Developing a Promotional Strategy For Your Home Services Company
When it comes to promoting your home services company, there is one strategy that has proven successful over time and for a wide range of businesses. Plumbers, locksmiths, electricians, pest control providers, construction professionals, lawn services companies, painters, pool maintenance providers, and more have found that using promotional products as a cost-effective, high impact way to attract attract customers and enhance customer loyalty works every time.
Promotional products extend marketing reach for companies of all sizes and in all phases of their growth and development. Research has consistently shown that at least 83% of consumers in the United States enjoy receiving promotional merchandise with advertising messaging and 89% of consumers who receive a promotional item within the last two years remembered the name of the company named on the item. These reasons and plenty of others are why branded promotional products are often used in successful brand awareness campaigns for home services companies. They are typically deployed as reminders for homeowners to keep around so when a need arises for a plumber, electrician, etc., these brands are top of mind and homeowners know who to call.
Research has also shown that now is a great time to promote your home services business for the best result. The global home services market is expected to grow 18.91% per year from 2019-2026, according to Verified Market Research.
Creating a Strategy for Using Promotional Products to Market Your Home Services Business
Armed with the knowledge that at least 50% of people who receive branded promotional products use them in their daily lives, it’s easy to see how these giveaways attract customers and deliver brand appeal if they are useful and add value to their experiences. For home services companies, creating a strategy to achieve these results starts by answering a few important questions:
- Which audiences are you trying to reach?
- How are you reaching them?
- Where are you reaching them?\
- What is your budget?
Chances are good that your important audiences include:
- Home Buyers
- Realtors
- Homeowners
- Moving Companies
- Apartment Property
- Home Builders
You likely access your important audiences via many channels, including:
- Search Engines (Google, Bing, etc.)
- Your Website
- Live Chat on Your Website
- Social Media
- Digital Advertising
- Telephone Conversations
- Signage at Your Business' Physical Location
- Community Events and Home Shows
- Existing Customer Service Calls
Providing branded promotional products in tandem with each interaction you have with customers and prospects at all of these access points will automatically enhance your company’s brand awareness and positive image. They also differentiate you from your competition as you interact with your audiences in each of these ways. Branded promotional items are effective:
- In lead-nurturing
- As customer review rewards
- In social media contests
- As incentives on your website
- At events - both live and virtual
- On sales and inspection calls
- As giveaways at your business’s physical location
- And more
Creating a Branded Promotional Products Budget
To understand how much to spend on branded promotional products to company’s sales projections are for the year. Once you have these sales goals numbers, choose a percentage of the projections for spending on marketing your business. Entrepreneur suggests that businesses with less than 5 years of experience use 12% to 20% of their revenue for marketing, with more experienced companies using 6% to 12%. Then, your team will need to determine the portion of that percentage that could/should be spent on promotional products that support your goals.
Budget Considerations
As you decide what percentage promotional products should be within your entire budget, consider how effective they are for your brand. According to a recent study, a single promotional product averages 344 impressions per month. Promotional products are consistently one of the lowest cost per marketing impression ratios – about .6 cents per impression, according to the Ad Specialty Institute (ASI), the promotional product industry’s largest membership organization. As a point of reference, the cost per impression of TV and magazine ads is about 1.8 cents per impression. Much of the value of promotional products comes from 81% of recipient consumers keep promotional products for about 1 to 5 years – in relation to impressions, this gives promotional products an impressive edge over other forms of advertising. Logic tells us a promotional product will make more impressions, the longer it is kept – both from those who keep the product and others around them who see it.
The Research Regarding Promotional Products as Effective Marketing Tools is Very Clear
Promotional Products Association International (PPAI)’s research of consumers throughout the United States found that:
- 90% of those who receive a promotional product can recall the name of the brand.
- 89% of consumers can remember the company on a promotional product received in the last 2 years.
- 80% of consumers can recall the messaging of a brand after receiving a promotional product.
- 80% of consumers have an immediate reaction when they receive a promo from companies they’ve never heard of.
- 82% of consumers have a more favorable impression of a brand after receiving a promotional product.
- 70% of brands think promotional products are “mostly” or “always effective" on attaining marketing goals.
- 53% of the time, a promotional product leads to a more positive affinity of advertiser.
With numbers like these, it is difficult to argue with the effectiveness of promotional products. Time and time again, businesses see their investment in promotional products paying off. And as abusiness owner or decision-maker, it is important to consider th ways that your planned-for promotional products might supplement your company's existing marketing initiatives. It is easy to understand how the right promotional products for your brand could enhance the most marketing efforts on behalf of your home services company.
Begin with the most basic of concepts, what is not to love about a business that gives you useful items at no cost to you? The items you select also send a clear message to your audience that you understand them and have a firm grasp of their needs. Because consumers tend to keep promotional items and giveaways for long periods, this helps make your campaigns significant and extend the brand awareness and recognition generated for your brand over a longer period. And, because ,money matters, promotional products are undeniably a cost-effective investment considering the large number of impressions they generate for your brand.
