Don't Forget Branding in Your Community

I some­times see con­trac­tors who are busy get­ting new busi­ness using a num­ber of dif­fer­ent meth­ods, which tends to cost a lot of mon­ey: Google Adwords, Home Advi­sors, Yelp Adver­tis­ing, Ang­ie’s List, and so forth. Some of these meth­ods can quick­ly get leads in the door if you real­ly need them. Yet the one thing that is miss­ing from using these forms of mar­ket­ing is the con­sis­tent brand­ing of your busi­ness in the areas you want to work.

Brand­ing is essen­tial to get­ting bet­ter leads

Brand­ing involves a num­ber of things, includ­ing two impor­tant things: get­ting peo­ple to see who you are and what you do. The more some­one in your tar­get area sees your com­pa­ny’s yard signs, trucks, jobs you are doing, and com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment, the more like­ly that per­son will inquire and per­haps do busi­ness with you when he/​she is in need of your service.

So to get bet­ter and more qual­i­fied leads, your con­tract­ing com­pa­ny real­ly needs to invest some time and resources to build­ing your brand in your com­mu­ni­ty. This should involve both com­mu­ni­ty events and spon­sor­ships. If the mar­ket­ing dol­lars allow for it, you can con­tin­ue to do some of the oth­er online mar­ket­ing items I men­tioned above, but my advice is to real­ly diver­si­fy. I am con­vinced that if you spend more time ener­gy build­ing your brand in your com­mu­ni­ty the online leads will also be stronger, because peo­ple will most like­ly have heard about you around town already.

This is eas­i­er said than done. The num­ber one rea­son why most con­trac­tors do not invest a lot of time in their tar­get­ed com­mu­ni­ties is sim­ply because it requires a lot of time and effort. It typ­i­cal­ly does not require as much resources. It is much eas­i­er to spend mon­ey on a mar­ket­ing cam­paign and just hope for a good ROI.

Com­mu­ni­ty events and spon­sor­ships take time to get that ROI. It hap­pens over the course of many months (and years) of being real­ly con­sis­tent. Your com­mu­ni­ty wants to know you real­ly care about giv­ing back and not just pro­mot­ing your services.

A few com­mu­ni­ty ideas

There are plen­ty of things you can be doing. Here is just a brief list to get you started.

• Spon­sor a youth sports team
• Spon­sor a local 5K race
• Host a blood dri­ve at your office
• Pro­vide face paint­ing at one of the com­mu­ni­ty events
• Donate some car­pen­try or paint­ing ser­vices on a reg­u­lar basis
• Silent auc­tions
• Join the board of direc­tors of your local chamber
• Cus­tomer appre­ci­a­tion days (ice cream, cof­fee, beer/​wine)

Works great with a committee

The best way to get start­ed is to form a com­mu­ni­ty events com­mit­tee. Make sure you meet reg­u­lar­ly so the events and spon­sors don’t get missed. Set aside some mar­ket­ing dol­lars for this form of mar­ket­ing. Dom­i­nate your mar­ket and be every­where. Let your com­mu­ni­ty know you are avail­able and ready to serve! These are the things that will help all the oth­er forms of mar­ket­ing work more for you and bring the over­all cost of mar­ket­ing down.