Targeting Field Service Companies: Learn How to Pitch Digital Advertising to Them

Qualify the Opportunities

As noted, there are many subsets of field service companies. This vertical can describe any service company that has field workers. Before you get to prospecting and pitching, you should qualify the opportunity.

• Identify the number of field service companies in your metro area that fit the parameters you define (i.e., size of the company, number of locations, revenue, etc.).
• Understand the local market for these services (i.e., the size of the market they target, competition, etc.)
• Remove any that are current customers for both linear and digital. For those only buying linear, move that group to a new list.
• Refine your list to a top 10 or 20 to analyze further by evaluating their current digital footprint.

After you complete these steps, prioritize prospects, and plan how you make contact with them.

The First Connection: Deliver Value in Your Elevator Pitch

You’ll need to determine the immediate value you can provide them in your elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is the short version of the value you can bring to their business.

Be prepared to talk about digital advertising opportunities and a personalized perspective on how they can succeed. Helping — not selling — goes a long way toward developing a solid relationship.

If you can, throw in some initial digital advertising metrics to intrigue them. For example, use real-world campaign performance data from a similar company, like “We helped an HVAC company acquire 50 new customers in the past six months by adding digital to their linear campaign.”

You have only a few seconds or minutes to generate interest, so be specific and value-driven in your communication from the start.

Make Recommendations Based on Asking LOTS of Questions

You now have a general overview of the companies you’re prospecting. Getting deeper will help you deliver a custom advertising plan. Ask specific questions around goals, needs and expectations.

Examples include:

• What’s the main goal of advertising? It’s not as simple as getting more customers. Go deeper into the types of customers they want to attract. Is it only homeowners? Is it family households in a specific income bracket?
• How many new customers do you need to add each month to be profitable? Find out at what point they see profit.
• What areas do you service, and are there current ones with higher volumes than others?
• What do you want to sell that provides the best margins? This could be seasonal for some companies, such as winterization services in the fall and summerization ones in the spring.
• What past results can you share from digital marketing?
• What makes your business different? Are their products unique? For example, smart irrigation companies are very different than standard landscaping businesses.

By conducting a thorough needs assessment, you can move to the next phase of delivering a data-driven proposal.

Emphasize That You Offer Multichannel, Integrated Campaigns

Digital + linear advertising is something you can uniquely offer. That’s critical because multichannel campaigns have the most punch. In fact, integrated campaigns have a 287% higher purchase rate than single-channel ones.

There’s also plenty of data to support linear advertising’s impact on digital advertising. The ability to use both is likely to satisfy the needs of field service organizations. Radio and TV provide a broad audience. Digital advertising offers more targeted options to reach specific consumers.

Here’s an example of how you can position this in your proposal.

You can dedicate one-third of their budget to OTA (over-the-air) ads during programming that the target audience consumes. Afternoon spots could catch commuters. Early morning local news broadcasts may be a good choice for working moms.

For the other part of the budget, put it into digital techniques that would complement OTA. If people hear or watch the ads and remember they need to get their carpets cleaned, they then head to Google to search. You want your advertiser to show up there. In addition, you can use display ads that retarget users who went to the company’s website but didn’t get in touch.

This message will be even more important for working on current linear advertisers you want to convince to use digital channels.

Think Beyond Capturing New Customers

Field service companies are currently facing challenges with hiring. A lot of that is around attracting younger generations. A bulk of trade workers are growing older, with the median age at 43, roughly 10% older than the general population. The problem seems to be in the presentation.

A survey discovered that 75% of people aged 18 to 30 didn’t see trades as an attractive option. The 2021 Skilled Trades Report revealed that 77% of tradespeople view labor as a challenge.

With this in mind, you should approach field service advertisers about their needs outside of customer acquisition. They may need support on recruiting and will spend a significant budget on it. After all, they can’t grow their client base without workers.

Offer Companies a Few Tips to Amplify Your Expertise

The last thing that can help your pitch is to offer a few tips to companies before they say yes. Again, you’re setting yourself up as a trusted resource, so the little things can matter. You might advise them to claim their Google My Business panel, which can help local SEO. Review their website and offer a few suggestions to improve it, like a click-to-call button on mobile or adding more details to service pages.

It doesn’t take long to come up with a few takeaways. It can be the differentiator that wins you the business.