Paul shares the best methods to sell and market new services to your target audience.
Show Notes
However you market your new services, what “trigger events” can you utilize?
When cold calling, determine that timing “sweet spot” for your target prospects.
Consider a direct-mail marketing campaign prior to cold calling. When people experience multiple channels of influence, they are more likely to say yes.
Post a simple video on social media about the new services you are offering.
Leverage partnerships with other professionals (i.e., real estate and insurance agents).
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How do I market and sell new services to homeowners?
(Transcribed from podcast)
Well, on today’s episode, we’ve got a question that didn’t come from the website, but it did come from a LinkedIn message. So just a reminder, you can follow me on LinkedIn. It’s simple. Just look for Paul Reilly. Last name is spelled R E I L L Y. Check it out. Follow me; ask me a question and I will turn it into a show.
So, this question came from Eric. Eric sent me a message and Eric has a design-build construction company, and his company is starting to offer an exterior maintenance package. It’s an all-inclusive service that he’s planning to target to the luxury-home market. Now, for the client, the value is pretty simple. They’re able to handle all of their exterior maintenance needs for the year in about two days. If you’re a homeowner, you know, hey, you’ve got a lot of maintenance you need to do on your house (which reminds me, I need to clean up my gutters and I need to power wash my siding. So maybe Eric will give me a discount. But if he listens to the show, he probably won’t, right, because we don’t do that.) But anyway, I digress. He wants to know, “How should I sell these new services?” What’s the best approach to market it? Should it be a cold call? Should it be direct mail? Hook up with real estate agents? What should his method be for launching this new product and service? So that’s the question we’re going to answer on today’s show.
But before we get into that, a quick shout-out to Andrea over at The Creative Impostor Studios. Andrea does an amazing job. Podcasting continues to grow. And I know my podcast continues to grow. A large part of that is because Andrea does such a great job helping to edit the podcast, keep it going, and providing insights along the way. So, if you need a podcast, if you’re ready to start your own podcast or you’re ready to make a switch, reach out to Andrea and her team. They do a wonderful, wonderful job.
Back to the question, Eric: How should I market these new services that I am offering my existing customers? First thing I would recommend, whether you’re going to create a direct-mail piece, whether you’re going to go cold calling, posting a video, whatever you’re going to do to market this new service, it’s important to identify the trigger event that would cause your customers to be more open to your solution.
So, your solution, Eric, it’s an exterior maintenance project on a new house. I would ask myself, ‘Okay. What is the time of year or what are the trigger events that would cause people to be more open to having this conversation or more open to these services?’ So Eric make a list of those trigger events. And those trigger events, I’m guessing, include, you know, any sort of seasonal change. During seasonal change, people use that as a trigger event to take care of their home maintenance. So it could be Springtime, it could be Fall, which is what we’re approaching right now. You could develop a marketing piece or a marketing message that emphasizes, “Hey, now is the time to look for your Fall maintenance or to take care of your Fall maintenance,” and emphasize that trigger event. It speaks to the relevance of your message. So, identify that trigger event.
Now you’ve got to figure out the methodology for delivering your message to your prospective clients or customers, whatever you want to call them. So, thinking about this, cold calling as an option. In your message, you mentioned that you’re targeting luxury homeowners—luxury homeowners, I’m guessing, because they’re the ones willing to spend on this type of service. Now, luxury is a catch-all term and it could be very relative to what we believe is a luxury home or not. So when I hear luxury home, I think of gated communities. I think of private homes in—. You know, if you’re going to walk up to a mansion, it may be challenging to get someone to answer the door, or it may not be easy enough to get into the neighborhood to begin with. So that’s—. Maybe we’ll call that super luxury type of homes. Keep that in mind, that cold calling may be difficult.
Now, on the other hand, you go into a more affluent neighborhood—houses anywhere from, you know, $700,000 to a million dollars—you may be able to walk up and knock on doors and share some information, some insights, ideas, things like that. So, I do think cold calling is a reasonable way to connect with your target audience. I would encourage you to cold call during times when you know that your audience is going to be there. It could be late afternoon. It could be early evening. There’s going to be a sweet spot that we want to hit—that we want to hit. And the reason why is we don’t want to go too late, not too early. We want to be there in those key hours. So, however you want to do that, you may even consider partnering with an outside company that will do this. But, that cold call should be simple, it should be crisp, it should be to the point. The message has to be clear. So make sure that you emphasize in your message what your service will do, how it will positively impact that customer, and then, why is there a need for it right now. That’s that trigger event that we’re talking.
Same is true for your direct-mail piece. We know that when you’re marketing new services and new ideas, multiple sources of persuasion are going to be key. So I would use direct mail as well. Use a direct-mail piece to paper certain areas—those certain target homes. And it would be easier to partner with a direct-mailing company that will have the data. They will be able to tell you exactly who you need to target with this type of new service. So I would go with the direct-mail piece, and then maybe you follow that up with cold call. Or maybe have a certain cadence that you’re going through. So, you know, you think about this. Ideally, let’s say you direct mail a certain area. You wait a couple of days until they get the direct-mail piece, and then you go cold call in that key area. When they experience multiple channels of influence, people are more likely to say yes. So maybe direct mail, then cold call.
And then, you know, what about posting a video? And you think about how we can target some ads on Facebook, LinkedIn—wherever your audience is—Instagram, however, Twitter, maybe even. But there’s no reason, Eric, you couldn’t post a simple—I don’t know—30, 45-second video on what your service will do, how it will impact the customer. And, again, that same why is there a need do this now. The idea is, that once they see it multiple times, they become more open. They become more open. So, there’s just a couple of thoughts there.
Another thing I would do is leverage the relationships that your target audience already has. And by that, I mean—. Okay, think about how you could partner with local realtors. And you mentioned this in your note. Local realtors, they get to know their clients intimately. They sell them their homes. They know which homes need maintenance. Partner with them. Partner with home inspection firms as well. You know, the people that are doing inspections—reach out to them. Create an incentive for them to refer you business. Not only that, what about insurance agents as well? Insurance agents are another group that get to know their clients intimately over the years. They get to know them. And not only that, but they also know when they have claims. So if there was hail damage, new roofing, whatever it may be, they are also aware of these trigger events that I spoke about earlier.
The key is, all you’re trying to do is increase the likelihood that you have the right solution at the right time. That’s what we’re trying to do. And the broader you spread this with leveraging realtors, insurance folks, you name it. You can leverage them, you can also create that video, do some direct mailing and do some cold calling. It’s not going to be just one thing that makes the difference, it’s going to be the aggregate of doing all of these things that will help make your new service a real success.
Eric, I hope those tips help for you. Make it a big day.
