Moving Company Marketing & Web Design
Most moving companies experience a seasonal lull during the year and struggle to find ways to keep busy. While the number of clients interested in your services at a specific time of the year cannot be controlled, you can fill that time with marketing and advertising strategies to convert those looking into new and return customers. When working on plans to gain new customers, it is important to remember that just about every person is a potential lead, as most move several times in their lives and need help.
Built into most marketing and advertising strategies is a digital aspect. Customers do not want to pick up the phone to set up an appointment when it can be done via online form or through a website. Therefore, most of the following marketing tips for growing your moving company are focused in the digital area:
Design an Effective Website
Your moving company website should be the focal point of your digital marketing strategy. Most new leads will check your website, so it must create a strong impression as you will be judged based on offers, content, and the overall image; it’s an emotional response. Your website is also the first place to communicate the value of your services and set yourself apart from the competition. It must be simple, modern and clear.
To accomplish these goals, you need to hire a professional web design agency. Your website should be informational and constantly filled with new information. Also, you want to use a lot of visuals such as videos and photographs. Avoid overusing stock photos and utilize a hero image.
Develop a Video
Videos are visually appealing, interactive, and fun! They can creatively get across your message quickly and beautifully then be added to YouTube for the world to access. YouTube is an excellent resource because it is free, you can optimize your video for a search, and there is significantly less competition with a large number of customer searches. Plus, with Google Adwords, you can run your video as an advertisement through Youtube!
Facebook Advertisements
Most moving companies disregard the idea of Facebook marketing. Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for you), Facebook is a powerful tool to reach customers. Facebook holds a tremendous amount of information on people so you can utilize target demographics and life events to predict when an individual might move. For instance, a woman in the 20-40 demographic who is married, expecting a child and lives in an apartment with an annual income over $75K will likely be moving in the future after the child is born. Give them your information.
Facebook literally lets businesses advertise with this level of accuracy. Taking this a step further, Facebook features a “likely to move” filter based on user behaviors, life events, and buying patterns. As a moving company, you can select that filter for your target demographic and location, and see the size of your audience.
Implement and Utilize a CRM
Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is a cloud-based program that records every interaction with potential clients. It helps you setup follow-up tasks with prospects at different times, so you do not forget. They also include integrated forms which import customer’s information into the database. The point of the CRM is to eliminate manual follow-up and ensure you provide the best possible service to your customers.
Online Reputation Management
There is one online content type that is more influential than a website or social media: online reviews. Nowadays, they are everywhere and critical to the moving industry. Google, Facebook, Yelp, and others all specialize in customer reviews, so it is important to respond to positive and negative feedback in a non-argumentative manner. Consumers trust online reviews, and they expect the most reputable and authoritative companies to have them. If you have a poor review profile, it will cost you new business.
There are two critical steps to generate positive online reviews:
Awareness
Simply be aware that your company will have reviews written by clients, one way or another. They could be about the quality of the work, the moving speed, the cost, work ethic, anything really. If your work is excellent, then it is likely you will receive positive reviews and vice-versa. Simply put, if you strive for excellence and go above-and-beyond for your consumers, your reviews will be highly rated.
Request Reviews
For satisfied customers, it is not unreasonable to request that they leave reviews at the end of a job. Unfortunately, the majority of online reviews are negative because unhappy customers are more motivated to write them. If the move went smoothly, ask for a positive review, most would comply.
Search Engine Marketing/SEO
When potential clients want to look up a moving company, they use Google. It is a huge advantage to have your company appear at the top of the results. This is accomplished in three ways:
PPC
Pay-per-click or PPC advertising uses the Google AdWords auction system to bid on keywords. The higher the bid, the higher the placement on the page.
Google My Business
Google My Business is a free listing that links to local search and Google Maps. For this reason, it is crucial to optimize your service listing and description with keywords.
Organically
Organic is driven by search engine optimization whereby you optimize your website with content, target keywords, meta information and generate quality backlinks to your site and blog through social media, influencers and other natural sources.
Utilize Marketing Software
Marketing in today’s economy is significantly more complicated than in the past where a Yellow Pages advertisement was enough. The blessing of technology is the ability to more specifically target and reach customers at the right time with an appealing message. The curse of technology is that the management can be difficult and time-consuming at first. There are multiple marketing software packages available that can track and view data, calculate return on investment, assign tasks, send out promotional emails, and so much more. It would benefit your company to purchase such software, so you have an even better understanding of the marketing landscape and your potential consumers.
