Writer Tess Wittler reminds us of the “power of three” citing a worthy Business Insider posting to back up her observations. Although she stretches beyond three the number of examples, each of them has the “power of three” embedded.
I’ll extend her thoughts with this “power of three” three-pack of ideas for construction marketing success:
ONE: Observe your three “best customers” and what makes them that way — and the health of the relationship. Can you replicate these relationships with others (presumably non-competitive businesses) or extend/expand these relationships.
Note this may be a deceptive challenge. Our “best customer”, a utility, has market service zones that almost exactly match the demographics of some of our regional publications. ?The expenditures are a drop in the organization’s overall marketing budget — so the annual contract for “camera ready” artwork needs relatively little maintenance. Nevertheless, we keep in touch. The question for us: What about clients #2 and #3 — what can we do to understand them better, and enhance/improve the relationships. This will be an early-in-the-year challenge.
TWO: Assume word-of-mouth (referral) and repeat business are your two main sources of business. What is your third — what produces the highest overall business results for the least cost? Then, what can you do to enhance/improve your yield on these three main priorities.
You may find advertising in certain media is highly effective, but more likely you’ll get the results from association/community participation and your website and possibly social media. Whichever priorities are generating the highest current results will likely produce the highest incremental gains with a bit of thought and planning.
THREE:?What are your three biggest time and money wasters? For that matter, what are any three time and money wasters? Get rid of them. Then go to the next three. And so on.
In a three-month period, we’ve managed to hack about $2,000 a month in business overhead costs — and the cuts have been planned to have no impact on client service or product value. In other words, these were just wasteful things we took for granted as “necessary” or “always that way”. In our business, the multiplier for discretionary expenses as a basis of cost/profitability is a factor of seven — (another interesting prime number if you want to get mathematical). So, $24,000 in overhead savings means our sales break-even point has declined?by $168,000 annually. The money freed up can go to dividends or strategic investment — perhaps on a bucket list of three projects to try when money is available.
Can you set your own three goals/marketing priorities? If you wish, please share them as a comment or by email to buckshon@constructionmarketingideas.com.
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