Pushing Your Brand! - business gaining related

[Dan]

I just wrote a massive post but clicked the back button on my mouse so it's gone FFS so here's a shortened version of what I wrote lol.

It may seem silly to have a 'brand' when you're just a tiler but its powerful to have an image that's recognised as you (both service or product).

So. Have a think about what your company does that others don't (or at least make it appear as though you hve a neiche) and push that in a slogan or logo everywhere you can.

You can have your branding on business cards and flyers, on your van, on your T-shirts and your websites etc. Then when your customers search for a tiler in various places they should find you a couple of times for example... your customer usually will know they are having the job done a while before they need it done so if they haven't got somebody they trust to recommend a tiler then they'll be looking online, in yellow pages, in the tile store, in a DIY centre and even notice boards in newsagents and superstores (tesco etc). So if you have your 'brand' in all the right laces you should find it stick in their mind, certainly a catchy logo with a decent slogan you use everywhere.

You could have your web address on your Stationary and everywhere you advertise and then have a good portfolio on the site to show off your work.

If you pay for advertising (and I recommend you do somewhere) then make sure you are managing your ROI (return on investment) properly. Give anything you consider is worth advertising in/on a few months but nothing more if it hasn't paid for the advertising AND got you some profit. But advertising just once in the odd place can just cost you in the long run as regular users of that source of advertising may not use the guys that they see in a mag for only one month or once on a notice board or whatever.

Don't advertise with anybody who calls you. Yell.com is one of the best free databases for cold callers to use to find naive business owners who are looking for more places to find business from and they will promise you the earth and usually you get nothing in return.

Don't get the branded pens and the charity spots on wall planners (usually cold callers) no matter what they say.

If you have a website then make sure it is ranking for 'Tilers in XXXXX' (XXXX being your main few areas) - See the thread in the Pro's room for tips on ho to rank your website. If you fancy it. Use Google Adwords to get a few hits and set a low monthly budget and low cost per click rates for a few cheap terms but don't try and appear/pay for terms such as 'Tile' or ;Tiling' as Google will show your ads to the wrong people (people looking for tiles for example) and you'll get charged for clicks you don't want.

If you push your brand in enough places you'll be just as popular as all those vans you see driving around your area that you consider to be popular. Yet you know nothing about them.

Pushing a brand can really give you an edge over those that don't bother and if you're sitting and waiting for calls you obviously have time to toy around with a few ideas.

If anybody wants help with their web rankings let me know. If you have an idea for advertising at a cost but want to find more info on it give us all a shout in here and we'll see what info we can get for you.

Good luck to all.