Brick Wall in Advertising
- Thread starter definitionaudio
- Start date
Have you hit a brick wall because nothing worked or something else?
OK, let's look at the facts. Sorry if my analysis / feedback is brutal but people pay me to be honest and honest I shall be because it will help you.
1. - Target Audience
First things first, who is your target customer?
Looking at your website you seem to have covered meeting rooms, basements, nightclubs and even churches. I appreciate you would never turn down work but this is very broad and pretty much like any other supplier.
Just because you can do it, it doesn’t mean you should go after it.
I would focus on one niche and be the best bloody audiovisual installation company in the UK for that type of customer. If it's churches then it's churches. Don't try to be all things to all men.
Yes, you can do other jobs but your core offering and marketing should be a single message. Don't push the projectors, sound and lighting if you are focusing on the Visual side. Be strict and go after the customer who needs you and who’s boxes you tick.
The riches are in the niches! (say it in an American accent and then it rhymes.)
2. Social Media
Next, you seem to cover every social media channel on the planet.
Kick Pinterest, Flickr, FourSquare, Delicious, Google+ into touch because they are pointless and I'd bet your customers won't be hanging out there anyway.
Find out what channel your audience uses and stick to one. If it's Facebook for home cinema then go with that. If it's LinkedIn for offices then go with that. If it's Instagram for Churches then go with that.
Don't try to be everywhere because you will do it badly and you will spread yourself too thin and achieve nothing.
An example of this is your current Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I can see that this isn't working because you have little to no engagement on your posts.
You are not using it correctly. All you are doing is posting images of your work.
What about your customers? Tell their story.
What about your expertise? Share tips and tricks of the trade. Show you are the experts.
Who’s in your team? Show them. Interview them. Bring out their personalities.
With any type of marketing - social, email, advertising, etc, you need to create a buzz. It's also about the quality, not the quantity. You must create engagement and NOT worry about the volume.
100,000 followers on Facebook is pointless if nobody sees and engagements with your content. You’re better to have 10 people who love you and keep buying your stuff.
You want to create super-fans of your work.
3. Your Website
I know you said you are redesigning it but here are my comments on the existing one.
Don't take this the wrong way but your website is dull. It doesn't reflect the 'sexy kit' you are selling. The products that you sell are what every guy wants in his 'man cave'.
You have 3-5 seconds to capture my attention before I leave. I will make up my mind whether I want to do business with you in that time. I want to be blown away! I want your website to turn me on.
Currently, it looks dated (built about 10 years ago), nothing tells me why you are the best at what you do and the photos are blurry. If your website is poor then I won't buy from you because I will have no confidence.
On mobile, the experience is horrendous. I am immediately hit with a wall of text that makes me feel like I've just landed on a site to read a medical paper. I then scroll to see some tiny images with a cheap frame around them.
KEY POINT: Just because it is a responsive site, it doesn't mean it is 'mobile-friendly'. There's a huge difference.
Most people do their research on their phone so the mobile experience must be truly amazing. this is probably where you are losing most people.
Your site is also very technical in the fact that you mention all the kit and the model numbers. Do they know what these models are? Do customers really know what kit they need? Do they care? Or is that down to you to recommend?
4. Advertising
With regards to your advertising, who are you targeting and where are you sending these people to? The homepage? A dedicated landing page?
Have you tested it with anyone?
For an ad campaign to work effectively, you should send the visitor to a relevant page, not just a generic page for your services. If you make someone work hard to get where they need to go then they will just leave.
It needs to impactful, relevant and simple with lots of value to help them make their buying decision.
If they are browsing / learning then what do you offer to educate them?
No buyers guide? No setup tips? No ‘avoid cowboys’ advice?
If I’m in the market to spend £10-20k on AV kit I want to know you are the experts. I will look at a ton of other companies so why would I come back?
You are not collecting emails. You are not giving me any value or reason to return.
This means you are losing huge opportunities to convert visitors into leads.
From a trust perspective, I can't even see a telephone number unless I scroll right to the bottom of the page. Your service is sold on trust, a relationship and the customer knowing that you have the expertise. Sorry, but none of that comes across.
Show me client logos so I can see you’ve finished a ton of projects to the highest level.
Show images of your team. Show me you are real people.
If you keep spending money on ads with that site then you are literally throwing cash down the toilet. Sorry, you should invest in a new site ASAP.
NEXT STEPS
Right, now I've lambasted your site and social channels (sorry, nothing personal, honestly) I have a strategy that I believe will work for you.
