Wise Up Wednesday: Don’t Slash Prices – Get Better At Marketing!
As a Specialist Contractor, Trade Contractor, or Subcontractor you need to keep the work coming in, but slashing prices and chasing turnover at any price is not going to give you a long term profitable future. Instead you should consider improving your marketing. And irrespective of your size or specialisation, cost effective marketing should be a priority.
Our Guide To Cost Effective Marketing
If you look at marketing as a process you’ll find that, without breaking the bank, you can use some of the following examples to help build a more profitable business through:
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- selling more to existing customers
- identifying and finding new customers
- selling to all of your audiences
Your Website
Google is penalising websites that are not mobile first, i.e., designed for viewing primarily on a mobile phone and then presenting perfectly on a tablet, laptop or desktop. If your website is not in a format that works well on mobiles, then it needs to be addressed as a priority.
A successful website is now more about content than design, therefore, if your web developer is not asking you for this information then they are not doing their job properly and you should consider a change!
And if you haven’t yet taken control of your “Google My Business panel” (it appears top right of a laptop view) then you need to do so. It is free, it helps improve your visibility in searches and it enables customers to contact you easily.
Email Marketing
Following the development of bulk email platforms like MailChimp, Campaign Monitor and EmailOut, creating and managing your own email campaigns is far easier and cheaper than it used to be.
As well as giving you a reliable and very cost-effective way to promote your products and services to new or existing customers, subscribing to a recognised email system means that you can maximise the presentation tools within the system and give your email marketing a thoroughly professional look.
You can design your emails to reflect your company’s corporate look and feel, feature text and images, schedule your email to go out at a specific date and time, and then importantly, measure results.
For example, standard reporting will show you how many of those receiving your email opened it, the links they clicked on and any web pages they visited. It will also highlight the most frequent openers, as well as anyone who unsubscribes from future mailings.
People like to receive email as long as it is relevant to them, so do not shy away from using email marketing as it is an important brand building and direct response tool.
Social Media Marketing
Social media is an excellent form of cost effective marketing and brand building that is free to use. However, the downside is that you do need to dedicate time to it and, once you embark on a social media campaign, you must keep it going.
Managed well, it allows you to connect and engage with individuals and businesses you want to sell to, promote latest developments or offers, distribute sales literature, build marketing lists, drive traffic to your website, capture data and keep in touch.
A recent study reinforces the fact that social media is as strong as ever, with Facebook and LinkedIn leading the way. The study found that, of business marketers:
- 91% use Facebook
- 81% use LinkedIn
- 71% use Instagram
- 59% use Twitter
Interestingly, Instagram, which is primarily photo-based, is the fastest growing social media platform amongst a business audience. If you have good quality photographs of work carried out, then Instagram is certainly the place to share them.
Your Marketing Funnel
All your contacts or leads go into what’s commonly known as your ‘marketing funnel’.Think about this as a constantly moving ‘conveyor belt’, with new prospects arriving at one end, and through ongoing marketing communications, you are able to turn them into customers at the other end.
This is done over time through building your relationship by telephoning, email marketing, connecting and posting on social media, face-to-face contact, and then keeping in touch regularly.
Cost Effective Marketing – It’s Not A Quick Turn On / Turn Off Fix
Marketing is not a quick fix. To be cost effective- and successful – it It certainly involves some effort and is not something that can switched on and off like a light. This is why repetition of messages is particularly important.
A philosophy known as ‘The Rule Of Seven’ is based on the fact that each prospective new customer will need to see your marketing or sales messages at least seven times before they even take notice.
As ever, if you would like more information about creating a cost effective marketing strategy for your business, or to find out how StreetwiseSubbie can help you to implement cost effective marketing, please email us at info@streetwisesubbie.com or call our friendly team on 01773 712116..
Don’t forget, you can also visit the StreetwiseSubbie Linkedin page and follow us there.
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