Neighborhood Domination (Part 2)

Are you look­ing to be the go-to painter in your neigh­bor­hood? Then it’s time to imple­ment neigh­bor­hood dom­i­na­tion. In Jan­u­ary, we talked a bit about this mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, focus­ing on offline strate­gies like direct mail, but today, we’ll dive deep­er and dis­cuss weav­ing online strate­gies into your approach so that your prospects see you every­where they go.

Tar­get Your Audience

Tar­get­ing a spe­cif­ic audi­ence is the cen­tral com­po­nent of neigh­bor­hood dom­i­na­tion. The bet­ter you are at hom­ing in on your tar­get mar­ket, the fur­ther your bud­get will go and the more effec­tive the strat­e­gy will be. 

Start with what you know. You’re like­ly col­lect­ing cus­tomer data some­where, even if it’s just in Quick­Books or a spread­sheet. Ide­al­ly, you are using a CRM to help keep your data col­lec­tion con­sis­tent and orga­nized. Many CRMs can even help you more eas­i­ly iden­ti­fy pat­terns and insights in your cus­tomer list. 

Build­ing Your List of Prospects

As we dis­cussed in Neigh­bor­hood Dom­i­na­tion Part 1, you can often use your direct mail com­pa­ny to build out the list you’ll tar­get on all plat­forms. Based on your cus­tomer list, they’ll give you impor­tant insights into your cus­tomers, the size of your mar­ket and mar­ket sat­u­ra­tion, and build a list of prospects that are most like your cur­rent cus­tomer base. This list will receive your direct mail efforts. 

This is the same list you should use for your dig­i­tal efforts. Addi­tion­al­ly, depend­ing on your bud­get, you might be able to broad­en your tar­get­ing even fur­ther by build­ing looka­like audi­ences. How­ev­er, we rec­om­mend focus­ing on tar­get­ing your orig­i­nal list as often and on as many plat­forms as pos­si­ble before expand­ing. The key the neigh­bor­hood dom­i­na­tion is fre­quent and diverse touchpoints.

How­ev­er, if you do decide that you want to tar­get a larg­er audi­ence online, test your audi­ence using A/B test­ing to ensure that the expand­ed audi­ence is worth the spend. 

1. The A test should tar­get the same prospect list as your direct mail efforts. 

2. The B test should tar­get the looka­like audience.

Use the same art­work for each cam­paign to ensure you are only test­ing a sin­gle vari­able at a time. Com­pare the num­bers to deter­mine how well each audi­ence is performing. 

Note: If you are low on data or the plat­form doesn’t offer the option to upload your list, use the algo­rithm that the plat­form offers, fill­ing out infor­ma­tion on your ide­al cus­tomer (zip codes, inter­ests, home val­ue, income, etc.). 

Choos­ing Your Platforms

Don’t be tempt­ed to throw all your eggs in one bas­ket. You want to choose a nice mix of plat­forms for two reasons:

1. Dif­fer­ent cus­tomers use dif­fer­ent plat­forms. You’ll reach more of your list when you meet them where they are. 

2. Mul­ti­ple plat­forms mean mul­ti­ple touch­points, which increas­es brand recognition. 

Google Ads/​Google Local Ser­vice Ads (GLSA)

GLSAs have been very pop­u­lar late­ly. While this option has been per­form­ing well, we still don’t rec­om­mend that you move your entire Google Ad bud­get to GLASs. Start by run­ning both, track, and then allo­cate your bud­get based on the results. 

Social

It’s easy to start paid ads on social media. What’s a lit­tle hard­er is run­ning effec­tive social cam­paigns. It’s a crowd­ed and com­pet­i­tive mar­ket­place, so be pre­pared to test and opti­mize based on your find­ings. If your list work has giv­en you any infor­ma­tion on what social plat­forms your prospects are like­ly to fre­quent, start with that plat­form. If not, allo­cate some bud­get to each and start test­ing. Your met­rics will guide you to any front runners.

OTT/CTV

Smart TVs and big data have made tar­get­ed TV adver­tis­ing eas­i­er and more eco­nom­i­cal for small busi­ness­es. You can reach your audi­ence for as low as $0.02-$0.06 per com­mer­cial per house­hold. There is a mas­sive array of chan­nels you can con­sid­er like Hulu, Com­cast, Pea­cock, etc. Luck­i­ly, DIY plat­forms like Vibe allow you to tar­get an audi­ence and run your ads on mul­ti­ple chan­nels stream­lin­ing the process. 

Right now, there are few­er options for OTT/CTV to upload lists and tar­get them direct­ly. How­ev­er, you can build out an audi­ence on the plat­forms with demo­graph­ic infor­ma­tion and user habits. Want to learn more about OTT/CTV? Check out this arti­cle.

Need Help Opti­miz­ing Your Marketing?

Feel­ing over­whelmed? At A David Cre­ation, we spe­cial­ize in mar­ket­ing for painters. Our vast expe­ri­ence and insights can stream­line your mar­ket­ing process­es and get you to neigh­bor­hood dom­i­na­tion faster. Sched­ule Your Free Con­sul­ta­tion Call today!