Mastering Customer Data and Marketing in the Slow Season
Get ready to juice up your slow season with a creative spin on customer database magic! In the virtual Lemonade Stand, Crystal and Emily discuss navigating your data through audience segmentation, targeted marketing, and the power of a well-maintained CRM system.
0:07 - Maximizing Customer Database for Leads
6:44 - Audience Building and Marketing Strategies
15:13 - Building Relationships Through Nimble Marketing
24:17 - Inspiring Home Service Marketing & Branding
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We’ll see you next time, Lemon Heads!
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Speaker 1: 0:07
What's up, lemonheads? Welcome back to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I'm Emily, I'm Crystal, and this week we're going to talk about how, during this slow season, during this shoulder season, how you can be making the most of your customers. That is already in your database.
Speaker 2: 0:24
Absolutely. It is now the time. Now is the time more than ever. Whether you are roofing, plumbing, pest control, HVAC, A lot of us are in a lull of leads. So we're going to talk about one of the only tactics that really can generate leads fairly quickly and with a pretty good projected return. I think we have a lot to say about this, so let's get to sipping some lemonade. Let's do it.
Speaker 1: 0:52
Alright. So when we talk about marketing to your existing database, we are not saying that you need to send out a promotion or an offer or a text or anything to any and everybody that's ever been in your database at all. We need to kind of build out some different audiences, and so how do we actually make audiences? That's not everybody.
Speaker 2: 1:16
Yeah, and you know the key here is to be like an expert audience builder. But to be an expert audience builder you have to be an expert gatherer of content. So when you are gathering information from new clients, what is super important is that you gather as much information. You are tagging, you are, you know, identifying these differentiators. So that sounds super complex but literally like we need to determine, like, who has a system. You know, age of equipment would be a really good thing to start tracking. If you're not tracking it now, you need to start tracking age of equipment, also, like location of equipment or past job history. So last summer we were out there. We added three pounds of refrigerant. It's if you let us do the work now we'd be. We're giving a discount on a leak detection or the first pound of refrigerant is on us. But the only way to know that is because your team is using the correct task codes and the correct labeling inside of whatever your CRM system is, so that we can differentiate that your recommendations that are made. So how about everyone that you recommended a duck cleaning to last season? You're able to pull a list of those people and send them a duck cleaning offer. Same thing for on the plumbing side. So people that you know have sump pumps, right? Maybe you've made notes about sump pumps or somehow you have a task code in there around sump pumps. Maybe you want to run a promotion on backup sump pumps, right? Backflow preventers, like? There's all these ways to do it. But the more information and like data laden that each account can be inside of your CRM, the more we can pull from, and a key to that, though, is your.
Speaker 1: 3:04
Your team has to really know what are those tags, what is that information that we're gathering, because who's ever done this? Like oh yeah, I built all these tags, and like who knew that that was even there, that I had the option to tag it that way or to fill out that form field? Like you know, you have to educate your team on what is there, when is it used, and then make sure that everyone is speaking the same language, like we've seen it often before, where you know you have a tag for your maintenance club, but one tag is called maintenance club and one's called preventative member, you know, or something like that, and so half the CSRs are using one, the other half is using the other, and so that's where crystal means like garbage and garbage out. Like you've got to be that expert of the data inputter to be able to get good results, to extract different audiences, and, like you're saying the why matters, right?
Speaker 2: 3:49
So you know, and I even do this with my own kids. Okay, so why we do things the way that we do? So, like, for instance, y'all know I love Jesus, but like, why do we not wear a hat in the sanctuary? Well, it's because I think me, as your mom and I run this show. It's disrespectful, right? Or why are you encouraging me to complete this baseball season, even though I don't like the team that I'm on? Well, you have to stay doing it because you dedicated yourself to this. You promised you were going to do it. You're not going to let your team down. So it's the same situation here. Marketing, a lot of times we do a terrible job in educating our co team members why it's important point of acquisition. So why is it important to learn where we gained a new customer? Why is it important to have age of equipment? Why is it important that we write down and makes, invoice it or estimates around jobs that we're on? Because marketing needs as a much healthy information as they can get. So it's the same way. You know, I, I teach contractors all the time. If you want your technicians to sell more membership, show them how it benefits them. Yeah. So you want to say, hey, you remember last spring when you could only work 20 hours, because that's the only work that I had. If we had more memberships, that would mean more tuneups that we could be doing, which would put you busy. So if you can now during our busy season, then what that does is that helps us in the shoulder season.
