If you’re a baseball fan (and even if you’re not a baseball fan) and you’ve seen Field of Dreams, you’ve heard the line, “If you build it, they will come.” You know from building your business that it isn’t as easy as it sounds. A lot goes into building a business, and a lot goes into maintaining it just like a baseball diamond in the middle of the corn fields. You’ve built a great business; now it’s time to maintain it by marketing it. Don’t let the term “marketing” scare you: Marketing is knowing how, when, and where to communicate with current and future customers to keep your business growing. The following are six simple marketing tips.
1. Know your field services audience
Think about who your perfect customer is. Where do they live or work? When would the perfect customer need your services? Where would they go to look for your services? Knowing your audience helps you understand better where, when, and how to communicate with your potential customer.
2. Create a website
You can create your own website if you’re pretty tech savvy or you can hire someone like The SEO Contractor to create a website for you. Many website platforms take a “plug and play” approach where you pay a monthly fee, which includes your domain name. You can “plug” in or add pictures and text to your liking and then click on publish (“play”) to get it live. It may be easy enough to build the website, but you also need to make a plan to keep refreshing the site to help keep it current and relevant to customers and search engines. But just like the baseball diamond in Field of Dreams, you can’t just build your website and expect people to come – you have to get the word out.
3. Promote your business on social media
Speaking of getting the word out, social media is an easy and free way to get the word out about your business. Show pictures of finished projects you’ve worked on for customers in the past and ask customers if you can tag them in the post. When you tag someone in the post, that customer’s friends and family see the post so they can like it, share it, and hopefully contact you with a project of their own. Check out Hootsuite for more social media best practices.
4. The 3 Rs of communication
Communication can make or break your business. Good communication is key to any type of relationship, personal or professional. Remember the three Rs: responsive, respectful, and reliable. Respond to any customer inquiries immediately. Always be respectful to your customers and even when you talk about your competitors. Perhaps most importantly, follow through and be sure to show up or call/email when you say you are going to.
5. Provide detailed estimates
You’re probably wondering what detailed estimates have to do with marketing. Any type of communication you provide your potential customers is marketing. You’re working to build confidence and communicate you’re the best business for the job. Estimates should be as detailed as possible and should include:
- Your business logo, address, and contact information, as these show your business’s identity
- Line items with pricing to show transparency and create trust
- How long it will take to complete the work, which helps align expectations up front and allow customers to understand how the project will impact their schedules
- Payment terms, including whether a deposit is required and what types of payment are accepted, to help customers prepare for how and when the project will impact their finances
- How long the estimate is good for, because the customer needs to know how long they have to make a decision before a price might change (due to the cost of supplies, inflation, etc.)
- Information on how to approve and proceed with the project or who to contact with questions about next steps
All of the above items provide your customers insight on who you are as a business. These details help build trust and help your customers plan for prospective projects.
6. Use customer referrals to your advantage
Customer and word-of-mouth referrals are the best marketing advantage to have. People prefer to have someone they know provide a recommendation for home services. If one person trusts your business and has a great experience, they will be happy to give your information to others. At the end of a project, if a customer expresses excitement over your services, ask them to refer your business to others. You can even be so bold as to say, “Hey, if you post this on Facebook, could you please tag our company? We’d love to like and comment on your post to show you how excited we are too! And if we get a little business out of it, that would be great.” Just be open and transparent that their post would help you out.
A lot of work goes into keeping a baseball diamond perfect for game day. Like building a business, building the field is just the beginning. Once it’s built, a field and a business require consistent maintenance and communication with fans or customers. You’ve done the hardest part, starting your business. Now it’s time to nurture and grow your field services business so that your wildest dreams can come true!
