Marketing overhaul

[xandrew245x]

Hello everyone, new here. I am involved in a family business. I am in charge of our marketing, which has been unchanged for years. Currently our main form of advertisement has been word of mouth, our company vehicles, a full page phone book ad and a website. Our marketing needs a major overhaul.

I have a few ideas, but could really use some guidance towards the best options. My ideas are the following.

Focus more on how our business is viewed as a whole, T-shirts and sweatshirts with our name and info for our employees to wear, have our fleet of vehicles match in color, lettering and layout in general. Keep our vehicles clean and presentable. Have an open dialogue with our employees on how to treat customers and how to handle situations that arise. Also have a more formal and professional approach with customers such as having business cards for our employees to hand out.

I want to downsize the phonebook ad due to the lack of use of phonebooks anymore. This is a tricky subject with the others involved and it looks like its going to end up being renewed for this year as a full page. I do want to update our ad at least since it looks very out dated and ad a coupon that we can track to see how much traffic is actually being generated by the ad.

I want to update our website to a more streamline and professional look. I want it to be optimized for searches.

I want to branch out into social media such as facebook and possibly twitter.

I want to possibly use adwords and paid facebook ads to target certain areas and keywords to direct traffic to our web site.

Thinking outside the box, possibly hosting or sponsoring an event that could get our name out in different ways.

Any thoughts, comments and feedback would greatly be appreciated. I am still learning everyday, and would really like to increase the amount of traffic our business gets.

Thanks in advance!

[David Hunter]

Howdy Andrew! I'm curious... what business are you in???

[xandrew245x]

Hi David. We are a septic company, we deal mostly in providing services. We do sell some products, but it's not a major part of our business.

[turboguy]

I have to agree with you. If I were looking for someone for the services you provide I would do an internet search rather than look in the Yellow Pages as I might have done ages ago. I think an investment in your web site and creating a Facebook page and promoting your Facebook page would be the best investment you could make with your advertising dollars.

[xandrew245x]

It's still on the table of what size ad we are going to do, the best I can do with the time being is getting them to agree to a half page ad with a coupon on it so we can track how many people use that ad. Unfortunately even if our ad does not draw much traffic(like I think) they don't want to go with anything smaller than a triple quarter ad, which is still over $150 a month.

We are going to save some money however, we found that we had a small ad a triple quarter ad along with our full page, and those two were costing us over $220 a month, so we're going to drop them.

Im working on a new ad for the phone book that will include the coupon and a qr code for our Facebook.

[David Hunter]

Ah, nice! The guy who services my septic system has a tagline of, "Nobody sticks their nose in our business!" haha

I take it there's a lot of people with septic systems in your area? Is this more rural areas? Have any Valpak or Coupon Magazines? How about local newspapers? I'd say they would be better than the yellow pages, though someone who looks in the yellow pages for septic service is probably going to choose one of them.

Where are you located? Like here in Cleveland, we had a very dry summer so a lot of the roots from the trees were digging deeper and spreading out so our one pipe got clogged by all of the roots.

So, you could create ads to be based off the weather... even if it rains a lot you could tell people it's a great time to get their septic pumped so they don't get any backups... blah blah blah.

[xandrew245x]

South central Pa, in a fairly rural area, there are small cities around us, but there is a lot of country side with a lot of homes. We service a fairly decent size area as well.

As far as I know we do not have any kind of advertisement in the coupon area, and i'm positive we don't advertise in the newspaper.

We find most of the time we get more weather related issues when we get a good bit of rain, we get a lot of emergency calls. A lot of the townships we service enforce mandatory pumping, home owners have to have their septic system services and inspected at a set interval of time. This has really helped our business, as more townships adopt the ordinance. I know basically who we need to reach, and what needs said to them, i'm just not sure how to reach them the most effective way.

[xandrew245x]

I thought of another idea, since we are largely based off of word of mouth, I think focus in that are would be a great investment. Since we are service based, I think a small package including business cards, refrigerator magnets, neighbor referal discounts, etc. Would be a great incentive to get more people talking about us. We could simply leave a bag on their door stating they were serviced, and what we done could be listed and any problems we found could be added. Then they would also get our advertising material and coupons. It's a win win in my eyes.

