Promotions and Strategy in Marketing

Learn how to create and storyboard ideas for promotions in contracting. There are no right or wrong answers in marketing promotions, only those that drive sales and those that do not! The only correct answer is to have a promotion in play during your shoulder selling seasons. We all have low seasons or times when sales are slow, the key is to plan ahead and set a budget so we know how many leads and sales we need to fill the buckets. Learn in this video how to develop the plan around these ideas and never have a losing season ever again! We take you through the best practice of costing financing as a promotion, and developing a specific figure of sales and calls-to-actions, which will get consumers to say YES today rather than waiting until its peak season to buy.

Run Time: 30:41

Promotions - The Slow Season Profits Checklist

Use this checklist to develop and define your own shoulder season checklist plan to make money even in the off periods. Each company needs its own process checklist to follow the strategy during the softer selling seasons.

3 Page Document

"Sweet 16" Promotion Offer - Equipment Promotion

This is an example letter to be utilized in a variety of ways in a marketing funnel. 1. Existing client email drip campaign 2. Social media post 3. Letter to technicians to hand to service agreement club customers 4. Possible external direct campaign to new target customers. In all cases, the important aspect is to have a conversation with a prospect, not to push, but to educate and have a real offer that is truly a seasonal win for the homeowner. Then track and measure the results.

1 Page Document

"Sweet 16" Alternate Promotion Offer - Equipment Promotion

A second version of the Sweet 16 offer - as you move through your customer base, the offer may need to change and adapt. As we discussed about American Express, they use 13 variations of promotions on one customer target, before acknowledging it didn't work on THAT customer. Follow the marketing model and track the results.

2 Page Document

"Sweet 16" Technician Flyer Offer - Equipment Promotion

This is an example letter for laminated technician flyers to be utilized primarily on a service/maintenance call. It can be used in a variety of ways in a marketing funnel. 1. Existing client email drip campaign 2. Social media post 3. Letter to technicians to hand to service agreement club customers 4. Possible external direct campaign to new target customers. In all cases, the important aspect is to have a conversation with a prospect, not to push, but to educate and have a real offer that is truly a seasonal win for the homeowner. Then track and measure the results.

2 Page Document

"Sweet 16" 2nd Letter Variation to Prospects - Lucky 16

This is an example letter to be utilized as a follow-up in the marketing funnel as a second targeted communication. Different uses include: 1. Existing client email drip campaign 2. Social media post 3. Letter to technicians to hand to service agreement club customers 4. Possible external direct campaign to new target customers In all cases the important aspect is to have a conversation with a prospect, not to push, but to educate and have a real offer that is truly a seasonal win for the homeowner. Then track and measure the results.

1 Page Document

Postcard Follow-Up - Alternate Promotion Offer: Equipment Discount

This is an example postcard as a follow-up with a $50 off coupon. It's a shoulder season promotion. This can be utilized in a variety of ways in a marketing funnel. 1. Existing client email drip campaign as a follow-up. 2. Social media post. 3. Targeted database direct mail postcard campaign following up with existing targets we have mailed. In all cases, the important aspect is to have a conversation with a prospect, not to push, but to educate and have a real offer that is truly a seasonal win for the homeowner. Then track and measure the results.

2 Page Document

"Let's Make a Deal" - Shoulder Season Equipment Promotion

Let's Make a Deal - This is an example letter to be utilized in a variety of ways in a marketing funnel. 1. Existing client email drip campaign. 2. Social media post. 3. Letter to technicians to hand to service agreement club customers. 4. Possible external direct campaign to new target customers. In all cases, the important aspect is to have a conversation with a prospect, not to push, but to educate and have a real offer that is truly a seasonal win for the homeowner. Then track and measure the results.

2 Page Document

Example Promotion - "Santa's Return"

Here is an example promotion, "Santa's Return," for a January shoulder season. This is an example of a direct mail promotion for marketing to new customers.

1 Page Document

Promotions and Call-to-Action for Marketing & Sales Calculator

Use this tool as a planner to establish your costs for all promotions. We then have a percentage we can utilize for budget purposes.

Sweet Promotion - Selling Equipment To Club Customers in Shoulder Seasons

A common issue in the trades is selling equipment jobs in our slower shoulder seasons. How do we do it? How do we act and behave like a retailer and promote with a call to action so stellar people cannot say no? And the answer is to create the promotion around your sweet spot, whatever that is. Here is an example pricing template to exemplify what we have called the Sweet 16 -- which is a replacement job for a two-stage AC and furnace for a specified price with an extended warranty going out to 16 years with a maintained club agreement. While we typically give the first three years to the customer in the sale, we ask they maintain the remaining years on our club program at a specified price to allow proper maintenance to be done and ensure the equipment is kept clean and operating well. The pricing tool contains some special pricing for manufacturers, some special commission rates and labor pay during the slow season. This raises the question: Will you take less so we can sell some items and keep you busy? We also tie a bonus to GP production in the company, so this all helps achieve the target. During the slow season we all take less -- set your promotion up and be sure to price it well.

Promotional ROI Tracking Tool for Evaluation

This template allows you to create attribution to a campaign. We spend additional marketing monies, but how do we know if this was a worthwhile choice? Attribution of the promotion can be viewed as revenue, but revenues do not pay your bills. It is profit from a campaign that we truly care about - how much we sold is important, but what what we actually kept from those sales is the key stat: return on investment (ROI). This tool is from a real campaign, a real set of costs, and figures, so you can edit those out and use this tool for your own campaign attribution. ALL CAMPAIGNS should be measured for success so you have a report card on the campaign and can adapt as needed.