Greetings Floor Dealers!

“We need a systematic plan for attacking our marketing,”  Matt M., a floor dealer from Arizona told me recently.   Steve N., a dealer from California said, “Foot traffic is bad. We just want at least seven customers a day.  We get two to three customers and it gets difficult to keep motivated.”

Both of these challenges were posed during a recent Marketing Mastery Webinar (hosted by myself and FCNews Associate Publisher, Dustin Aaronson) titled, “Your Biggest Marketing Questions Answered.”  Both of these gentlemen came on the webinar live to have me personally coach them through these challenges.  As it turns out, the solution for both was not only the same, but very simple: implementing the Three Tiers Of Marketing.  The tiers are as follows:

Tier 1: Warm market

  • Referral marketing system
  • Sales closer system
  • Market to past customers (monthly direct response newsletter)

Tier 2: Targeted marketing to cold prospects

  • Website (including pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimization)
  • Social media
  • Newspaper
  • Display ads
  • Direct mail to targeted list
  • Social media
  • Home and garden shows

Tier 3: Broadcast advertising

  • Billboards
  • Radio
  • Television

You should implement all of the Tier 1 strategies first.  (I covered these in detail in my recent seven-part series titled, How To Command Margins Of 40-50% Or More.)  Once these are fully up and running, then begin implementing the Tier 2 strategies.  Once Tiers 1 and 2 are up and running, implement Tier 3 using luxury marketing dollars.  Your biggest profits are in Tier 1, then in descending order, Tier 2, then Tier 3.  Tier 1 is dirt cheap to implement and relatively easy to get measurable results, but Tiers 2 and 3 get progressively more expensive and difficult to make work.

Tier 1 strategies also dramatically increase the profitability of Tiers 2 and 3.  Let’s say you invest $5,000 in a direct mail campaign, which drives ten prospects to your store.  If you have a sales closer system in place, instead of converting four of the prospects, you convert six.  If you have a referral marketing system in place, you can turn those six sales into eight.  Finally, if you have a past customer marketing system in place, you can stay in front of those eight customers and farm them for repeat and referral business.  Tier 1 is so effective that many of the dealers I coach build their businesses without ever moving on to Tiers 2 and 3.  Garry C., a dealer from Illinois, opened his second store in June of this year, and is commanding margins of 50% on all residential flooring.  This after nearly closing his doors a couple of years ago.  Garry accomplished this using primarily Tier 1 strategies.

For all of these reason you should never, ever, ever (I don’t have enough “evers” memorized) do Tiers 2 or 3 until your Tier 1 is fully implemented.

Prior to this webinar, Matt and Steve were both doing Tiers 2 and 3, but nothing with Tier 1.  I polled the rest of the attendees, and nearly 100% were doing the same.  This is common throughout the flooring industry.  98% of dealers spend the lion’s share of their time, energy and money on Tiers 2 and 3, but totally ignore Tier 1.  It’s time to stop the madness.

On a very happy note: since the webinar, both Matt and Steve have begun implementing the Tier 1 strategies.  I know they’ll do well—dealers all across the U.S. and Canada have made this same switch, and I’ve seen many dramatic turnarounds.  I’m looking forward to seeing Matt and Steve’s results, and the huge smiles on their faces as their profits begin to skyrocket.

 

To Tons Of Customers!
Jim Augustus Armstrong is The “Coach”

Jim Augustus Armstrong is the President of Flooring Success Systems, a program that equips dealers to double their profits, cut their work hours in half and beat the boxes! Many dealers have totally transformed their businesses and their lives for the better after joining Flooring Success Systems.
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