Is there still a place for offline marketing in a digital world?

Andy
Yeah.

Ange
Do you actually remember what we said at the end?

Andy
Are you serious? Like this was last year? Like I’m hard pressed to remember what I did yesterday, let alone last year.

Ange
Okay, fair enough. So where we’re discussing why online marketing is great for exposure in today’s digital focus world, but I mentioned that while that’s great offline marketing still does have its place.

Andy
Gotcha! I definitely remember that now and I’m guessing this episode we’re gonna talk a little bit about offline marketing. Is that right?

Ange
We have a winner.

Andy
Oh, fantastic. I mean, I absolutely agree that offline marketing, it definitely, definitely has its place. Now we’re not really talking about the old school stuff, like placing an ad in a printed yellow page, but stuff like magnets and flyers which we’ll get to in a minute, but they absolutely still have a place in your local area. They definitely do.

Ange
Oh my gosh. Yellow Pages. I know they have an online directory now, but I kind of pushed it to the back of my mind that those thick yellow books that get delivered to everyone’s house once a year. What a flashback.

Andy
Yeah, it is a bit of a flashback, but we gotta remember too, in some parts of Australia, especially rural, yellow pages are still a bit of a thing. And I think we received a Yellow Pages book or directory recently. I hadn’t seen one in a very long time and people still advertise in them, and I’ve got no doubt that they still get work from them. It’s just hard to believe they’re still around because things change. But things always come back into fashion too.

Ange
Absolutely. And I guess it depends on who’s in the market, right? This comes back to who’s your avatar.

Andy
Exactly.

Ange
So, hey, it also makes me think about local newspapers, cuz that’s also an offline marketing tactic. And you and I actually had a fight back in the day for placing this really stupidly cheap ad. Do you remember?

Andy
Yes, I remember, but I’m sure you’re dying to tell everyone how wrong I was. Come on, spill the beans. I’ve heard it before.

Ange
I am. And you were wrong.

Andy
I am? Yeah. Yeah. I’m sorry. I was wrong, Angela.

Ange
So for those who don’t know, my background in marketing before I joined Andy in Dr. Drip, I was managing this multimillion dollar marketing budget for this huge brand. Anyway, when Andy asked me for some help with Dr. Drip’s marketing, I of course said totally! I’m more than happy to help. And my first point of call was putting an ad in our local newspaper here on the northern beaches of Sydney. This newspaper was called the Manly Daily. And have you lived here, you’ve read every page everyday. Anyway, it was like 280 bucks or something ridiculously cheap, and I didn’t think anything of it because it was like pennies compared to the budgets that I was used to dealing with. But for Andy, it was huge, which ultimately led to this huge blowup over me placing this ad simply because I didn’t get his approval.

Andy
Because I was a control freak and it had to be done my way, right?

Ange
Yes. Talk about a control freak. It’s a lesson in staying in your lane. I knew exactly what I was doing here and actually so did you. So you needed to just let me get on with it. And you know what? It’s all in the past now anyway, we can move on and I can say, I told you so.

Andy
You can say that like many times over a long period of time, but yes, I, I agree. We definitely need to move on.

Ange
Okay. That was super subtle. Hey. Yes. So, alright, let’s get into it. So I mentioned digital marketing is like a shiny toy for businesses. Everyone’s flocking to social media and the internet and you know what? Not without good reason cuz it is such a great way to reach customers and potential customers. But, and here’s the but, everyone seems to be moving towards that space and it’s leaving a huge gap within the offline marketing space. And that’s what I wanna talk about.

Andy
Yeah. It’s sort of a bit like how the mullet has come back in fashion. Isn’t it? I mean, I remember back in the good old days when I had long hair past my shoulders and a mullet enlisted the Bon Jovi. But everything definitely does come around again.

Ange
I thought that stuff should probably stay in the past.

Andy
But I can’t grow any hair anymore. But anyway.

Ange
So before we dive into specific offline marketing tactics that you guys can use for impact in your trade business, I do wanna just go back and recap the marketing formula we teach just so that it kind of makes a bit more sense. So this is called the A C D R formula, and it does need to include both online and offline marketing strategies and tactics. It stands for, attract, convert, deliver, and retain. So let me just explain this a bit. So attract is all about how you attract new leads to the business. Like who’s your avatar? Where do you find them? What do you say to them to get them interested? Converts all about what you do and say, to convert these leads into paying customers, or perhaps to increase their spend on site. Deliver is all about the sales skills you develop to build trust and provide exceptional service whilst you are on site. And you wanna lead them feeling amazing about using your services. And then lastly, the R is retained because we know that marketing for new leads costs more than retaining your current ones. So we want them to come back, plus recommend them to you, recommend us, sorry to their friends.