I hope some of my advice helps.
Good luck.
OK, let's look at the facts. Sorry if my analysis / feedback is brutal but people pay me to be honest and honest I shall be because it will help you.
1. - Target Audience
First things first, who is your target customer?
Looking at your website you seem to have covered meeting rooms, basements, nightclubs and even churches. I appreciate you would never turn down work but this is very broad and pretty much like any other supplier.
Just because you can do it, it doesn’t mean you should go after it.
I would focus on one niche and be the best bloody audiovisual installation company in the UK for that type of customer. If it's churches then it's churches. Don't try to be all things to all men.
Yes, you can do other jobs but your core offering and marketing should be a single message. Don't push the projectors, sound and lighting if you are focusing on the Visual side. Be strict and go after the customer who needs you and who’s boxes you tick.
The riches are in the niches! (say it in an American accent and then it rhymes.)
2. Social Media
Next, you seem to cover every social media channel on the planet.
Kick Pinterest, Flickr, FourSquare, Delicious, Google+ into touch because they are pointless and I'd bet your customers won't be hanging out there anyway.
Find out what channel your audience uses and stick to one. If it's Facebook for home cinema then go with that. If it's LinkedIn for offices then go with that. If it's Instagram for Churches then go with that.
Don't try to be everywhere because you will do it badly and you will spread yourself too thin and achieve nothing.
An example of this is your current Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I can see that this isn't working because you have little to no engagement on your posts.
You are not using it correctly. All you are doing is posting images of your work.
What about your customers? Tell their story.
What about your expertise? Share tips and tricks of the trade. Show you are the experts.
Who’s in your team? Show them. Interview them. Bring out their personalities.
With any type of marketing - social, email, advertising, etc, you need to create a buzz. It's also about the quality, not the quantity. You must create engagement and NOT worry about the volume.
100,000 followers on Facebook is pointless if nobody sees and engagements with your content. You’re better to have 10 people who love you and keep buying your stuff.
You want to create super-fans of your work.
3. Your Website
I know you said you are redesigning it but here are my comments on the existing one.
Don't take this the wrong way but your website is dull. It doesn't reflect the 'sexy kit' you are selling. The products that you sell are what every guy wants in his 'man cave'.
You have 3-5 seconds to capture my attention before I leave. I will make up my mind whether I want to do business with you in that time. I want to be blown away! I want your website to turn me on.
Currently, it looks dated (built about 10 years ago), nothing tells me why you are the best at what you do and the photos are blurry. If your website is poor then I won't buy from you because I will have no confidence.
On mobile, the experience is horrendous. I am immediately hit with a wall of text that makes me feel like I've just landed on a site to read a medical paper. I then scroll to see some tiny images with a cheap frame around them.
KEY POINT: Just because it is a responsive site, it doesn't mean it is 'mobile-friendly'. There's a huge difference.
Most people do their research on their phone so the mobile experience must be truly amazing. this is probably where you are losing most people.
Your site is also very technical in the fact that you mention all the kit and the model numbers. Do they know what these models are? Do customers really know what kit they need? Do they care? Or is that down to you to recommend?
4. Advertising
With regards to your advertising, who are you targeting and where are you sending these people to? The homepage? A dedicated landing page?
Have you tested it with anyone?
For an ad campaign to work effectively, you should send the visitor to a relevant page, not just a generic page for your services. If you make someone work hard to get where they need to go then they will just leave.
It needs to impactful, relevant and simple with lots of value to help them make their buying decision.
If they are browsing / learning then what do you offer to educate them?
No buyers guide? No setup tips? No ‘avoid cowboys’ advice?
If I’m in the market to spend £10-20k on AV kit I want to know you are the experts. I will look at a ton of other companies so why would I come back?
You are not collecting emails. You are not giving me any value or reason to return.
This means you are losing huge opportunities to convert visitors into leads.
From a trust perspective, I can't even see a telephone number unless I scroll right to the bottom of the page. Your service is sold on trust, a relationship and the customer knowing that you have the expertise. Sorry, but none of that comes across.
Show me client logos so I can see you’ve finished a ton of projects to the highest level.
Show images of your team. Show me you are real people.
If you keep spending money on ads with that site then you are literally throwing cash down the toilet. Sorry, you should invest in a new site ASAP.
NEXT STEPS
Right, now I've lambasted your site and social channels (sorry, nothing personal, honestly) I have a strategy that I believe will work for you.