[David Hunter]

Well your current customers are you best customers! So I would send them direct mail or call them regularly (or how ever often you find necessary with septics).

The only way to know if your word of mouth marketing will work is if you test it out. Give an incentive for people referring you.

Another idea you could do is either drop stuff off or send direct mail to the houses around the house that you just serviced. Say roots were clogging the pipes for the septic and you had to cut them out because of a dry season, well you could send the direct mail to the neighbors and let them know what you did at your customers (I'd ask permission if you are going to be specific) and that they may end up with the same problem so to call you for an inspection.

The goal with marketing is to get people to raise their hands that they are interested in what you have to offer. Just remember you may do 10 different marketing campaigns and only 1 or 2 actually bring in results... but those results make up for the other 8-9 that didn't work... and then some!

[xandrew245x]

Thank you very much for the feedback. I was actually going to ask about direct mailing. It was something we never really got into, but I think it would be a great way to push into territory that we don't service, or don't get a lot of calls from. That paired with possibly a targeted adwords campaign could really help us branch out into new areas.

I just finished up the new ad for the phonebook, we are meeting with our rep tomorrow. I added a coupon to it, a QR code to our facebook and make our web address noticeable. I'm actually pretty proud of it, hehe.

I'm going to pitch the idea of a small package for customers, this way we are offering them both an incentive to refer others and gather information from the customer all while providing a professional look and experience.

[xandrew245x]

We met with out rep yesterday for our phone book and digital marketing, we removed two of our smaller ads and submitted our new ad that included the coupon for mentioning the ad.

[xandrew245x]

What is your opinion on direct mailing postcards?

Most townships we service have an ordinance for mandatory servicing of their systems, if they don't comply they get fines.

I think it would be a golden opportunity to send out a blanket of reminders to our service area later in the year stating something along the lines about possibly being due for a servicing or face fines. It would be a great way to grab people's attention I think, and help remind some people who completely forgot about it.

[David Hunter]

I'm a huge fan of direct mail. You just need to be sure you're doing it right. Reminders would be great, along with maybe tips on how to keep their systems function (anything on the shelves they could go buy and put down their system to keep it function properly?). Also, always be sure to send something to your current clients.

[Ironclad Systems]

Out of curiosity, are you currently placing signage on the lawns, etc of satisfied customers? Have you considered sponsored FB ads? They can be narrowed pretty finely based on geography, age, interests, etc. Could help drive some business from the further reaches of your territory. We've had mixed success with FB ads, but a 20 dollar budget spread out over a week would give you some data to see if its working.

[MyBrandBoost]

Hello everyone, new here. I am involved in a family business. I am in charge of our marketing, which has been unchanged for years. Currently our main form of advertisement has been word of mouth, our company vehicles, a full page phone book ad and a website. Our marketing needs a major overhaul.

I have a few ideas, but could really use some guidance towards the best options. My ideas are the following.

Focus more on how our business is viewed as a whole, T-shirts and sweatshirts with our name and info for our employees to wear, have our fleet of vehicles match in color, lettering and layout in general. Keep our vehicles clean and presentable. Have an open dialogue with our employees on how to treat customers and how to handle situations that arise. Also have a more formal and professional approach with customers such as having business cards for our employees to hand out.

I want to downsize the phonebook ad due to the lack of use of phonebooks anymore. This is a tricky subject with the others involved and it looks like its going to end up being renewed for this year as a full page. I do want to update our ad at least since it looks very out dated and ad a coupon that we can track to see how much traffic is actually being generated by the ad.

I want to update our website to a more streamline and professional look. I want it to be optimized for searches.

I want to branch out into social media such as facebook and possibly twitter.

I want to possibly use adwords and paid facebook ads to target certain areas and keywords to direct traffic to our web site.

Thinking outside the box, possibly hosting or sponsoring an event that could get our name out in different ways.

