subject: Advertising Ideas For Today's Plumbing Business [print this page] If you are a plumber and are finding times tough, don't think that you are Robinson Crusoe and all alone. Many small to medium sized trade businesses are finding the going hard today.
Even the economists can't agree on what may happen over the next 6-12 months. All the average Joe or Jill can do is use their best common sense based on past performance. This means understanding who your customers are and where they came from. Once you know where your customers are finding your business then you will know where will be the best place to put your reduced advertising spend.
This is not the time to stop advertising and marketing your small business. Too many small plumbing businesses find money is in short supply and so the first thing they are tempted to cut-back on is the advertising. This is the time to take a hard look at where you are spending those advertising dollars and assessing the return on the investment; not for stopping advertising all together. If people don't know that you exist, then your small plumbing business probably won't exist much longer.
What you need to do is go over all the jobs you have done in the past 12 months and list down where they found you or who gave them to you if it was another trade or architect/engineer.
This naturally, would be a considerably easier job if you took note at the time of booking or estimating where they found you in the first place. Was it the yellow pages? Was it online? Was it from word-of-mouth (W.O.M)? This will then be the best guide for you as to where you need to advertise again.
If you have been a well-organised business and have always analysed the return of investment in advertising spend, you will obviously be in a much better position now and can act quickly before the leak starts gushing. It is always easier to do anything with money and if you don't plug the dry-up leak before you ruin your credit rating, then you most likely will find it far too hard to fix the problem if you run out of money and credit at the same time. Once the incoming work/money starts dwindling then is the time to plug the leak; not after everything has disappeared.
Knowing where your past customers have found your business is the fastest, easiest and cheapest way to advertise to your target market. You know they have already used your business and providing you haven't 'mucked-up' your nest they no doubt will be happy to look around their home or investment property to see what, if anything, needs to be done or could be done now because you will (I hope) have offered them a 10% discount on any jobs for the next month. Or choose any incentive that you know is likely to appeal to them; to find you those smaller jobs to keep you going.
Every loaf of bread consists of crumbs and if you are needing the crumbs right now, then put them all together and you have a loaf of bread. Plumbing consists of joining pipes into a workable system and that is what every small-medium sized plumbing business today needs to do to survive.
by: Jan Smith
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