Sometimes, you need a sledgehammer and a pry bar or a digital multimeter and a voltage tester. Other times, you need wifi and an app. And from time to time, you need one minute, a piece of scrap paper, and a pencil.
As home industry professionals, you know that using the right implement, device, or gadget for the job at hand is crucial to success. The same is true when it comes to choosing the right marketing tools for your strategy.
Do you know which tools to pick up?
3 Tips for Choosing the Right Marketing Tools for Your Strategy
Do you have a standout product? Stellar services? A team of top-notch designers and experienced artisans and tradespeople? Do you offer exceptional value and quality? Great… but do people know that you have and do all of this? And do they care?
Stripped down to its core, marketing informs. It educates – and engages – folks about your products, services, and brand. More specifically, it educates and engages the right people, at the right times, in the right ways so you can achieve your business-building goals.
1. Go Back to Your Goals
Choosing the right marketing tools for your strategy relies on referencing your strategy. What are your goals? What do you hope to accomplish with these efforts – and with the dollars you put into it? Sending out a direct mailing and hoping for the best just doesn’t cut it.
According to CoSchedule’s State of Marketing Strategy Report, companies that set clear goals are 377% more successful than counterparts that do not. Your goals will tie directly back to your overarching strategy. You must define what your marketing will focus on, whether it’s…
- Creating brand awareness
- Inviting and engaging your audience to interact with your brand
- Driving potential customers/clients to take action (e.g. schedule a consultation)
- Retaining current customers
Once that is clarified, the proper marketing tools must be utilized to reach your goals. Choosing them may not be as easy, but that’s where we come in.
Starting with strategy sets you up for the win. In fact, organized marketers (i.e. those who proactively plan their marketing) are 311% more successful.
2.Explore Your Options
If marketing serves to educate and engage, then the methods you select to do so play a critical role in ensuring that your message is delivered – and that it resonates. Rather than
going on ad nauseum about features and benefits that do not move customers, you will focus on telling your story of expertise in a way that builds connection and trust through channels such as:
- Print collateral (e.g. business cards, magazine spread)
- Website design and development
- Photography
- Video
- Social Promotion
- Blog writing
- Copywriting
- Sales enablement
- BrandFolio
Through an integrated approach, you appeal to people who learn and retain information in different ways (e.g. visual as opposed to written or written versus image-based content), and reach folks where and when it will have the most impact.
Again, it’s about reaching the right people at the right times in the right places, and the tools you deploy will help you hit that sweet spot. Learn more about Haven Media’s comprehensive marketing services.
3.Get the Most Bang for Your Buck (ROI)
If you are not tracking your ROI, you won’t know if you’re wasting your time, money, or effort. Generally, an ROI of about five-to-one (or $5 realized for every $1 spent) is a good target. Even if your revenue is increasing, however, how do you know it’s a result of your marketing efforts? How can you be sure you are using your budget most effectively?
This is why it is essential to integrate tools that enable you to track, measure, analyze, and optimize your strategy. For example, some important website data to gather includes:
- Users: how many visits you have had to the website
- Sessions: a group of user interactions that took place within a given time
- Bounce: whether visitors left your site right away
- Traffic sources: how visitors find you (e.g. through a social media lead, referral from a peer, an advertisement, organic search, etc.)
- Popular pages: which pages are getting the most visits – and the most engagement
- Goal conversions: how many visitors completed a specific call-to-action (e.g. made a purchase, scheduled a consultation)
- Goal conversion rate: the percentage of visitors that you convert
When you have data in hand, you can identify trends. What’s working – and what’s not? Do you have a great campaign with compelling content that’s just not getting the engagement you expected? What if you changed the call to action? What if you switched up the main image or the messaging? Small but strategic tweaks can make the difference.
From there, you can optimize your campaigns to yield the most favorable results. This allows you to spend your resources on techniques that are driving the most engagement and conversions. Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint; expect that it’ll take some time to fully optimize your initiatives.
How effective is your marketing? Take our quick, easy Marketing Quiz to find out.
Marketing for Design and Construction Pros
The key to choosing the right marketing tools for your strategy is choosing the right partner. Haven Media was created by and for design and construction professionals; we know what it takes to make a mark in this industry. We also know that you want to get to work, doing what you do best: serving clients and delivering exceptional quality and value.
We help the industry’s best and brightest overcome the frustrations of marketing and achieve their business-building goals so they can do just that. Connect with us to learn more.
Check out our helpful guide, 9 Steps to Effective Marketing, to get a jumpstart on your goals.