Speaker 1: 5:15
I mean, we discovered that in our own company this morning. You know we have they're called pecs cards, but they're basically card, little debit cards, if you will, that the company can load money on to. Well, we had the entire company go through the pecs card training. Hey, here's how you do it, here's the app, here's how you upload the receipt. Da da da. What we failed to realize is we never explained the why. Why does every team member on our thing have a pecs card? Well, because when one remote team workers adapter broke so we could load money on for him to go buy a new adapter all the sudden. So the team had done the training on the physicality. Here is technically how you do it, but they didn't know. Oh, I didn't realize that that was what that was for. I thought it's only for like mileage, for gas reimbursement or something you know. And so, like Crystal said, explaining that, why to your CSRs, to your technicians, thing like that is so much, equally as valuable as the technical how to do some of these things, and we can't forget that piece yeah, and given given them some grace to like giving yourself grace, like listen, you're gonna be like dang I didn't say that or I didn't do that, and can we think of everything?
Speaker 2: 6:15
no, but if you really work with your inbound team whatever that's look, that looks like I think those are important in their early journey with your company, really helping them understand how impactful their job is. If you want my honest opinion, this is super. Not everyone's favorite thing for me to say, but in my honest opinion, csrs are the most undervalued position in the company. Oh, yeah, percent yeah. They are the ones that are the first line of the brand experience. They are the ones that are gathering of the most content for art, the most data from the customer up front. They make or break. They set the technician up for success. They're the first introduction to your maintenance club, the first introduction to your offers. Yet I think they sometimes are like oh, you're so cute, you just enter the phones over there. That's so cute. You know, and honestly, like you, those people are inbound sales people. That's what they are. They are salesmen every single time they answer the phone, and so we've got to start prioritizing that so that when we get back to the point here, which is building good audiences. We have really good data, so what we're gonna do, what you're gonna do as a contractor, is start looking through there and thinking, okay, I want to be able to build an audience that did this but not that. So who did we go out and make a duck cleaning recommendation to that did not later on by the duck cleaning? Right? Also, if you recommended one piece of IQ equipment, it might negate all the other estimates that are on there. So there's some things that you need to check. But just building out good audiences who do you want to reach out to? Again, quick ideas, abandoned calls, like how can you automate something that goes out to people that didn't actually make connection with the CSR? Like sorry, we missed you. Like how could you gather those canceled appointments? You stay in front of people that canceled an appointment. That's an audience that you have to build. It's unique because it's how do you gather a lot of the information and it takes work, but that's a unique opportunity. People that are not they're only doing, they've only done work with you, like in one time in the last three years or two years, and it wasn't an impactful move. So you would have to determine what that means. Like did you go out there on an $89 drain clearing and that's all you were able to do. Then that person probably is using someone else right now. So how do you get back in front of them with a free offer or a very low offer and group? You may only have 10 people in that audience, but that's a pretty specific audience. Like that messaging can talk specifically to those people.
Speaker 1: 9:02
Well, and I think a lot of times customers forget about like kind of cross promoting their services. So if, like you're multi, vertical and so kind of an easy way that Crystal's kind of taught me to think about audience building is like the haves and the have nots, like who have used us for plumbing and have not used us for HVAC or vice versa, and, like she was saying, who has gotten a quote from us but has not actually purchased, who has had a repair done but not gotten that actual new service. So I think sometimes when you start thinking of some of those technical who have and who have not, that's when you can really start dissecting and get super targeted messaging that is very applicable to that specific people. So it's not a one size fits all message. It's these specific people and this message is gonna be super relevant to them.
