How Much Should You Spend on Marketing in 2024? (Selling Services)

7%.

Lol – what if it was just that easy?

Spending money on marketing really isn’t as much about HOW MUCH you spend, and is much more about allocating your spending in the right direction.

• I saw someone spend 25k on a marketing package from Houzz, that resulted in ZERO LEADS.
• I’ve seen people drop 100’s of thousands of dollars on HomeAdvisor/Angi Leads only for it to result in driving their price down and ruining their profit margins, because they were constantly bidding against 2-3 other contractors.

Startup (20% of revenue):

More than SPENDING – you should be pushing sweat equity into your marketing.

Once you’ve created a powerful brand / logo – and solidified a punchy name that’s memorable, you should try to get key differentiating features, and messaging (slogans, and tag lines) that hit the problem, and catch people’s attention.

Early marketing tactics include: social media marketing, content marketing, Google ads.

Small Business (7% of revenue):

Now you want to start to get some help on your marketing – quality becomes more important than cheap. Your website can be the salesperson for you all the time, if you build content regularly – and you have the right messaging.

Local businesses should be doing truck wraps, yard signs, all things that are cheap and around the job sites and/or the sale – consistently and in a way that ‘calls people to action’ with a phone number and website.

Growth Business (8%)

Leads.

For service businesses, you’re going to need a lot of them.

Look at what’s worked in the past, and double down on it. Don’t just track the quantity of leads, be tracking the quality of leads as well.

Table of Contents

COMMON TACTICS THAT DRIVE SERIOUS LEADS:

1. Referrals:

What can you do to increase referrals?

• Number one – ask quarterly on social media, find more engaging ways to ask.
• Do you need to incentivize referral partners to send someone your way?
• Apps like ‘Get The Referral‘ allow you to let customers refer and get paid (as a home services business.)

2. Google Ads and ‘Local Service Ads’:

The best part about Google ads, is that the leads are quicker – and you can scale up your efforts and down your efforts based on your current need for leads.

Local service ads are powerful because they include your rating, and a ‘Google Guaranteed’ badge and are above everything else on the search engine results pages.

3. Are Optimized for Search Engine Traffic?

SEO is all about long-term mindset, and getting higher in the section beneath the ads. Content, building links, and technical things like keyword research, and meta titles & descriptions allow you to spend less on ads, over time.

4. Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are great for brand awareness, promotions – and your best videos or offers out there. Make sure your constantly improving your copywriting, and your offers for the best results.

5. Lead Aggregators like Thumbtack:

Depending on your niche / specialty – these methods can allow you to get leads with some scale as well. NextDoor, Angi Leads, and other ‘lead buying’ sources get a bad reputation, but potentially experimenting with them, may give you a clear answer for your specific situation. (For instance roofers hate Angi Leads, but handymen and landscapers I know have done well.)

HOW TO ALLOCATE YOUR BUDGET – PUT IN YOUR BIG ROCKS FIRST:

What are the big new initiatives, and items that are most likely to create the most leads based on your previous years in business?

Those are your big rocks.

Small rocks would be all the other little event things, print design, swag, software etc – that you have some idea would help increase awareness, but aren’t necessarily going to move the needle a ton.

THINK LONG TERM FOR THE BEST RESULTS

The companies I see do the best are always working on their reputation, with charitable efforts, ensuring they have amazing Google reviews, and asking for referrals from their best customers.

Focus on the tightest circle of influence first, and make sure you have raving fans with your customer service for the best results, and a reputation that will carry you long into the future, and drive down your advertising costs long-term.