TOPIC: Marketing Ideas

That's true, at my "other job" Penn DOT has so many rules and regs it's mind boggling, they really got involved and came out with rule books about 4" thick. Every year they make changes that contridict the changes they just made and none of it makes sense!

I think there should be licensing rules like so many hours of theroy on inspections and so many hours doing them before becomming fully licensed just to weed out the bad eggs. 

Other than that it should be regulated by the industry. PA requires you pass the National Home Inspectors Exam and join an non-profit orginization that has a set standards of practice and code of ethics and offices in at least eight states and you must have General Liability and E&O insurence of a minium of 100,000.00 agg and 100,000.00 per occurence which in my opinion is all the further they need to get involved. It's sets some sort of rule but it not overwhelming.

It's a good exam to take if you haven't, you deffenitly need to know a thing or two about home inspections to pass it. It keeps the one's who don't know a damn thing about a home from becomming an inspector and ruining the good names of all the inspectors who do know what there doing.

You should know all you can about your craft.

Well that's my two cents on the deal!

Yeah I had to take the National Home Inspectors Exam, it wasn't anything to sneeze at!  There were many questions on there an newbie wont know!  I made it... That's all that matters!  lol

Marketing before inspection

1) TV and Radio ads may work (but are costly).
2) Join your local chamber of commerce
3) Vehicle signs
4) Put flyer's on houses with for sale signs in the yard.
5) Flyer on grocery store bulletin boards
6) Press release to newspapers/TV stations/Inspector associations
7) Bus bench advertisements
8 ) Attach large banner to vehicle and sit on a popular corner for a day.
9) Most of us have websites.  So how can we get our sites in front of all those clients (other than SEO)?
10) I thought if you travel around with your IR gun, play with it in front of people, and give them your business card.
11) Advertise with Angie's list
12) Join a networking group like BNI
13) Distribute pens, brochures, magnets and business cards to offices and include with inspection materials.
14) Place a sheet of paper or a post card with your info on it, place in a clear newspaper plastic bag and fill the bottom with pea gravel and delivery to local area and place by drive apron or mailbox.
15) Discount Coupons
16) Open houses


Marketing during inspection

1) Leave a brochure and business card at ever home you inspect.
2) Use company info and make labels for the homes main and interior shutoffs.
3) Put magnetic business cards on every refrigerator you can.


Marketing after inspection

1) Send out cards when people do not expect them.
2) Mailing post cards
3) Monthly or weekly newsletters
4) Gifts for new client referrals


Realtor Marketing

1) Have a small flyer done up with logo and website address and distribute them to every realtor mail box in your service area.  In my case, that would be over 20,000...
2) IR scans without the home inspections may be one way to entice Realtors
3) Advertise to Realtors one free inspection for every 10 you do for them (could do this on a monthly basis too, count resets every month).
4) Join your local real estate association
5) Active Rain
6) Make a coupon with the Realtors name on it.


Multi Functional Marketing

1) Do pre-sale inspections for free, leave 30 copies of your report on the counter for potential buyers to pick up and look at the great report. These buyers will need inspectors and now have your report. Make sure to call the owner to see if they have run out.
2) Get a booth at small festivals and charge $10 or so for taking peoples pics with the IR gun and print it out for them.  Then hand them your business info too.
3) Give away nice golf shirts with your company info on it.
4) Get a booth at an area real estate home show
5) Create a client and realtor questionnaire (Survey)
6) Blog and add Realtors to your list of inclusions.
7) Group marketing collaboration/business venture (group of local inspectors pull resources together for marketing and share the rewards)


Additional Services

1) I have been thinking of offering termite inspections as a one stop shop for Realtors!
2) IR Inspections
3) Well/Septic
4) Radon
5) Mold
6) New construction warranty inspections
7) Commercial Inspections
8 ) Pool Inspections
9) Sprinkler System Inspections
10) Home Maintenance Inspections

Looks good John.

I added a few to the list and posted it again to bring it further out in the topic.  If you have any other ideas, let me know in a personal message and I will add it to the list.

Hey Guys
Just got back from meeting with my yellow page sales rep. I have been running and for 2 years and I am not to happy with the results. I told her I might keep a print ad, she came back at me with getting me on top of yellowpages.com with a a banner ad and also keeping my print ad but downgrading it to a one inch ad which I was going to do anyway. She showed me some tracking which did show that the guy on top did get alot of traffic to his site. Right now I do not get ranked at top of yellow pages.com get this though right now I was paying 198.00 a month for a 2" print ad for all of Dupage county in Il. that is like 500,000 books. She priced me a 1" print ad and the yellowpages.com exposure for 222.00 a month . I said no way. After more talking she came down to 172.00 a month. What do you guys think about yellowpages.com? Dom I would like your input too if you are not to busy

Jeff