By |Published On: December 28, 2022|

The end of the year is upon us, and while often a hectic time, it’s still a good idea for companies to take a moment to consider their business strategies for the next 12 months. Customers are fickle, requiring creative prospecting to find new ones and constant attention to retain old ones. Here’s a few tips as you prepare for marketing your services this spring and beyond:

Partner with Local Influencers

Good old-fashioned word-of-mouth (WOM) remains one of the most effective advertising tools even in today’s high-tech age. Put simply, people — a whopping 90% of them! — trust agents and brands that have been recommended by others. And those recommendations don’t have to come from family or friends; they can be from strangers (such as influencers, those people who intentionally spread brand info in exchange for a profit of some kind). 

For a real estate agent or someone who provides local services, the proximity of an influencer plays a key role in his or her reach within a community, with the closer the influencer is to a specific group of customers, the more positive impact he or she will have on their purchasing decisions. 

Start Paid Advertising NOW to Get It Optimized

While some people will wait for their busy season to start up advertising, the smart ones know advertising needs to get started just before you really need it to work. The algorithms that drive Google, Facebook, TikTok ads and more need time to understand who your customers are and who really converts for your business. Therefore, if 2023 is the year to dip your toes in the paid advertising water, you’ll want to start your ads just ahead of when peak season begins. So for example, if you’re in the real estate business you’ll know that 80% of moves happen from April to September. Starting ads in February or March can help jumpstart the data you’re feeding paid advertising algorithms. Plus you, or an experienced agency, can apply optimizations and make changes so that by the time April comes around and interest starts picking up, your ads are in tip top shape.

Think Content & Context

When deciding how you want to jump start your marketing, think about content and context. If you’re a plumber, the right time to send out direct mail may be just before a big winter storm is headed to your area. If someone needs to call you, they’ll have just received your postcard and they’ll have your contact information at just the right time. If you run a moving company, search out individuals who have just listed their home on the market. By calling or emailing them at the right time, you have a leg up on your competition.

Find the Right Audience

As you consider your marketing services for Spring 2023, think about using a data platform specifically-designed to target prospects and/or properties. Our Property Connect and Criss Cross databases at Haines help all types of businesses (real estate, insurance, pest control, landscaping, etc.) accurately pinpoint customers matching detailed characteristics. We can highlight a certain geographic location by polygon, radius or freehand draw so that you can assign a specific influencer within a specific community or locale! And because phone numbers and email addresses for all targets are always included in the lists we provide (at no additional charge), the majority of the information you need to make contact with the people you hope to serve is immediately available; you can get to work A.S.A.P!

The Haines Advantage

If you’re marketing homes or to homeowners, there’s a good chance that our lead generation tools could be the solution to effectively marketing your services in 2023. Contact our team at Haines to learn more about using a quality lead generation database to target customers and craft messages that truly resonate with the people you want to serve. 

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