be sure that the door-hanger includes your logo, the services you offer and includes a strong call-to-action such as “Call today to schedule your free consultation.” Today’s door knob hangers should be professional and classy-looking.
Canvassing
Simply put, canvassing is selling door-to-door. The goal is to talk to a homeowner face-to-face with the objective of setting an appointment for a full presentation by a company salesperson sometime in the next few days.
It’s a marketing technique that’s been around forever, and some companies find it a very effective addition to their overall marketing program. When canvassing is done on a small scale with the production manager or company owner talking with homeowners around a job site, it is fairly easy. However, when done on a large scale with professional canvassers, it is a difficult form of marketing requiring crews of canvassers that can handle constant rejection. It’s a technique most suited to the lower-middle class market — and to specialty products. But make no mistake about it, canvassing sells.
Job Site Mailings
Reach prospects living around a jobsite by mail. This outreach is easy-to-implement and produces high quality leads. The actual mailing can be as simple as a letter or as complex as a multi-piece mailing with a business reply card attached.
Most remodeling companies use either a series of letters on their own company letterhead or a combination of letters and full color post cards. A few combine a mailing and a telephone call successfully. A “campaign” of more than one mailing will generate the largest response–depending on the length of time you’ll be in the neighborhood. Mailing can reach a large quantity of people rather inexpensively so plan to mail to up to 100 homes surrounding each job. (Some remodelers in highly populated urban areas send up to 500 around a job!)
If you think you won’t have time to get it done, find an office service or mailing service in your area who can produce the labels and mail it for you. You may pay a little more but you’ll assure this tactic actually happens.
Now, with all of this marketing, you’ll soon have the entire neighborhood watching so keeping your job site clean and neat is a must! By combining marketing tactics and reaching this excellent audience, you’ll find yourself increasing your business in the neighborhoods you target.