Any thoughts, comments and feedback would greatly be appreciated. I am still learning everyday, and would really like to increase the amount of traffic our business gets.

Thanks in advance!

Hi Andrew,

Love that you are taking action here!

A few new tips/pointers/addon's to what some members here have already mentioned.

Internet is big, controlling your online reputation and 'search-ability' in your local area is paramount. Yellow pages for the most part is dead, but depending on your existing consumer demographic it may make sense to stay published/advertised at the right cost.

Assuming you focus on a specific area? What are the demographics/age group of the people living there?

Do you have an immediate competition? If yes, are the more successful, if they are, have a look at what they do online to start with.

Do not throw out flyers, for direct mail look at what other businesses are doing, save ones that stick out in a drawer somewhere and go through their strategies in more detail later.

Social Media - in your industry you have the option to be really funny on your social media accounts and professional at the same time. I think an Instagram account would be great for brand awareness to go along with your Facebook account. You could post funny meme's about poop and cleaning it up, mix in your adverting every 5 or 6 posts and any community involvement you may have. It is also great for engaging such users, lets say you have a new uniform, let people know, show it, ask if they like it... etc.

Where is your business located?

[xandrew245x]

Thank you all for all the great information, I've been really busy the past couple weeks.

David, I think we have a great opportunity for direct mailing due to this key component; Homeowners need our service. A lot of townships surrounding us require septic maintenance at set intervals, most of them are every 3 years. If they don't comply they will be fined, so its a great opportunity to send out a direct mailer reminding existing customers and advertising to new customers. We could possibly even add in a special if they act within a certain amount of time.

Ironclad, no we don't do lawn signs, I had mentioned it in the past, and the idea was shot down. I have tried a facebook ad which did boost the likes to our page, but i'm not sure if we gained any leads from it.

Mybrand, we actually have a company take care of our Seo/adverts/web hosting. I couldn't get an agreement on downsizing our phone ad, but I was able to redesign it and add a discount to it, to see if there is any leads being generated from it.

We do indeed have competition, most which are doing much better than us. I know for fact that our competition looks much more professional than us. Clean trucks, a entire fleet that matches in looks, uniformed polite workers. One of the companies near us, started around the same time, they currently have 8 pumping trucks, 2 dump trucks, 2 backhoes and 2 trailers. Most of their trucks were new specifically built for them.

I like the idea about social media, and I think there is a really good opportunity to connect with others.

We are currently having a new truck built, and I think we should share pictures of it with our customers. Also I'm looking into getting business cards and shirts made.

[shrinkme]

Personally, I would look at the numbers. What kind of return on investment are you getting from each of your advertising sources? If you don't know, this would be the first question to answer. What you see there may be completely different from what I see in Chicago or other big cities.

There are many places to advertise both online and offline, and I would do a little sampling of each to see which is best for you. Free is always great but may cost you too much in time or materials.

[xandrew245x]

Shrink, I agree completely, I know that the only way to see if a certain advertisement is working is to survey the customers. I think the easiest way to survey is for our office staff to simply ask the customer how they heard of us. I have tried to do this in the past, but the office staff won't stick to doing it, so I don't have a real solid number on our roi.

[SmallBizOrg]

Make sure that your business is listed in as many online directories as possible and that it has good reviews or doesn't have bad reviews. Many are free.

As well, make sure that your website has proper local business tags to be listed in "top 3" local businesses by google. Here is some info:

https://www.google.ca/business/
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/local-businesses

We have a pdf with main directories and how to get listed there, most are free. I can send it to you (or to anybody who would need it) - just send me a message.

[SmallBizOrg]

And one more thought - is your SEO person good? Does he do any "local SEO" which is what you need. Do a test search in Google, ask some questions that people ask when they need services like yours to see if your website comes up. Don't just search your firm's name, that will come up for sure but search like someone else who doesn't know you.

[traceywayne]

Social media along with an up to date website will certainly increase your sales overtime and give you more authority within your area.

Maybe try to incorporate a unique system into your website or booking system that your competitor dont have.