Marketing on a Shoestring

According to experts, how much to spend on advertising can range from 2% to 16% of gross revenue depending on where you put your dollars — print, yard signs, Internet, TV. Knowing where to advertise means knowing which market to target, what differentiates your company from another, and what type of work you do best. Figuring all that out, of course, costs money.

But what if you're marketing and advertising on a shoestring? How can you get your message out with a small investment or a series of small investments?

First, know your message. “You don't want to be scattershot about a marketing plan,” says Dave Alpert, owner of Continuum Marketing in Great Falls, Va. He suggests working with a consultant to develop a simple strategic plan so that everything you do pulls together. “It's like working with a homeowner; you plan ahead, you don't go to The Home Depot every week and just buy things.”

While creating a strategy may quickly eat through your $2,000, doing so will save you time and money later. Even if you decide not to hire a consultant, keep in mind that every advertising and marketing tactic — from the font used for your company name and on your letterhead to the slogans on your postcards and the tag lines on your Web site — should be integrated with your strategic plan. And you have to maintain the discipline of marketing your company through good times and bad.

Like the strategic plan, there are other behind-the-scenes preparations and hands-on techniques, such as newsletters and yard signs, that will help bring in business.

What follows are ideas for low-cost marketing and advertising strategies from consultants Alpert; Adrienne Zoble of Adrienne Zoble Associates in Fort Collins, Colo.; and Steven Kleber, owner of Atlanta-based Kleber & Associates.

Define your brand attributes. “This is what people in the market think of when they think of your company,” Alpert says. “Often your brand is shaped by the experiences of your circle of influence — your past clients.” Your attributes might be “friendly,” “skillful,” “professional,” “value for money,” “highest-possible quality,” or “expensive but worth every penny.”

“What are 10 things you want people to think about when they think about your company? Until you [define] those attributes, you can't gauge if your materials are communicating what you want [them to],” Alpert says.

Differentiate. Determine how you're different and better than your competition — from a homeowner's perspective — and make sure you communicate that in your sales and marketing materials. You may have to analyze the competition to find out how they position themselves. What are their tag lines? What kind of reputation do they have?

And then look at what you do. For example, perhaps you have a large warehouse and can pre-order materials so that you eliminate schedule delays. If all of your field people are certified or you're a member of a professional organization, let clients know. “It may be the thing that puts someone on your side of the fence,” Alpert says. “If you don't have something different, create it.”

Identify and eliminate weak links. Homeowners may get to a point where they are comparing two or three remodelers who would all do a good job. That's when they look for reasons to eliminate one or the other. For example, one remodeler's phone is always answered by a machine rather than a person. The reason may have nothing to do with how well a company would do a project.

Train field staff in client relations. Help them understand that the homeowner's experience with them is what may lead to referrals — your best form of marketing. Alpert suggests giving each project employee $100 if the company receives a nice letter or a recommendation from a homeowner during a project.

Think like a homeowner. “If you're writing a Web site with what you want to tell a homeowner, it won't be as effective as writing a Web site asking yourself what a homeowner wants to know,” Alpert says.

Invest in good photography. “If you don't have a good photographer, spend money on one; and if you do have one, have more photos taken,” Alpert says. Use the images on your Web site, on postcards, in advertisements, and to enter contests. “The look of your projects is one of the first things that will qualify or disqualify you when someone visits your Web site,” he says.

Analyze Web site traffic. “This will help you gauge the effectiveness of your marketing efforts,” Alpert says. “And if you do it properly [over time] you can see trends and make predictions.” For example, when you send out a postcard, drive people to your site with catchy graphics or by letting them know they'll find information on a particular topic. You can develop metrics about the number of postcards that might increase Web traffic. If you see a drop in traffic, it might indicate that your market is changing or that postcard A is not as strong as postcard B.

All this assumes that you have a Web site — which you should have. Not only are people looking to the Web for many of their goods and services, but, Kleber says, “It's the best Better Business Bureau there is. More and more consumers are going to the Web for other people's opinions. Rather than waiting for ‘RemodelingCompanyASucks.com' to develop, go ahead and do it on your own terms. Develop search engine optimization and keywords to get eyes to your site and your newsletters.”

Having a professional create your site costs more, but it's a case of amortization over time. Kleber suggests looking at Adobe Contribute CS3 software, which makes it easier for marketers to make changes to their own Web site if it has been developed using DreamWeaver.

Leverage publicity and community sponsorship. Use mentions in one publication to find your way into another. For example, one Continuum Marketing client, SilverMark Design & Build, in Minnesota, was written about in the trade press — a story about the owners' successful 30-year partnership. The article mentioned that the two owners had met at the state university. Continuum Marketing pitched the story to a business writer at SilverMark's local daily, which ran a half-page story about the company. “The Web traffic spiked by 500% the day the article came out and was higher than normal the next day [as well]. At least 10 leads were generated,” Alpert says.

Schmoozing and networking. The least expensive and most effective forms of marketing, says Zoble, who hosts monthly marketing teleseminars for the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, are schmoozing, networking, and building alliances. “Face-to-face and voice-to-voice” are the best ways to build clientele, she says.

Zoble has devised a 15-month “schmoozing calendar,” with weekly entries suggesting off-site, meaningful, one-on-one get-togethers such as “coffee with your travel agent” or “breakfast with a commercial realtor.” (To see the calendar, go to www.remodelingmagazine.com/webextras.)

Networking is a bit different and should be done with others in the building industry or local business organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce. “In 30 years in business, I cannot remember meeting two companies that were 100% head-on competitors,” Zoble says. “You can feed business to one another or act as subs for one another.”

Sales follow-up. When the job is done, go out and meet the homeowners. “Say, ‘I want to ensure that everything is fine and that you're thrilled,'” says Zoble, who suggests also bringing a gift basket.

