Summary
With marketing being such an important piece of owning and operating a moving business, why are so many moving companies failing in their marketing today?
5 reason why moving companies are failing in their marketing today:
- Don’t Know Their ROI – It’s important to the success of a moving company that they know which sources of marketing are profitable and which are not. Companies that don’t track their return on investment (ROI) for the money they spend on marketing will continue to struggle to increase profits in their business.
- No Sales Funnels – In order for a moving company to maximize their marketing efforts, it’s crucial that there are systems and sales funnels for increasing the amount of moves they book for each opportunity they have. The marketing only makes the phone ring or brings in a lead, it’s what happens once the company receives that opportunity that will make the biggest impact on their bottom line.
- Not Testing, Tracking, Tweaking – To effectively manage the marketing for a moving company there are three things that need to be done — testing, tracking, and tweaking. Test any and all sources, track them to see if they working and then tweak them and make adjustments until they are profitable.
- Not Building Trust & Capturing Leads – Every piece of marketing from a website to postcards should be designed to build trust and capture leads, that’s it. Build trust with prospective customers and have direct calls to action so they call your office or fill out a request for estimate form on your website.
- Marketing is Not on the Calendar – What gets scheduled gets done. The last reason why moving companies are failing in marketing is that the owner doesn’t have it on the calendar and therefore it’s not consistently being worked on.
There was a time when I failed in all these areas and wasn’t doing any of these things. But I slowly started to figure out how each of these areas was hurting the growth of my business so I shifted gears.
If you find yourself failing in any of these areas, that’s ok. Watch the video above where I share with you what to do to get things on track and maximize the marketing efforts for your moving company.
Watch the video above for the full episode.
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Full Transcript
[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]
Hey, my friend, it’s Louis Massaro, CEO of Moving Mastery and founder of Moving Sales Academy. Why are so many moving companies failing in their marketing today? I wanna give you five of the top reasons why I see moving companies failing in their marketing. And it’s not to make you feel bad if one of these five are something that you’re doing. These are things that I used to do until I discovered that they were hurting me, and they were causing me to, essentially, hold me back from getting to the level I was trying to get to. I wanna share these with you, because, sometimes, I could share what to do, but I wanna share with you what not to do, and some of the reasons that could be causing you to not get to the level that you’re trying to get to. And these are five of those reasons.
The first reason why moving companies are failing in their marketing today, is they don’t know their ROI. They don’t know their return on investment for each and every individual marketing source. This is huge. If you’re gonna be able to grow your company, if you’re gonna know where to spend your money in marketing without being scared, it’s very easy to see an opportunity to put your money in a different lead source, or a different paper click campaign, or whatever it is, and be nervous about that outlay of money. But when you know the ROI, when you have a report that tells you, “Hey, you spent $1,000, but you made $12,000.” When you know that information, it gives you power into your business. It gives you a sense of clarity and control into your business. Without that, you’re kind of in the dark, scared, like throwing darts, trying to hit something. It becomes very hard to manage a business, let alone the stress levels when you don’t know, “Hey, I’m spending $5,000 on marketing this month. How much am I getting back, not in total, but for each individual lead source?” So that’s the number one reason why moving companies are failing. If you’re not doing that now, if you’re not doing a monthly marketing ROI report, start. Trust me when I tell you, it’ll lay the groundwork and the foundation for your growth. You’ll have the clarity, you’ll know your numbers, and the numbers don’t lie.
Second reason, no sales funnels. So we go out, we spend all this money on marketing, or we go out, and we build our referral networks of realtors, and mortgage brokers, and apartment complexes, and we’re doing paper click ads, we’re doing direct mail campaigns, we’re buying moving leads, we’re doing all these things, but what happens when the phone rings? What happens when the lead comes into your CRM? What’s the process after that? What’s the process to get ’em on the phone? What’s the process for after you give an estimate, to follow up? What are you saying on each and every call, you and your team? It’s so important that you know what that process is like. I think we take for granted the fact that, for the most part, if you’re a moving company and you’re out there advertising, you’re gonna book some moves. It’s hard to book no moves. You’re gonna book some moves, so it’s a false sense of success. Well, my question to you is, are you highly profitable? Are you taking home the amount of money that you wanna be taking home? And if the answer is no, it’s time that you build out, and you really think through what your sales process is like, what that funnel is like, from the minute the lead or the phone call comes in, for that marketing dollar that you’re spending, what happens with that lead? What happens with that phone call? It’s time to really think that through.
Listen, there was a time where I didn’t need to think that through. Back in 2000, 2001, 2002, we had big Yellow Page ads, and the phone just rang off the hook, and it was like taking orders. But now, there’s quite a bit of competition out there. There’s a lot of people that want that business, and there’s a lot of people in the market that are online advertising. In order for you to be effective, it’s not about just spending more money in marketing. It’s about building that sales process, that’s gonna ensure that you’re not pouring money into a bucket and the bucket’s full of holes. You wanna make sure that you seal up those holes, so the money that you’re pouring in is for marketing. Every dollar you spend on marketing, coming into, essentially, your funnel, your bucket, you need to plug the holes, and make sure you have a solid sales process. That’s the number two reason why movers are failing with their marketing today.
