It’s not as obvious as you think. And you need to know why.
Do us a favor. Bring a compressor to our office. Any compressor, doesn’t matter which kind or type. Please put it right there in our conference room. Then use it to make the room cooler.
You’re shaking your head and a little bit confused. You can’t make a compressor cool a room by itself. It’s one component of a larger, more intricate machine … and every part of that machine needs to be operating at its best to achieve its design objective: cooling the room. It’s silly to think you could use one part of an air conditioner as your only source of cooling.
Okay, what does that have to do with leads?
What made us think about that was a conversation we had with a former client. They weren’t very happy with us. They looked at the numbers over the past year and didn’t understand why we were wasting money on things like sending postcards to people. The reports from their field management software (FMS, also called a customer relationship management or CRM system) told them exactly where their leads came from, and their spreadsheet didn’t identify a single piece of business generated by any of those postcards. They thought we were making things unnecessarily complicated when the best strategy looked pretty darned simple.
Systems require every component
Take an outdoor condensing unit. Some of its components are complex and innovative. Others are familiar and ridiculously simple. What happens if you fail to make sure all of those components are present and working properly? You know the answer: the system won’t work as well — if at all.
Effective marketing efforts are similar. You may not see a relationship between TV commercials, postcards, or signage and lead generation, but just like those components, they work together to deliver the desired results. Can you clearly identify a particular lead as the result or a postcard or TV commercial? Not accurately, even if you ask customers (if we’re honest with ourselves, our memories are far from perfect).
Your customers aren’t as loyal as you think
You have to understand two truths. First, the decision of which contractor to call is often made immediately after a Google search or Siri query. Homeowners look at the top three results and click on the one that seems most familiar. If they’re regularly reminded that you’re in business and have a good impression of your team, who do you think they’re most likely to click?
Second, you don’t think that example applies to you, because it was all about new customers, not the ones you already have. Many of those customers you consider to be loyal have forgotten you exist, and more than you realize have already done business with a competitor. So you’re lucky if they find your name again and have a positive association with it.
You need a system, not just channels
Just as you can’t cool our conference room using just a compressor, you can’t grow your business using just one marketing channel or strategy. You need a system that combines various channels that market to your current customers, reach out to find new customers, and strengthen your share of your core local markets.
Our former client didn’t grasp that those methods that appeared to unproductive according to their FMS reports actually supported and fed into that lead-generating activity. When their business showed up in search results, the reason homeowners clicked on it was not because the company had the best name. It was because they already recognized the name. They might not be able to remember how they knew it, but all those “unproductive” channels were creating the all-important awareness.
We feel bad for our former client
We can predict what’s going to happen with that former client, because we’ve seen it time and again. They’ll abandon the channels they saw as worthless and pump a bigger share of their budget into those they viewed as productive. They’ll probably see an immediate boost in leads that “proves” they knew better than we do. But in the weeks and months that follow, those lead generation numbers are going to fall off, and keep falling off. Because the company isn’t doing anything to support their brand awareness, homeowners who search for help won’t recognize its name.
We’ve learned a lot in our decades of helping home service companies grow their customer base and enhance their profitability. One of the most important is that marketing successfully and effectively demands a system that makes sure both existing customers and prospects get the right messages at the right times to ensure they make the right choice. Still not convinced? Call us and we’ll show you exactly how it’s worked for your counterparts across the country … and what it can accomplish for you.