Client check-in. Phone clients within three to six months and ask open-ended questions such as “How much more entertaining are you doing now that you have more space and storage?”

“Check in with clients even if you have no new products or services. Everybody loves to talk about themselves,” Zoble says. “That's when you're going to hear, ‘The neighbors were so impressed with the kitchen ... Maybe you should give them a call.'”

Client appreciation dinners. Hold these in a client's newly remodeled home or in your own home — if your home “walks the walk.” Invite the project manager and architect and their spouses. Do it purely as a thank-you; don't try to sell anyone. This will help maintain the relationship with the architect, and it usually produces leads.

Open houses. “Keep them simple,” Zoble says. “Don't worry about quantity [in terms of visitors]. It's about quality and continuity.” If you've done a remodel in a cul-de-sac, invite everyone on the cul-de-sac to see the project; don't invite everyone within a one-mile radius.

Seminars. Choose a broad topic such as preventing ice dams, how to have a successful remodel, or energy savings. You can hold talks at a library, where space is often free to use. “Invite business groups,” Alpert suggests. “They're all homeowners.” Keep the seminar focused on the topic and not on your particular company — talks should be more advertorial than advertising. Pass out seminar information that includes your phone numbers or Web site URL.

Harrell Remodeling in Mountain View, Calif., has had great success with seminars and consumer classes. (See “Does It Work?” opposite.)

Jobsite marketing letters. Develop a good set of letters, and mail them regularly to homes around jobsites. Two thousand dollars would be enough for a company to have a template created for these letters — “We're working for one of your neighbors and we specialize in …”

“Use in-house staff to stuff envelopes and do several mailings for a couple of jobsites. Send them to 200 or 300 homes per jobsite, multiple times,” Alpert says. “Most of the expense will be postage.”

Newsletters. “It's hard to get a good one written for under $2,000,” Alpert says, “but if you do one yourself it might not be written well enough.” Print newsletters are more expensive because of paper and postage costs, but e-newsletters are worth doing regularly. For print, hold down costs by keeping a library of information that can be reprinted.

Steve Gray, owner of Steve Gray Renovations, sends a monthly e-newsletter to 4,000 recipients whose names he has gathered through networking. The e-newsletter is visually arresting with 1950s-style graphics, project-update stories, and general information; and it also often has a video section. Gray, whose Indianapolis company does about $1.8 million in volume, says the newsletter cost about $1,200 to create and about $200 a month to maintain. Extras, such as Flash video, raise the investment level. To keep costs down, Gray Renovations often provides the content. “The nice part of this newsletter,” Gray says, “is that whatever we do also goes onto our Web site, so we're getting quite a bit more for our money.”

Kleber agrees: “[When you] can link it to your Web site, you can find out what readers are interested in by the pages or articles they [look at].” With that information, you could conceivably “feed them personalized content and market to them one-on-one, customizing materials to their habits. This can be done subtly.”

Yard signs and vehicle graphics. You can easily come up with nice pieces for less than $2,000 if you don't have that many trucks to cover.

Though it was a $4,000 investment — including designing, printing, and installation — Excel Interior Concepts & Construction in Lemoyne, Pa., bought a vehicle wraparound, which makes its truck a moving billboard. The wrap can last five years if properly cared for and can be removed without damaging the vehicle's surface.

Thank-yous and gifts. Alpert doesn't recommend a referral rewards program. “Often people feel that giving a referral they're paid for isn't an honest referral and compromises their integrity,” he says. But, he adds, “Thank-you notes are gold. Send them to clients, architects, vendors, and to anyone who does you a favor or sends a referral.”

The Internet. “Grab your part of the gold rush on the Web,” Kleber says. “The younger audience — Gen X and Gen Y — do have economic influence. If you close your eyes to the next generation or [various] portals on the Web, you'll get lost. Stake your claim now.”

He suggests setting up online destinations or brochures on Web sites such as Facebook and MySpace. “It's not just about social marketing for personal use,” he says. “More and more it's a place for businesses to post, and it's free.”

Does It Work?

There is no magic formula to determine: spend “X” dollars to see “Y” returns in the form of qualified leads and/or jobs. But there are ways to figure out if your efforts are paying off.

First and foremost is to track leads. Tom Mitchell, owner of Mitchell Construction in Medfield, Mass., says his company doesn't have the most elaborate model, “but it's effective for us.” He created a simple database that includes the forms of marketing the company engages in: Web-based, magazine, newspaper, postcards, e-newsletters, print newsletters, seminars, and referrals. When a potential client calls, the receptionist asks how they heard of the company. A salesperson also asks them this question.

The information then goes into the database. Mitchell can tell where leads came from and whether or not they were converted to jobs. He can then use the information to determine his future budget.

Iris Harrell, owner of Harrell Remodeling in Mountain View, Calif., went from $8.5 million last year to close to $11 million this year. By tracking leads using ACT contact management software, Harrell knows that seminars and consumer classes on topics such as kitchen and bath or aging-in-place give her company its highest lead-conversion rate outside of past clients.

Leads are tracked over 12 categories: past client, referred by past client, neighbor, walk-in, classes/seminars for consumers, jobsite signs, Web site, magazine or newspaper article, direct article, realtors, sub or supplier, and “other.”

At the seminars, she says, “[Attendees] get a chance to come into our design center and [meet] the designers. We have a sheet that attendees fill out at the end of the session. In a room of 20 people, [perhaps] 5 will be contacted.” To further qualify seminar participants, Harrell charges a $20 fee.

The company Web site is also a key lead source. Harrell says her site, which was recently updated, previously “had tire-kickers coming on and wasn't a good lead source.” Now, 21% of leads come from the Web site and 6% of those become jobs.