fire leads

Is your old-fashioned marketing working to grow your fire restoration business?


05 May, 2022

Posted by John Niewiecki

Is your old-fashioned direct marketing the most cost-effective means of earning new business in the fire, water, smoke damage restoration industry?

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A direct mail piece to a targeted audience of 5,000 households in an average county costs approximately $10,000. Or maybe you’re considering a more modern venue to advertise? Pandora ads start at $1500/month and iHeart Media costs are $5,000-$25,000 weekly. Others may consider social media marketing, such as Facebook. In general, a targeted Facebook budget for a small business is at a minimum $1800/month, but many marketing experts for the fire/water/smoke damage industry recommend as much as 5 – 15 percent of total revenue! For a very small restoration company this is easily $50,000/year at a bare minimum!

Nevertheless, this type of brand recognition and awareness in the marketplace certainly has its place in closing sales. It is much easier for a ServiceMaster, Paul Davis Restoration, and ServPro to earn legitimacy in the eyes of a potential customer. Fire restoration companies’ return on their significant investment in brand awareness pays off when it is already proven the work will be done in a workmanlike manner and in a timely fashion. Most people understand ads on the radio, TV, print and so on are expensive, so a swindler is unlikely to spend the money to build brand awareness in the marketplace. Only a legitimate business would find value in incurring such an expense.

Yet these are expensive prices to pay for the off chance when disaster strikes a home or business, the potential customer remembers the brand, associates it with restoring their home, and then makes the call to set up a time for an estimate to be run. There is of course a much higher probability that a homeowner whose life has been turned upside down by a fire or flood will first call their insurance company and in turn, that insurance company will get in contact with the next restoration company on their list.

Will that be your restoration company? Likely not.

Previously, FireRestorationLeads.com published an article about the Ethics of Fire Chasing. We make the case that when people’s lives are affected by a loss of a home or business, they are, without question, in need of help. Unlike ‘ambulance chasing,’ in which a need is conjured up by an unethical lawyer to swindle a business out of money while praying on the irrational greed of a small population of consumers, salespeople from a reputable restoration company are helping a person who wants to be helped, in fact needs to be helped. This is entirely ethical.

Rangecast is one of several options a restoration company can use to be there when a person’s life takes a turn for the worse due to structure damage to their home or business. Real time information about a person in need at a fraction of the price for most legacy marketing tactics is indispensable to growing one’s restoration company revenue and market share. This, coupled with a history of customer satisfaction will be a win/win for everyone from the customer to the salesman, and all the way up to a fire, water, smoke damage restoration company CEO.

John Niewiecki
John@Rangecast.com
(401) 490-JOHN (5646)



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