The following article was originally published on our main agency website. We’ve gone through the process now of setting up these Google Guarantee Ads for a couple of roofers and they’re seeing great results. We know this is going to be huge for auto repair shops as well. We hope you find value in this article. Let us know if you have any questions about Google Guarantee Ads or the process of becoming verified. The best way to do that is to join our Facebook group – “Auto Repair Marketing Mastermind” – and ask in there, that way others benefit from your questions and comments.
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I recently wrote a blog post about the importance of marketing after an event and this post is specifically about post-event marketing as well. However, it has a different spin on it. Working with small businesses on a daily basis, I encounter more and more professionals who are unfortunately more reactive in their marketing than proactive. As we near the end of the year, I want to encourage you to carve out some time to take a good hard look at your marketing efforts of this year. Your next year’s planning starts with what you’ve already done, finding what has worked and what has not.
When we work with clients on developing a solid marketing plan, it is important to always ask the question “What have you been doing?” We find it incredibly important to establish a baseline of what marketing efforts have already been put into place, what did well, what didn’t do well and what can be done better. Once you have a solid understanding of your past marketing efforts then you can really begin brainstorming, creating and planning your future marketing efforts.
Today, however, I want to really address how to look at your past marketing efforts and better use them for your future planning.
When analyzing your past marketing efforts, I want to encourage you not to simply file the failed attempts at marketing in the ‘failure’ file but to look at each one of them individually. A really good idea may have not delivered the results you were hoping for but it could be put together in a more successful manner. It is possible that reusing a past marketing strategy that is packaged a little differently can deliver greater results. Let’s take, for example, our most recent Small Business Saturday efforts. We created a campaign offering free Small Business Saturday marketing classes, joined the Shop Small National Campaign as a Neighborhood Champion and offered our own Small Business Saturday Marketing package to help busy businesses create and launch their own promotions. Now that it is finished, we have learned a few things. Many would probably have filed this entire campaign in the ‘failure’ category; however, after looking at our campaign I feel that we would be remiss not to offer it again. When we offer this again next year, though, we will put it together a little differently. Our classes had low attendance, but we have an idea of why and that is because many people who would benefit didn’t feel like it applied to them. So our messaging for who should attend will change. Not one business took advantage of our special promotion, but when we offer it again, we will create a smaller package that is more budget friendly for the small business owner. Next time, when we launch our Small Business Saturday campaign it will be designed using information we have learned from the first time it was offered.
Some of the questions to ask when looking at your past marketing efforts are:
- Can I launch my campaign at a better time?
- Should I focus on a different audience?
- How can you re-work your pricing, special, offer or promotion for a bigger outcome?
- Can your campaign be strategically partnered with another complimentary business?
- Did you miss out on any co-promotion opportunities?
- Are there other forms or marketing you can take advantage of such as Chamber of Commerce promotions, business organizations, etc.
Some of your best ideas may have already been put into action but may leave you feeling as though they are marketing failures. I want to encourage you to not leave them filed in that folder but to pull them back out, look them over thoroughly and with a little bit of reworking re-launch them with a fresh new plan. I hope that this inspired you not to give up on some of the plans you’ve had that came with a lot of thought and passion but didn’t end the way you had hoped. Relight that fire and try again!
