4 Solutions to Capture Demand

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On the Top of My Mind…

I’ve been having conversations recently with newer entrepreneurs in Home Service, and something has continually come up: Google ads aren't working anymore, what do I do?

My last email was all about dominating search so that when a potential customer has a need - you show up first. But what happens when there is no search or search isn’t working? I’m glad you asked…

If you're here, chances are you might not be the dominant player in your market. You might be among the smaller players aiming to compete with industry giants, spending more in ad dollars than your monthly revenue allows. Trust me, I've been in that position myself.

In today's market, success often hinges on the size of your enterprise. In a bidding system, larger players often adapt more slowly.

So, what does this mean for you? Your competitors, with larger budgets and resources, will likely outspend you to maintain momentum and sustain their operations.

This problem has consumed me over the last year because in any market, no matter how big or small, your growth will eventually outpace available search. Or, maybe even more importantly, if every competitor is attempting to dominate search, then you are simply in a bidding war for clicks. It's a lose-lose scenario.

One of the most important concepts that you need to understand as early as possible is: What are your demand drivers? Stated differently, why does someone call you?

Small brain boys and girls will say, “Yeah, we get a call when their drains clog/heat is off/roof has a leak”.

You NEED to be in control of your demand. If you only ever learn one thing from me for the rest of time, let it be this - you have all the tools to be in complete and total control of your lead generation and are not beholden to the gods of Google. Let that sink in and really accept it.

It’s easy to sit there and react. It's easy to wait for the roof leak or clogged drain, but in order to move your business forward, you need to be better. You will always stay small unless you build your own demand drivers. You need to create demand.

You need to capture the demand before it becomes demand. How do you do that?

1. Branding/Awareness 🌟

2. Predictive marketing 🎯

3. Service lines/problem finders 💡

4. Dominating Search 🔍

1. Branding and awareness marketing is real and important.

People mistakenly discount this type of marketing because it is more difficult to measure and doesn't drive results “today”. But they’re dumb. It is extremely easy to measure and drive enduring results.

Here's how you measure it:

• Quantity of branded searches against your named keywords. Go use Ahrefs.

• Gross profit will go up because consumers will seek you out directly instead of for the cheapest price. Your leads will prequalify.

2. Predictive marketing is what it sounds like.

Someone is going to have a problem soon, how do you make sure you have made contact with them first?

Here are some examples:

• You are an HVAC company, average HVAC system life is 12 years old. You directly market or canvas 10-year-old neighborhoods because they are getting ready for their very first system swap.

• You are a carpet cleaning company, and you know that most of your work comes from move-ins and outs. You begin targeting neighborhoods that have high move-in/move-out rates using publicly available data. Instead of an average stay duration of 10 years, maybe this neighborhood has a duration of 3.5 years because it's Doctors in residency prepping to buy their first big house but it's close to the hospital.

3. Service lines are services that create lead generation for sales opportunities.

Personally, these are my favorite. I love being paid to generate installation leads. HVAC service is probably the best example of this. System tune-ups are a loss leader service that no one has ever made money on, but they’re used to flip into system replacements.

Nearly every business type has a service line that could be added to their installation line. Apart from profitably generating lead flow, another extremely attractive aspect of this is that the closing rate tends to be significantly higher.

Our tech turnover conversion rate is 80%, in comparison to 0 cold call quotes which are around 35%. THAT’S A BIG DIFFERENCE.

4. Dominating search isn't the subject of this week's letter.

I encourage you to read last week's. It is important because everything you do builds on everything else. Dominating search is a part of a comprehensive demand generation strategy but shouldn't necessarily be the top of your funnel.

Remember, in a world where everyone's vying for attention, seizing control of your lead generation is key. Don't rely solely on Google; create your demand drivers with branding, predictive marketing, service lines, and strategic awareness tactics.

Stay ahead by shaping demand before it even arises. Until next time, take charge and build your path to success!

Cya!

John Wilson
Owned and Operated Weekly Insights

PS—As always, hit me up on Twitter.

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