- Step 1 - Identify your target audience (be strict and as niche as possible)
- Step 2 - Build a new website to make the experience visually stimulating (like your kit) and make it mobile friendly. This is vital!
- Step 3 - Invest in a copywriter to bring the words to life!
- Step 4 - Create a downloadable lead magnet (A buyers guide) and collect emails from prospects. Add value and solve their pains and problems.
- Step 5 - Make your site sexy (Professional images of kit and finished jobs)
- Step 6 - Make your site trustworthy (client logos, team photos, better customer reviews, etc)
- Step 7 - Add videos of you and your team to the site. Bring it alive!
- Step 8 - Offer to write an expert article for relevant blogs and magazines that your audience reads. If it’s LinkedIn then start publishing high-quality content on there. Get in front of them without the hard-sell. The key is to be a valuable resource, not to sell. Give excellent free value and you will generate business from it. Be tenacious at doing this.
- Step 9 - Run targeted ads on Google Adwords (niche audience and location) with the objective of driving downloads not sales. For example, target Sound System Buyers with a Buyer Guide. Nobody wants to spend a ton of cash and have issues. Solve their pain and start the conversation. People take 8-10 touches before they buy. This is a large purchase so the lead time is longer.
- Step 10 - Call your existing customers to make sure they are happy. Don't try to sell, just ask if their systems are ok and offer to be there. A simple phone call can generate more business. You can also ask them if they know anybody else who may be interested. Another option is to tell them about a refer-a-friend reward you can offer.
- Step 11 - Get on Check-a-Trade. It looks like there is an active AV demand there and it could be a good lead generator.
- Step 12 - Create video content for your blog. Blogs can be very dull so you need to make it interesting and engaging. You can use this to offer advice, review products, interview customers, talk about developments,
I hope some of my advice helps.
Good luck.
Upvote
0
T
The Byre
As luck would have it, I am in the middle of my own Atmos/DTS-X installation, I work in an AV related industry and I have worked with the publishers of AV Magazine in the past, so I had a butchers at your website.
I shall be blunt - you are targeting professional customers with domestic installations and equipment.
The domestic market sells on price and is best left alone. Period. Don't bother - it ain't worth it! The domestic market is best left to the box-shifters! Epson is not a name I would be putting out there to sell as professional projectors. Barco, yes. Epson, no!
That is even more important for audio. The professional audio scene uses Genelec and/or Neumann speakers - not 100V Cloud systems for pubs, where audio quality is the last consideration. In PA and theatre the choices are wider, such as d&b, JBL, Electrovoice and a few smaller names like Turbosound.
The stuff you seem to have on offer and the installations you state you are doing, are all things that people do for themselves. HDMI-2 lines and switchers are things one buys on eBay. The same goes for small HD projectors and bog-standard 5.1 sound systems. Small DMX rigs are a consumer product.
You are offering consumer products and calling them professional installations!
Over and above all that, the advice from @WebshopMechanic is spot-on, esp. the bit about specialising. Pick a branch or market (home theatre, corporate meeting rooms, churches, whatever) and be the best in that area.
I know a guy who runs a fairly substantial company installing corporate rooms that link via a satellite 4K link to North Sea oil platforms, so that the entire wall is the room on the platform - or visa versa. The 4K feed can also be used to trouble-shoot tech. problems elsewhere on the platform or rig.. He is also entering the medical field.
I shall be blunt - you are targeting professional customers with domestic installations and equipment.
The domestic market sells on price and is best left alone. Period. Don't bother - it ain't worth it! The domestic market is best left to the box-shifters! Epson is not a name I would be putting out there to sell as professional projectors. Barco, yes. Epson, no!
That is even more important for audio. The professional audio scene uses Genelec and/or Neumann speakers - not 100V Cloud systems for pubs, where audio quality is the last consideration. In PA and theatre the choices are wider, such as d&b, JBL, Electrovoice and a few smaller names like Turbosound.
The stuff you seem to have on offer and the installations you state you are doing, are all things that people do for themselves. HDMI-2 lines and switchers are things one buys on eBay. The same goes for small HD projectors and bog-standard 5.1 sound systems. Small DMX rigs are a consumer product.
You are offering consumer products and calling them professional installations!
Over and above all that, the advice from @WebshopMechanic is spot-on, esp. the bit about specialising. Pick a branch or market (home theatre, corporate meeting rooms, churches, whatever) and be the best in that area.