Speaker 2: 9:47
Absolutely, and relevancy here is what will create engagement. So if I called you three summers ago, you came out, put a pound of refrigerant in and I've not engaged with you at all and you said, hey, here's $50 off a duck cleaning. I'd be like they're not talking to me so you can actually write your messaging to speak to them. It says hey, we were out at your house last summer when it wasn't cooling very well.
Speaker 1: 10:12
Right now we're offering the first pound of refrigerant on us, if you allow us to come out and do a leak detection or something along those lines and like if you were to send that out, you would not want that to go to the customers, that you did that for them last week. Yes, that's where we kind of have to know to make it relevant.
Speaker 2: 10:28
Yes, and so you just have to think through it. You just have to think through it. So that's audience building, and I think that's the first line of defense there.
Speaker 1: 10:36
And so I know a thing that a lot of other contractors struggle with is like okay, that's great, but like when do I actually need to be aggressive on this stuff? When do I actually need to pull the trigger on some of these triggers, if you will? Well, sorry, Womp, womp.
Speaker 2: 10:58
Well, it's just so dependent on your market, your operations, like I know nobody likes to hear that, but marketing is not a band-aid for bad operations. Okay, so we can run the heck out of some promotions, but if your guys can't do anything with it when they're in the home, it don't matter. When we do it, you could do it for free, and you're still not gonna get anything from it. So my encouragement here is understanding the importance of having levers built out that you can activate, that your team is already prepared to perform, and I think that a lot of times we run headfirst into a fire with no fire extinguisher, so we're just like you know what we need to do, launch all of these things, or a shiny object on a Facebook group runs in front of us and we're like oh, yeah, yeah, we're gonna do that, but your team's not ready, your CSR is not ready, and you haven't really price conditioned your customers either, and so it's really important to just have a plan in place.
Speaker 1: 12:00
Well, and like you can't go from like never talking to your existing customers ever to then sending them something every other day, whether that's a text message, a ringless voicemail and email, things like that. So, yeah, having that plan to make it to where you're not spamming them, as it seems, but like you're building that relationship. But hey, we're still here for you, staying top of mind. And then, like Crystal said she says this often but like you've gotta dig your well before your thirsty, you've gotta have some of these, because if you wait to now, just start gathering the data and then start building out the audience and then work on what your messaging is and then building out the funnel. Well, now you've already missed the whole season. Okay.
Speaker 2: 12:40
Yes, you've had a paralysis by analysis and you know, a lot of times I tell almost every single client with LEM&SEE they're gonna have one email that goes out every single month and it is some sort of community support style thing like happening events, or it's a little newsletter because it's a soft reminder that you are still in their life. I try to use very engaging pieces in there. It's just a soft sell. Every single month, between the first and the 15th, we try to have a simple newsletter that goes out. Name it something creative. Name it after your mascot, your name, your grandpa, your sister, your pet cat, I don't care what you name it after, but something that has a story and then put engaging content. So do not start sending an email every month. It's locked. The reason 410A is being phased out and how you should be scared of that. Like boo hiss, right, I'm not saying that can't be a part of it, but that's certainly not gonna be the draw to read it. Well, so what's gonna happen is you're keeping your brand in front of your clients, whether they like it or not. It's environmental awareness, it's not hurting anyone, so that's good. But also it does keep this little bit of engagement where they're clicking and engaging with it. Then when you send them a ringless voicemail that says hey, this is Crystal Collin from Yellow Bear Air. Collin, to let you know, we were out your home last summer, added a pound of refrigerant. Right now, getting you prepared for the summer, we'd like to offer you that first pound for free. Call today to schedule your tune up at Yellow Bear Air at 936-123-456. We'll talk to you soon. And they're like oh, I love Yellow Bear Air. I get their newsletter every month, right? Or they're not gonna be like who'd she say she was with, right, who was that? Because, listen, some of y'all don't remember what you ate for breakfast yesterday, much less who you used two summers ago when everybody was pissed off that it was hot and you called 72 companies so one could get out there fast enough, right? So for the most part, you've gotta stay top of mind with people. Remember, people don't need us very often, like even plumbers, roofers, roofers, you over here on the pitiful side with HVAC people people don't need us but every 10 years, right? Or feel like they need us. Do they need us?