Chances are good that your company already has a budget for activities it conducts regularly whose effectiveness would be enhanced by promotional product giveaways. By ordering in tandem with other internal departments that sponsor activities you will likely be able to charge a portion of your promotional product spend to them and/or get better pricing as you select and place orders for additional items that will be used to meet the needs of several departments. Considering working with those in your company that coordinates these efforts:
- Recruiting
- Onboarding
- Community Service Initiatives
- Company Uniforms
- Employee Awards
- Internal Events
- External Events
- Sales
- Trade Shows
- Customer Appreciation Rewards
Choose the Right Promotional Products
ASI research has shown that some of the most popular and influential branded promotional products include outerwear, drinkware, writing instruments, performance wear, and flash drives. But you know best what your customers like and feel adds value to their daily experiences. For home services companies’ customers, these branded promotional products are likely to be used again and again:
- Tape Measures
- Pens and Pencils
- Notepads
- Bag Clips
- Drinkware
- Duffle Bags
- Flashlights
- Shopper Tote Bags
- Lunch Pack Coolers
- Caps Fleece Blankets
- Car Organization Products
Uniforms are an Effective Way to Market Your Home Services Company as Professionals
One of the best ways to differentiate your home services company from the competition and impress customers and prospects with branded company uniforms and workwear. Research has repeatedly indicated that uniformed company representatives are typically associated with reliability, skill, and professionalism by most people. For good reason, customers generally feel safer and more at ease when they are able to identify representatives from a trusted brand because of their appearance. Employees often comment on the cost-savings for them when uniforms are provided by their employer - whether that be housekeeping uniforms, polo shirts, and work jackets or hard hats and other safety apparel.
Using uniforms will also increase your company’s brand exposure: Your brand is highly visible everywhere your employees are seen when they are wearing your company-branded uniforms. You can also build in safety measures into your company’s uniform to protect employees such as reflective bands. Uniform materials can be flame resistant and high-visibility to help keep employees safe. Also, uniforms improve security at your business’s physical location – when your employees are all in uniform, it’s easy to spot anyone who shouldn’t be on your business’s premises.
How to Track and Measure the Effectiveness of Your Marketing Initiatives.
The marketing industry standard for determining an initiative’s success is using the benchmark revenue to ratio of 5:1 or better. This means that for every marketing dollar spent you yielded $5 in revenue. Key to understanding the success of your promotional products-enhanced efforts is calculating return on investment (ROI). Several tests can be used to determine the ROI of branded promotional products. To show ROI in terms of sales directly related to consumers having received promotional products, you need to begin by planning how you will track the items you intend to give away so they can be traced throughout the testing process. It’s important to note that each item used in the campaign must have a trackability component if you are using the items to deliver sales.
Trackability - Decide how best to do this (i.e., URL, QR Code, or Discount Code) and choose a promotional product that works well with your tracking method, purchase it, give it away, and monitor the number of people who contacted your business as a result of receiving the item. Next, measure how many people who received the item actually bought your products or services and calculate the ROI from that number
Basic Metrics Test - The most simplistic way to calculate ROI is based on two metrics – the cost of the campaign and the outcome it generated (typically this is the revenue it has generated). Subtract the amount spent on the campaign from the profit it generated. Next, divide this total by the total amount spent, multiplied by 100.
Return on Impressions - This method is important to use when the marketing goal is focused on brand awareness and engagement. An impression is an estimate of the number of people a specific advertisement has been seen by, therefore, each time someone sees the advertisement or brand on a promotional product is considered one impression.
Promotional Products -Have One of The Lowest Cost Per Impression Ratios about .6 cents per impression, according to the ASI, the promotional product industry’s largest membership organization. In contrast, the cost per impression of TV and magazine ads is about 1.8 cents per impression. To calculate an approximate return on impressions, marketers typically use Cost Per Thousand (CPM) as a benchmark. The total cost of the item should be divided by the number of estimated impressions, and then divided by 1,000.
Your Local Fully Promoted is Where You Will Find the Best Promotional Products for Your Campaigns
Partnering with the right promotional products professionals is key to your successful home services marketing initiatives in 2021 and beyond. To achieve the goals of successfully marketing your home services company, you need to work with a creative and reliable promotional products partner that can demonstrate their expertise and experience campaigns.
At Fully Promoted, we have more than a million products for you to choose from as you plan virtually any type of campaign involving promotional products. Our local promotional products and marketing experts take the time to talk with you about your campaign, customers, and their needs so that we can narrow recommendations down to a few items that will provide the most impact. You receive personal attention from our experts, who provide recommendations based on your wants, needs, timetable, and budget.
Adding your logo to almost anything is our specialty! Our locations help clients domestically and internationally. They provide access to samples that you can touch and feel, plus offer personalized service to assist you with product selection and decoration methods that provide the best representation of your brand. Fully Promoted works with a wide range of home services companies including plumbers, locksmiths, electricians, pest control providers, lawn services companies, painters, pool maintenance providers, and more.