Marketing is one of the last things people think about when they start a business. You might be able to be successful without marketing, but that’s usually not a sustainable business practice. If you’re looking to get more leads for your home services business and increase your revenue, you will need to put some time and money into launching a marketing campaign.

Why You Need Marketing to Grow Your Business

Without some type of marketing, the success of your business relies entirely on customers finding you. You’ll probably even get a few referrals from those customers. But in order to grow your business, you need a reliable source of leads. And that will take a lot of luck if you aren’t marketing your business.

What is a Marketing Campaign

A marketing campaign is a plan for getting more customers. Customers already need your services, so it’s mostly a matter of making sure they choose your business instead of one of your competitors.

Campaigns can vary widely, but the goal is usually the same. Use a specific message to generate leads from customers that need your services. And most of the time, that means spending a little money too.

While business cards and social media posts do count as marketing, most customers turn to search engines to find the services they need. If they do use social media, you’ll need to use paid ads to reach them.

Thankfully most lead generation campaigns for home services are pretty straight forward. Think about your audience, focus on their needs, and highlight the advantages of hiring your business.

Types of Marketing Campaigns to Consider

These are some of the most effective types of marketing campaigns for restoration services. While you should start with one small campaign, consider using all of these in the long term to get more home services jobs.

• Paid Search – You are buying ads for specific terms in search engine results. These are often very effective but usually take more time and money to manage.
• SEO Content – Similar to paid search, SEO content targets specific terms in organic search results. If you are creating the content yourself, they can have a much lower cost but SEO strategies usually take much more time.
• Social Media Ads – Free social posts aren’t effective at reaching your audience. You’ll need to spend money on social media ads. Costs might be lower or higher than paid search ads and will require a similar amount of time to manage.
• Customer Referrals – This is one of the quickest campaigns to launch and it’s also free, however, the return is also very low too.
• Customer Reviews – Like referrals, this is easy to launch and free. They also can improve ad placement and search ranking for your paid search, social media and SEO content campaigns.

How to Launch a Marketing Campaign

Before launching a marketing campaign, you should think about your goal and make a roadmap for success. While these steps won’t guarantee success, they will at least help you with the planning and launch process.

1. Choose a Clear Goal – While it could be as simple as getting more leads, it’s easier to determine if your campaign was successful if you’re more specific. For example, get two additional jobs each week by running paid search ads and spending no more than $50 per day.
2. Determine Your Audience – As with your goal, it’s helpful if you set a specific audience for your campaign. You’re probably looking for homeowners, so get specific. Your audience might be homeowners with an income of over $75k per year in a specific county.
3. Pick the Right Channels – Channels are places you run your marketing campaigns, like a community bulletin, paid search ads or social media posts. The easiest way to pick the right channel is to think about your audience. In an emergency, how will they look for restoration services?
4. Set Your Budget – Technically, you can set any budget, even zero dollars. However, you almost always get what you pay for. That said, consider your options and start with the lowest budget you feel will target your audience and allow you to reach your goal.
5. Decide How Long the Campaign Will Run – Every campaign should run for a specific time. This allows you to measure your results and make adjustments when necessary. As you perfect your campaigns, you can run them for longer periods of time.
6. Create Your Content – Create clear, concise content for your campaigns. Think about what your audience is looking for when they need your services and come up with a few options. Your content should support your goal and target your audience.
7. Build Your Campaigns – Building out your campaigns will vary depending on the channel you are using. Search engines and social media platforms have their own campaign builders. They also usually have research or audience builder tools that can help you with your campaigns as well.
8. Track Your Performance – Many channels offer tools for tracking performance, but they don’t know what happens once the customer calls you. You need to ask every customer how they found your business. This way you really know how your campaigns are performing.
9. Measure the Results – Once the campaign is over, review the results and see if you achieved your goal. Look at your budget, audience and content to see if you can improve performance for future campaigns. If it didn’t perform as expected, look for reasons why.

Why Launching a Successful Marketing Campaign Takes Time and Money

While you could launch a campaign in as little as a few minutes, it’s unlikely you’ll be that successful. Picking the wrong audience or channel can waste time, or even worse, waste your budget.

And speaking of budget, social media has created the false impression that you can market your business for free. Yes, you can post for free but you’ll need to spend money if you really want new customers to find you.

However, if you are committed to getting more leads with your marketing campaigns, you need to spend time planning and tracking your campaigns. Instead of focusing on getting done, think about creating a campaign that will be successful.

As for picking a budget, look at your overall budget and see what you can really afford to commit to marketing. Understand that you may need to run a few test campaigns to figure out the right budget for generating more leads.

Tips for Launching a Successful Campaign

• Be Realistic – While you want more leads, be realistic about what you can accomplish. It’s better to start out small and grow than overspend and underperform.
• Commit a Small Budget – Set aside a small amount of money for your campaigns and stick with that budget for the entire campaign.
• Be Patient – Success doesn’t happen overnight. Your campaign might not perform right away, but be patient and let it play out.
• Ask for Help – Marketing is constantly changing, so you may need a little help from time to time. Talk to other business owners or even give us a call.

Need Leads While You Launch Your Campaigns?

If you need home services leads while you get your campaigns set up, we can help. Our leads are just a low flat-rate and are only sent to one contractor. Book a free demo now to learn more.