Speaker 1: 14:50
Yes, but they don't feel like they need us and they might not need us right now, but if you can stay top of mind to them, they can recommend you to other people who might need you. Right now you know like they can become more of their guy Like I have a guy. I can tell you about these because you've earned their trust and kept their trust. You've been fostering that relationship ongoing beyond just the initial sale.
Speaker 2: 15:10
Absolutely, and you know like. Again, I think the underlying message of today's episode is really about engagement and relationship building. So yet you're gonna send out a thousand text messages that say hey, we noticed that you're our. You know, thank you for being an existing customer of Yellow Bear Air. We see you haven't had your tune up. To get you ready for the spring, take advantage of our open schedule by booking one of our $69 tuneups. Call today, mention this ad, get it for $69,. Right, you're not gonna have just a humongous response. That's all relative. But if you set the right expectations in your mind and you've already been talking to these people gently building a relationship you've got social media, that's going on. They've gotten your newsletter they're gonna be like dang. I need to schedule that because last summer I barely made it. Well, I barely made it. Another thing that I think we can play on a lot is like energy efficiency. But listen, don't talk to them like they own a heating and air conditioning or a plumbing company, or like a high water bill. Right, don't talk to me like I do this every day. Talk to me by saying things like has your electric bill been high? Was your electric bill high last summer, worried about being able to afford it this summer. Call us today to see how we can help your system be more efficient. So now I have solved something for my clients. I have told them that I have a financial solving piece for them, right? Solving piece is also known as a solution, so ignore solving is me being wordy A solution for them, and that is I'm gonna help them figure out how they can save money on their electric bill. Again, I can't say you need a higher, you need a higher sear system, you know. And same thing on the water side. Like, my grandmother has had a running toilet for months and Sundays, as I say, and the whole problem is she really just needs a whole new toilet, but she's old and she's worried about it. And so what needs to be said is hey, have you been putting off a plumbing repair that you need to make? Our schedule is wide open for the next week. Book within those seven days and get a free diagnostic charge. Only pay for the repairs we make when we're in the home. We guarantee we'll be there within an hour. Like, what can you do to play off of what the client that's already trusted you at one point in their life, solve something for them and have those ready so that you're like man, when you're booking out three days, you're like we're going to need to do something and that's pull a lever that we've already trained on, our CSRs are already coached on. We're ready to rock and roll.
Speaker 1: 17:45
Yeah, and so you know being nimble, kind of already having some of those triggers built out, digging your well before you're thirsty, and stuff that's going to be able to help you act fast and to see some immediacy. You know tons of other marketing tactics. You know they take time to marinate and to see some results and stuff. Cultivating this existing database through some of these things, being very nimble is a great way where you can see the needle move.
Speaker 2: 18:12
Absolutely. So you know nimble. I tell everybody this, and this was a topic of conversation on social media recently. You know what? Pe groups don't often have Flexibility, so before they can do anything, we've got to get the president's signature. Three, the blood of three immigrants and, like you know all these things. So we just we can need to be more nimble, so you can't reinvent the wheel every time. I had a client when I first started and he would tell me Crystal, I do not need to know how to build the clock, I just want you to tell me what time it is. And I'm like, oh, okay, because I'm over here trying to over justify things A lot of times. You need to do the pre-work, setting yourself up for the slow season. So, yes, we're in the middle of it right now. So stop, take a few days not weeks, not months days to build out your strategy when you're going to launch it, project what you think the expense is going to be, project what you think the return is going to be, and then try it. You're flexible, you're nimble, try it. And then, guess what? You're also nimble to pivot backwards. Like that did not work. Good effort didn't work, right.
Speaker 1: 19:23
That's so crucial. But, like, one thing do not forget about is tell the rest of your team Like, hey, we're sending out this text message and here's the message that like have them be prepared. So when people call hey, you know I got this special offer. What offer? What did what?