The third reason, they’re not testing, tracking, or tweaking. These are the three steps for marketing. This is how you manage marketing today. You know what your ROI is. You set up your marketing ROI report, then you test everything. There’s a new lead source that you heard about? Try it out, then track it to see how well it does, then tweak it and make adjustments. There’s a lot of adjustments that could be made these days. It’s not so black and white. You might say, “Hey, I tried advertising Google AdWords and it didn’t work. It cost me way too much money.” You know how much tweaking could be done to a campaign like that, to the landing page that they land on, to the campaign itself, to your sales funnel on the back end? That’s a very profitable source if it’s done correctly, but you need to be able to test, track, and tweak everything.
Be open to testing. Start small with something. Someone calls and you have a new lead source, try a few of the leads. Most marketing, these days, doesn’t require a long-term commitment. Try it out. Make sure you’re tracking it. Make sure that every lead that comes in your system, every phone call that comes in, you know exactly where it came from. You have tracking numbers and you know exactly where it came from. And then you tweak and make adjustments, and if it’s not profitable, which you’ll be able to see in black and white on your marketing report, then you cut off that source. And if you have another source that’s very profitable, where you could put more money to it, then you take the money from the company that you cut off, and add that to the company that’s profitable. Testing, tracking, tweaking, you wanna make sure you start doing that right away.
Fourth reason moving companies are failing with their marketing is their marketing is not designed to build trust and capture leads. Every single piece of marketing that you do, your website, your brochures, your postcards, your truck, should be designed to build trust with the customer and capture leads. That’s it. You wanna know the main purpose of your website? This is it. Build trust with the pictures you have, with the language you have, with the endorsements on there that you have, and capture leads with the phone numbers in the right place, with the lead form set up correctly. That’s the whole purpose. It’s not a big shiny brochure. It’s to build trust and capture leads. That’s it. Next time you design your website, a postcard, anything, look at it and say, “Is this building trust? Is this, what I have in here, is this causing the customer to feel trust towards my company, based on the pictures that I’m using, based on the language that I’m using, based upon my license number, and my credentials, and my BBB logo, and everything else? And does it have a direct call to action? Am I capturing that phone call? Am I capturing that lead? Am I guiding the customer where I want them to go, so that I get that opportunity to book the job?” Build trust and capture leads, it’s all you need to do when you’re designing your marketing pieces.
And the fifth and final reason moving companies are failing with their marketing today, marketing’s not on the calendar. We get so busy running our companies… And listen, I get this. [chuckle] I’ve struggled with all this myself. I don’t want you to think that this is… Hey, listen, if you struck out on all five of these things, that’s okay. But if you’re watching this and you’re saying, “Hey, man, I need to do something about it,” then you’re in a much better position, than if you didn’t know about these. I struggled with all this too, until I realized that they were causing me to hold me back. But if it’s not on your calendar, if you don’t take the time to work on marketing, it’s not gonna get done. You have all these five points, and if you don’t actually go on your calendar, and schedule time to work on these things, it’s not gonna get done.
I know, if you’re watching this, I know you have some really good marketing ideas. I know you might be watching half my videos and say, “I already know that. I already know that.” Knowledge is not power; applied knowledge is power. And the only way you’re gonna be able to apply this stuff is if you carve out time for it. I know what it is to run a small business. I know what it is to be the only person there, and then I know what it is to have hundreds of employees. Regardless of where you’re at, you can always feel busy. But, when it comes to something as important as the fuel for your business, and that’s what marketing is, it’s the fuel that feeds your sales, you have to make time for it. You have to put it on your calendar.
Here’s what I’m challenging you to do: Before this video’s over, I want you to go, and pull out your calendar, and I want you to see a blank spot, and I just want you to put an hour for marketing. That’s it. Put it on the calendar. Who cares what you’re gonna do when you get to that point? It could be two weeks from now. It could be three weeks from now. It could be today. But you need to schedule it and you need to take care of these things. You need to know your ROI. You need to start working on your sales funnels and your sales process. You need to test, track, and tweak any and all marketing sources. You’re gonna be able to know what’s working based on your ROI report. Make sure all of your… Anything you have out there now, your website, your postcards, whatever it is, take a look at it, and see if it’s building trust, and geared towards capturing leads, and then get it on the calendar. If you start doing these things, you’re gonna see a major, major difference in the way your business runs.
Listen, I hope this was helpful. Until I see you next week, go out there every single day, profit in your business, thrive in your life. I’ll see you next time.