Contractor Marketing That Works

If I can get publicity for free, is there any reason to keep paying for regular advertising?

In a word, yes … that is if you want to greatly increase the effectiveness of your “paid for” ads.

Let’s imagine that the local TV station does a nice piece on the 11:00 news about you, your company and the good you’ve been doing in the community or perhaps a nice public service piece that is timely for the upcoming season. Thousands of people see it and are warmed by such a nice bit of news. It’s those same people who will then again be touched by your advertising, seeing it in a whole new light.

 “Hey… these are the same guys we seen on the news. They must be good if the TV station is behind them. Give them a call.”

Good publicity gives much greater authority to your company and the advertising you run when a credible source is, in effect, backing you up. It was these same principles that brought our company to #1 in Top of Mind Awareness in our area in less than 3 years when we started off with no residential department at all!

 Don’t you have to be a large, established company to get the publicity you are referring to?

It doesn’t take a big company to use big ideas and proven publicity techniques.

Just like the rest of your marketing, you can’t just “hope” for good publicity. You must make it part of a marketing program and taking those steps are very simple once you have the keys to unlock the publicity door.

1. You’ll have ‘regular’ mailings of Press Releases going out to the Media – all ‘timed’ to fit in with their Editorial Calendars. This is key, and part of why very few people score with the media. I’ll show examples of these in my workshop. It’s a piece of cake if you follow the example.
2. For any publicity, you’d offer to include the media link on your website, but this has to be done in a certain way. This “reciprocal” agreement has opened more doors for me than all the other techniques combined.
3. Since your notoriety grows, it actually ‘amplifies’ your other marketing. So you’d ‘time’ your regular marketing offers to ‘fit’ with any publicity you get. The “As seen on TV” phrase, though seemingly overused, is a pure gold mine of association and much needed credibility among contractors.

These same principle and techniques can be easily copied and produced by any size company, no matter how long you’ve been in business. Anyone wanting to know how to do this shouldn’t wait around. For a select few, I feel it’ll be the next big wave in contractor marketing.