Speaker 2: 19:38
it say you got a postcard from us, we didn't call you, we didn't get a voicemail, like I will kick down some cubicles, I will kick off, I will karate, chop a headset if they, if they don't know it. So you got to be careful. To Emily's point with nimble comes responsibility as well. So your team has to be prepared for this launch of a lever. Honestly, start introducing your team to what levers are so that when they get a call and maybe maybe you sent the text message out for for the sump pumps, right, and you sent it out and you were literally getting up and going to walk down there and tell your CSR she shouldn't be caught off guard that she's never heard of any of this before. Maybe she didn't know that you pressed go right now, but she should have heard of it before. Send an email, send a copy of the script, record your ring less voicemail. Make them get the ring less voicemails. It might cost you seven cents, but let them get it. My CSRs I love, for our own team gets every lemon seed email that goes out, because I never want an account manager to be on a call with one of our clients and then say, oh my gosh, I loved your newsletter and my account manager go. We sent a newsletter. Or oh, I saw your team at toolbox live for service Titan and my team go. Oh, I had no idea they were going to be there. Yeah, right, they need to be able to say, oh, you saw Ashley in a net at toolbox live, right. Those are unique things that make your team sound capable, that help keep them in the loop and, honestly, for retention piece, they feel much more in control when that happens. Yeah, so being nimble is crucial here and for those of you that like to micromanage you being in control of every aspect of your life, I'm here for you. I got you, I see, but you will be your biggest hurdle and you will see that everything else is a hurdle because you just can't figure it out. You want to figure it out, you can't, when really, in reality, you are the hurdle, you're this, you're the block. So Get your facts together, get your numbers together, get your creative together and bite it off a little bit at a time. Don't try to build out 17 audiences. Build out one audience. Launch the campaign, see how it, see how it goes, let it run. Also, side note, here's a little pro tip Do not make major changes based off of the outliers. So you send a text message out and someone replies back in the dashboard and says y'all freakin suck, y'all money suckers. Y'all took money from my dead grandma. I hope y'all burn in hell. You're just gonna hit delete and go on. We're not like, oh my gosh, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off. So we have a pest control client and they bought another company. So the first one of the first things that we did restructure their monthly plans. We sent out an email to their existing database saying look at all the new things that we offer. People immediately Painted like oh my gosh, you are going up on your process, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I told that that owner. I said listen, one email is an outlier, two, three emails is an outlier because we sent out 700, four and five we're gonna start paying attention to. So when we got the fifth email, that was like oh, I'm so confused it triggered us. Okay, now let's send a clarification. So literally I made the subject line say oops, a little clarification. So you know those same homeowners are like what is this? They made an oops, the pricing was wrong. And all it said was we are so sorry. We are going to definitely honor our existing contracts. These are just the new and improved packages. If you'd like to discuss what you do now, call us right so we can't live in fear that five jack holes behind a keyboard or behind a text message are gonna derail us. Do not make major process changes based off outliers. Make them off of True information. That came back. It's easy, though. One bad review sends some of y'all into a tailspin of drunken stupor. Like Somebody, I'll be trying to show up to the person's house. That ain't it right. So be nimble, but also like okay, that really wasn't good messaging. I need to change the messaging. You know be. Marketing is a game. If marketing had a complete strategy, if every if marketing was an exact science, it literally would not be any fun at all because we'd all be doing the exact same thing and praying for the same outcomes. It's a. It's a plot twist. It's a. It's something that has to be nurtured and Cultivated all the time pivoting and just knowing that you're never gonna flip on a marketing switch and sit down and sip a my tie by the pool. We're in this thing like you got to be in it, right. So well, guys, I hope you guys got some good information today about just a little motivation, some inspiration to really get in there, build out those audiences, coach your team well and let everybody know how you are going to be a winner during the shoulder season or even just in the lolls of Of leads during certain times of the year.
Speaker 1: 24:37
Yep, that's awesome. Thank you so much for listening to another episode. If you would leave us a review. It helps us to keep going and it helps us to spread the message to more people so that they can find from the yellow chair and Hopefully be inspired just like you or by the, the marketing and branding for the home service industry. So thank you for listening, give us a shout out on social media and we will see you next time. Bye.
