Branding For Plumbing, HVAC and Electrical Companies
Many business owners overlook branding—especially those in the plumbing, HVAC, and electrical fields. It is important to differentiate yourself from your competition if you want to reach new customers and keep the customers you already have. Developing a brand involves solid research, repetition, consistency, targeted marketing, and employee training. It involves seeing each point of contact with the public as an opportunity to establish your company’s identity, incentivize potential customers to buy, and remind current customers why they should continue to use you.
Our Branding Process
At Contractor 20/20 we start our process by getting a comprehensive look at your company, discover who your best customers are through market research, and then develop (or continue to promote) an image (brand) for your company that is targeted toward your best potential customers. Contractor 20/20 helps you build your brand by using repetition, consistency, and targeted marketing.
Repetition
There are three types of customers you want to reach with your advertising: your existing customers, customers who have a need but do not have a brand preference, and your competition’s customers. Research proves that in order to grow business among these customers, existing customers need to hear your name twice a month, customers who have a need but don’t have a brand preference need to hear your name four times a month, and your competition’s customers need to hear your name eight times a month with a strong reason to switch.
Consistency
Once you establish an image you should be slow to change it. If an advertising agency immediately wants to do an image makeover, without good research to back it up, you should be wary. There are very few reasons why a brand may need a complete overhaul. Often times a company has a solid brand, but it isn’t being communicated to the public. In order to build an image or brand, your company needs to have message and visual consistency at every point of contact with the customers. Contractor 20/20 is uniquely equipped to address this need because we are a full advertising agency who can help you manage each point of contact.
Targeted Marketing
You don’t need to reach everyone with your marketing. We have found that 80% of your business comes from 20% of the public. When you try to be everything to everybody with your brand, you end up being nothing to everybody. It is a better practice to figure out who your best customers are and go after them with targeting marketing. We have the right tools to identify these potential customers in the market, and the right tools to reach them.
As you can see, building a brand is a holistic process. It involves everything from the consistency of images on equipment labels, the images and message posted to social media, the way your CSR answers the phone, to the number of times you mail your target market. The work we do with reminder cards, thank you notes, happy calls, and appointment calls to set up a service call, are all ways of showing the customers that you understand, you do not take them for granted, and that you are thankful for their patronage. Through these sorts of branding behaviors and actions, the customer will know your company is working to earn their loyalty. These actions in themselves are valuable brand building elements.
To make this process easier we can help you prioritize your strategies…just give us a call. If you’re a company that is just starting out, check out our branding starter kits for plumbing, heating, cooling and electrical companies.