Andy
Exactly, and you really need to have a few marketing strategies in your trade businesses that hit all four of these areas to ensure you are making the most of your marketing buck. You can’t pull all your marketing budget into just attracting new customers. Because if you don’t have any system to convert them into paying customers, you’re in a whole lot of trouble. You would end up with a bottleneck of lost opportunities, plus you’d be pouring good money down the drain.

Ange
Yeah, that’s right. So in this episode, what we wanna do is share with you one proven offline marketing tactic from each of the A C D R formula that you can go away and use to help improve your marketing immediately. If you want a huge list of over 120 different marketing strategies and tactics that you can use in your trade business, you can head straight to our resource. So go to lifestyletradie.com.au/free-resources and download one of our free resources, which was called Tactical Marketing for Tradies. We’ll also add a link in the show notes.

Andy
Wow, that is pretty cool. So make sure you do that. All right, let’s get straight into it.

Ange
Okay, so we’re talking about offline marketing, all right, anything that isn’t digital. So Andy, let’s start with one of your favorite offline marketing tactics for attracting strategies.

Andy
I’d say probably one of the best ones over the years has been the mailout. Like I’m talking flyers, flyers with magnets, anything that you can deliver to a letter box in your local area. But going back a few years, this definitely was one of the favorite marking strategies for us in Dr. Drip. And, um, we did very well using this strategy, but like all strategies, everyone started to jump on the back of it. And before he knew it, people’s letter boxes were full of magnets, weren’t they?

Ange
Yeah. I guess when other tradies got on board with this kind of strategy, the cut through wasn’t necessarily there, right? Because it became really popular.

Andy
Well at the start, you know, you’d go to someone’s house and you’d see a magnet on there and you’d have a plumber, maybe an electrician, but it got to a stage where you’d go to some people’s houses and they’d be like 50 magnets all over the place and be like, oh my God, how do you know which magnet to choose? Like there were just so many and times have changed a little bit with different styles of fridges and that, but there’s still definitely a market for it. There’s no doubt about it. And I think trade business owners have forgotten to see the power in using this tactic. You know, humans are tactile. We like to touch paper, magnets, you know, things in general. Not to mention, we are super keen to work with trade people who are local in an area, and I still believe this strategy definitely has its place. And there’s still quite a few guys doing it, and I know they are still doing it well.

Ange
So when you say, well, what does it mean to do it well?

Andy
Yeah. When I mean doing well, like if we just talk about the magnet side of things, um, on a flyer, I still think there’s a place for that. I know I’ve had the odd tradie reach out and go, it didn’t work for me. But it’s the way you position it, it’s the local areas you’re targeting and who you’re targeting, and some people miss that point. So that’s definitely one. But even just flies from your trades people. You know, when you are working in a street, everyone can see your trucks and your vans. I can see all the logos and it’s really not that hard just to be slipping a couple of flyers. We used to have a rule that it was five doors up from where we were working five doors down and another five across the road. But obviously the mall, the merrier. But having that personalized flyer that was from Dr. Drip worked really well. And the way we’d say is we are working in your neighborhood and uh, we thought we’d just drop in a note to see if you needed any help with your plumbing issues in your home, and we’d love to help. So call us today and the thing with this strategy, it’s efficient and it’s real low cost. Yes, you gotta get your tradies to do it, and that’s another thing. But you know, you’ve just hit 15 houses within five minutes and we definitely got the odd job here and there out of there. And those little one percenters, those little jobs here and there do make a big difference when you look over a year.

Ange
Yeah, definitely personalized and genuine when you are actually in the area and the customer sees those vehicles. It’s not perceived as spam, I suppose, like it might otherwise. And to your point, it also saves a tunnel postage cuz that’s so expensive these days.

Andy
Yeah. I dare to say that as letterbox marketing has dropped off over the years, the only male people these days are bills and brochures and a hell of a lot of crap. I mean, I know personally, I still, when I get the stuff outta the letterbox, I can tell if it’s visible that’s a tradie or if it’s in a blank envelope from a tradie. I know what it is, but I still open it up and have a look, and I still think there’s definitely a place, you know, and it’s a way of standing out in a real busy crowd in a local area that you want to dominate.

Ange
So now that you’ve attracted the customer to the business, let’s go back to the A C D R formula and look at the next one, which is about convert. So I wanna talk specifically about sales for this one, which is a convert strategy and converting that person from a lead when they call you to be a customer is one of the most important parts of the process. And how you answer that phone will literally make or break the sale.

Andy
Yeah, we literally harp on about this all the time, so much. So we did an episode just dedicated to this single convert strategy. If you’re keen to learn it in detail, then check out an episode cord, convert more calls into paying customers. I’ll drop the link in the show notes.

