Why Planning Before You Inspect Attracts More Clients
So, you are now a Certified Home Inspector. You are ready to start building your home inspection business, and share your services with everyone you know. The question is how do you attract clients? Should you dive right into promoting your business or should you plan out your approach?
Plan Before You Conquer...
You may have heard the quote by Benjamin Franklin, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” Well, this statement is entirely right. Many business owners make the common mistake of not planning and diving into business in the hope of a positive return. This approach rarely happens, and it is extremely risky. Imagine getting into a car without reading any instructions. You jump into the car, and you expect to move? You must follow some key steps before the vehicle will move and take you to your destination.
Like driving, marketing your business requires some key steps before you start. You need to understand your target audience. You need to know your competitors. You need to know your companies strengths and weaknesses. You need to know how much it will cost you to reach your clients and more. If you want to grow your business, you need to know how to market. Marketing is crucial to the success of any business and having a comprehensive marketing plan is strongly recommended. An effective marketing plan supports your business plan and identifies the best approach to reach your target audience. Your marketing plan outlines your business’ marketing strategy and tactics, which covers a variety of marketing-related elements, such as costs, goals, and action steps.
Like your business plan, your marketing plan should not remain static, but your plan should evolve as your home inspection business grows, and as new and changing marketing trends develop.
3 Benefits of Creating A Marketing Plan
Your marketing plan provides you with clarity. Your plan will show you who your market is and how to connect with prospective clients.
Your marketing plan will help you craft marketing messages that yield results. Marketing is about knowing how your service can help your target market. Your marketing messages need to speak to your target market’s needs directly.
Your marketing plan will provide you with focus and direction. There are a lot of marketing choices to distribute your messages, such as advertising, email campaigns, guest blogging, direct mail, publicity, social media to name a few. Your marketing plan will help you determine the best course of action for your business.
Remember, like a business plan, a marketing plan is a living, breathing document, so you should keep your marketing plan up-to-date, and there are many factors that can influence your marketing results. These factors include market conditions, demand for your service, pricing, and new marketing methods such as changes in social media or the introduction of a new social media platform, so consider these factors and adjust your plan accordingly.
So, before you take the big leap and start spreading the word about your business, set aside some time to create a sound marketing plan for your business because the biggest benefit of preparing your plan is engaging in a process of thinking through important questions related to your home inspection business. Also, your marketing plan will help you address the daily challenges of operating your business. The question you must ask yourself. Can you afford to launch and run your home inspection business without a marketing plan?
Elonda Stokes, Marketing Coach and Founder of Stokes Marketing
Stokes Marketing | Innovative Marketing and More
