This summer a friend and I will be starting our own powerwashing, window washing, and deck staining company instead of getting a summer job working for someone else. Both of us have a good deal of experience in the industry, and we are confident that we will deliver a high quality product. So it is just a matter of marketing ourselves properly to make homeowners aware of our services. Our marketing mix for our company is as follows.
Product: The products our firm will offer are powerwashing services, window washing services, deck staining services, and small paint job services. Last year I managed a company that focused a majority of its efforts booking full exterior paint jobs. I found managing jobs of this magnitude to be very difficult and harder to turn a decent profit. Therefore, this year my friend and I will focus our efforts on smaller less time consuming jobs and a higher turnover. As far as the products we will use to complete our jobs, we will try to only use the best. For powerwashing jobs we will purchase the leading brand of powerwashing bleach solution, and for painting jobs we will purchase either Benjamin Moore or Sherwin Williams paints, unless the customer prefers something else. The quality of the products we use on the clients home will be a large selling point for our firm, and the quality of our services will need to be an even larger one.
Distriubution: Starting over spring break and continuing up until the start of summer break we will spend a great deal of time marketing towards homeowners in New Haven County, CT. We will use a differentiated marketing strategy, as we will be offering multiple different services to homeowners of varying levels of income. We will most likely focus a majority of our effort on vinyl houses because the focus is high turnover and powerwashing is the fastest of the services we offer. We also focus a majority of our efforts in Guilford, CT (a town in New Haven County) because it is our hometown and we already have somewhat of a name for ourselves. We will make the public aware of our firm through door-to-door flyer dropping, putting up fliers in businesses, taking out adds in the local newspaper and yellow pages, and on the internet via a website and facebook.
Price: The goal of our firm is to offer the best value (combination of price and quality) in the area. In order to come up with a price for each job I will go to the house to do an estimate. The price is effected by the size, difficulty, and materials needed to complete the job. Typically a powerwash ranges from $200-350, a deck job ranges from $300-1200, and a window job ranges from $150-300. Price is probably our biggest advantage over competing firms that have been in the market longer than we have. Because we are college students with fewer expenses than owners of professional painting and powerwashing companies, we can afford to offer much lower prices, and due to our previous experience in the field the quality of the work will eqaul to that of our competitors. Based on my experience managing a similar company last year our target socioeconomic market is middle to upper-middle class homeowners because they are more willing to pay than lower class home owners, and also usually more trustworthy of college students working on their homes than upper-class homeowners.
Promotion: One of our main marketing objectives is to sign a majority of our clients before the start of the summer. This is the goal because (1) It is easier to sign a client if you get to them well before the competition does, and (2) it is easier to focus on production during the summer when there is no need to worry about marketing to get more clients and keep the business going. Therefore, we will offer a majority of our promotions during the pre-season as incentive to sign with us before the summer starts. We will offer a 10% diescount for any clients that sign with us before May 1st. Also, because networking is one of the most effective and cost efficient forms of marketing, we will offer another 5% discount for any client that refers us to another client.
This is our marketing mix for our business venture this summer. We hope to turn this mix into a well oiled marketing plan that will allow us to book a majority of our clients before the work season begins. Do you have any other suggestions that could make our marketing plan more effective?
Sounds like a great business idea. So, I'm wondering if you come with any references. Those are always important to homeowners who get bombarded with offers and ads from outfits that will do similar work. Will you have a website to which you can direct your potential customers so they can read more about who you are and what you do? Or it could be a way they can contact you. You will, no doubt, need to limit your range in terms of how far you are willing to travel for a job. I see a couple directions you can go in -- either work on volume -- specializing on powerwashing, for example, and get many customers. However, I can also imagine success with a small client base in which you do a number of different things. Many homeowners like to develop a "relationship" with their painters or handymen. It's an issue of trust. Good luck!!!
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