Ange
But as Andy said in that episode, what you say on the phone does need to be perfect. That’s why there’s a specific sales process to ensure that you get them to do literally just one thing. Which is to get the customer to say yes to you coming on site to either give them a quote or to complete the work.

Andy
Exactly! And in Dr. Drip, we had a nine step core converter that was a step-by-step process. And a script for the person who was answering the phones so they could stop talking about price upfront and increase the chances of a customer saying yes to booking an appointment every single time. So if you’re still out there answering the phone with a graph, hello, how can I help you? And a low care factor, then it’s time to cut the crap and check out our episode on how to convert more calls.

Ange
Yeah. And then once you’re on site, you still need to think about converting them because they’ve said yes to coming on site, but they haven’t actually said yes to you completing the work.

Andy
Yeah! With Dr. Drip, we also use an information booklet. It’s a printed A5 booklet of about 16 to 20 pages. That is both a credibility piece for us as a business. But also to tell the customer about the information they need to know to make the decision to say yes to getting things done in their house.

Ange
Yeah. It also gave us an opportunity to talk about credibility, like awards We’ve won the opportunity of visually showcasing images of our professional team. Talk about the number of years in business.

Andy
Yeah, so in the booklet we like to outline the most profitable and the most common services that we’d like our customers to choose when using our business. And it just helps the customer with their decision making as well. The thing is, people can literally just Google this stuff if they really wanna find out what’s going on, but they don’t know what they don’t know, and hence having something tangible that is branded to your business that the tradesperson can share with the customer while on site is super, super powerful. And if you don’t have one, I’d definitely recommend it.

Ange
The thing that I actually loved about it was that it took the focus of the decision making away from you versus me. Instead it placed the focus squarely on let’s make this decision together, because you’re looking at an information booklet together, like literally side by side. And it makes them think, wow, these guys actually know their stuff. How about we just, let’s go ahead with the job. Which then leads us into deliver. So what do we do when we are delivering them a great service, when you think about offline marketing tactics?

Andy
Well, for us, we did something super simple, yet really, really effective. We like to leave the client with a little gift. You know, we had these branded water drop stress balls, which everyone really seemed to love. And we also had some branded jelly beans and also some pens, and at the end of each job, we’d hand them to the customer and thank them for using our services. It was almost like the cherry on the top of the ice cream, a nice way to end the service. You know, most times we’d hand it to them, but we also tried leaving it in certain places and leaving it as a surprise. But I think the best way is to hand it to them directly and if they’ve got kids, ask them if the kids are okay to have some jelly beans. We definitely had a couple of customers. We weren’t happy with the jelly beans because they, the Dr. Drip branding orange and blue, and people seem to remind us that the blue color is not a great color. Was that right?

Ange
Well, this is what gives the kids a sugar high, right?

Andy
Oh, yes.

Ange
Yes.

Andy
And if they do decide to give the kids the lollies, woo-hoo, all the toys, there’s no doubt they’ll be pestering mom and dad to bring back the Dr. Drip tradies so they can get more lollies.

Ange
Yeah. What was cool about this was actually staying top of mind, right? So for those out there who are perhaps more project-based trade business owners with a higher average dollar sale, let’s talk, you know, builders or maybe landscapers, you guys might wanna consider giving a bigger gift. Make it relevant to the spend they have. So for example, if you’re a builder who just completed a brand new home, then leaving a really good quality bottle of champagne and a hamper with a handwritten note that welcomes the customer to their brand new house is a beautiful, lovely, lasting memory of you, and it makes them feel really good about themselves and about the job they’ve just completed with you.

Andy
Yeah, there’s no doubt everyone loves a gift. And then last in the A C D R formula is R, For retain, and I love this one because what are you going to do as an offline tactic to keep this customer coming back to you time and time again. Because we all know the cost of acquiring a new customer is almost five times more than retaining an existing customer. You’d be crazy to leave this part out.

Ange
Yeah, so not to mention, we know for a fact that a repeat customer pays three times more on average for their job. When they use your services again. Well, that’s what it was for us in Dr. Drip because they liked you from the first visit and now they trust your quality of work and professionalism, and now they’re falling into this habit of calling you every time they need that specific trade inside their house.

Andy
And one of the retained strategies that we use really well within Dr. Drip was a membership program. So in the beginning, every customer offered a membership. It was $50 to join this membership, but it gave them 10% off every single job. And there were a few other benefits that came with it as well, but more often than not joining the membership itself paid for them to get the discount. So it was a chance for them to get a little bit off the job, but it was a chance for us to get a little bit more information off them. And then it was also a chance for us to actually get permission from them to be sending them offline, a lot of sales and specials, and actually keep talking to them and bringing them back time and time again.

Ange
Yeah, interesting. So let’s put that into context. How many of you listeners out there are really loyal to a certain grocery store? Maybe like Coles or Woolies? Maybe you have loyalty because that’s what your parents used when you were growing up. So it’s maybe just a bit of a default. Whatever the reason, you’re most likely part of a points program and you collect points every time you shop to get discounts or promotional materials. It’s basically the same concept, but you keep going back.

Andy
Oh, the great debate. Coles or Woolies.

Ange
Coles. Absolutely.

Andy
Yeah. Maybe it’s Coles. Maybe it’s Woolworth. But for me personally, as long as you are doing it, Ange, I am dead set a happy man.

Ange
That’s one way to get out of all the chores.

Andy
It is. It is.

Ange
All right. So we digress. How did the strategy change? Let’s talk about that.

Andy
Yeah. It changed, had morphed over time, actually. It was really interesting, but we realized that whilst people liked the discount, the membership itself was a bit of a, oh hum, you know, that old thing of would you like to be a member? It got to a point where people were like, no, just do the job and move on. The membership itself started changing, so we decided to do a marketing campaign. We had quite a big list. We’d been running our business for quite a while. And we decided because it was easier for our sales process that every single one of our clients, instead of having to pay $50, we made them an honorary member. So we made them a member straight away and we had a whole sales process around this. So we actually did an offline marketing strategy. It has been, it was. The best offline marketing strategy we probably had. I mean, the magnets did work well for us for a certain time, but we actually sent a letter to everyone congratulating them on becoming a member of Dr. Drip.

Ange
It was a physical pack, wasn’t it?

Andy
And it was a physical pack and it was a, you know, it was a big pack and it had all this special stuff in there and offered them all these amazing offers. And back then it was like, this is really a value. And yeah,

Ange
The response was awesome.

Andy
We, the response was definitely awesome. We had customers ringing us saying, oh my God, thank you so much for making me a member. You know, at times I was like, are you serious? Is that really what’s going on? But that marketing campaign, Oh my God, that offline marketing campaign was absolutely insane for us.

Ange
Yeah, they were calling to actually book jobs from that. So by changing or looking at this membership program, when it started to, I guess, sour, we turned a good thing into a really great thing. Again, just by thinking about it a little bit differently. Because overall too many of us trade business owners turn to a digital world. When we think of marketing in our company, we turn to S E O, Facebook ads, Google ads, everything in between, and a lot of us actually underestimate the power of offline marketing. What might actually seem as old school, right?

Andy
Yeah, it does. And listen, there’s been so much online marketing stuff and anyone listing knows how good some of these have been. And we were lucky enough to be at the forefront for some of these, and it definitely helped our business. But now everything just costs an absolute bomb. And like I’m really into this whole using strategies with marketing that doesn’t cost the earth, because I’m seeing some businesses pumping out 10 grand, 20 grand, 50 grand, a hundred thousand dollars a month, and they get caught into this cycle of just spending massive amount of dollars on online marketing and, and actually is a spiral they can’t get off. It’s really quite tough. Low cost offline stuff still really, really works. And I want everyone just to think back on what can you do, and we mentioned this a heap thing. There’s 120 strategies we’ve got in there that you can have, but you know, sometimes customers are starting to get fatigued now with getting hit with AdWords, meaning hit in Instagram, being hit in Facebook. You know, everyone’s looking for something different. It doesn’t hurt to go back to the good old days and think of a few things that really stand out.

Ange
Yeah, look, for sure. I know a lot of my friends say they prefer Instagram over Facebook because the sponsored articles and ads are like just taking over. But to be honest, now Instagram is just as bad and all you wanna do is hop online and see what your friends are up to, and suddenly you’re being targeted by businesses out there everywhere. But the thing I will say is, You’ve gotta play where your avatar is, right? So what are you doing there? And think about that when you think about offline marketing.

Andy
So really the message here is don’t forget to get back to basics. You don’t always have to spend a million dollars to get the phone ringing. Go back to some of these old strategies, work out which ones are working, and I guarantee, especially when you’re trying to target a local market, cause I think sometimes too many tradies go for too broad a market and they spread themselves so thin. The guys are driving half an hour, an hour plus to get all over the city and you’re losing so much time. I think sometimes it’s better to target a local area, and I think this type of offline strategy works really, really well.

Ange
Yeah, absolutely. Now remember, if you guys want some more help understanding more about both online and offline marketing, or you want this list of 120 marketing strategies that you can use in your trade business immediately, then check out lifestyletradie.com.au/free-resources or click the link in the show notes. What I want you to download, or I’m suggesting is look at the tactical marketing for tradies. Trust me, you won’t regret it. Every trade business needs marketing. It is a non-negotiable, but the question for you is what are you going to do to stand out from the pack?

Andy
Hell yeah, and get on it. That said, that’s it from us today, we’ll catch you next week.

Ange
See you then.