I know a guy who runs a fairly substantial company installing corporate rooms that link via a satellite 4K link to North Sea oil platforms, so that the entire wall is the room on the platform - or visa versa. The 4K feed can also be used to trouble-shoot tech. problems elsewhere on the platform or rig.. He is also entering the medical field.
Upvote
0
I'll second what @The Byre has said re commercial v domestic.
I ran a very successful Google AdWords account for a commercial AV company for several years. Their best job - they talk about it still - was equipping a chain of cinemas. That relationship started with an search for a Christie projector on Google.
We found that the best enquiries came very early in the design process - an electrical engineer or architect searching for digital displays or PA systems. That way my client could get in an help design and specify rather than being called in to tender later in the project where it was a case of selecting the cheapest option.
I ran a very successful Google AdWords account for a commercial AV company for several years. Their best job - they talk about it still - was equipping a chain of cinemas. That relationship started with an search for a Christie projector on Google.
We found that the best enquiries came very early in the design process - an electrical engineer or architect searching for digital displays or PA systems. That way my client could get in an help design and specify rather than being called in to tender later in the project where it was a case of selecting the cheapest option.
Upvote
0
Are your target clients looking on social media for your services?
Maybe your email campaign was targeting the wrong people or your email message was wrong or you were promoting the wrong thing.
That being said, your website is pretty dire so even if you did get someone following a link they would be put off by what they see. Website reviews are only for full members but think about this: if I landed on this page: https://www.definitionaudiovisual.co.uk/church-sound-systems.html there is nothing at all about what you do, no examples of your work, no calls to action, testimonials, no nuffin'. Just a load of blurb that the Church committee won't understand or care about.
Do as suggested and find your target client. Build a page that is totally focused on meeting their needs and has all the trustmarks, case studies and lead generating content.
Seriously, your web site is really bad.
Upvote
0
Look at your most profitable customers thus far. Which jobs do you make the most money on?
Alternatively, where is your best skillset? Where do you think you are the best?
Then, pick the phone up and talk to those customers who you've already served. Take them for lunch and pick their brains. That's the best form and most cost-effective of marketing you can do because it shapes your future.
I listened to a great podcast the yesterday called Masters of Scale where the owner of Air BnB described how he started off.
He didn't just come up with an idea and the rest happened naturally. He got close to his customers, learned their needs, wants, behaviour and habits. He actually lived with them!
Once he knew who his target market was then he was able to tailor his service to meet their needs exactly. More customers followed.
Here's the podcast if anyone is interested: https://mastersofscale.com/brian-chesky-handcrafted/
Alternatively, where is your best skillset? Where do you think you are the best?
Then, pick the phone up and talk to those customers who you've already served. Take them for lunch and pick their brains. That's the best form and most cost-effective of marketing you can do because it shapes your future.
I listened to a great podcast the yesterday called Masters of Scale where the owner of Air BnB described how he started off.
He didn't just come up with an idea and the rest happened naturally. He got close to his customers, learned their needs, wants, behaviour and habits. He actually lived with them!
Once he knew who his target market was then he was able to tailor his service to meet their needs exactly. More customers followed.
Here's the podcast if anyone is interested: https://mastersofscale.com/brian-chesky-handcrafted/
Upvote
0
T
The Byre
Henry Ford ones said that the secret to a successful business is to find out what the customer wants and to then give it to them.
Well, there's this -
That's the same as stating "There are many different types of butterflies." or as a friend of mine would say "No kidding, Holmes!"
You are blandly stating the obvious.
Also I would drop that whole 100V idea - it is an outdated and very inferior technology. Firstly ordinary low-Z audio feeds can be 200m or longer without quality loss - and secondly, in today's world of wireless connections and active speakers, nailing wires all over the insides of a church, totally unnecessary. In today's world, the sound and lighting techs can run systems of unlimited complexity from a tablet, whilst walking through the audience.
As much as I abhor all religions, you have to admire what the various houses of worship (that's the proper name for that market BTW) are doing in the US. They are today broadcasters, feeding their worship sessions to the Internet, with live feeds on YouTube and Instagram etc. They do multitrack and multi-cam recordings of their stuff and release the highlights on their websites and elsewhere. The really big churches have their own full-time, in-house tech. crews operating and maintaining this stuff. They produce programmes and outside broadcasts of anything and everything, from sports events to field trips.
Your website should be blowing minds with the amazing possibilities that a decent AV installation today can provide.
Normally, I am not a big fan of video on websites. But as @WebshopMechanic said - put some jaw-dropping (but short!) video on it that SHOWS some of the amazing possibilities. At the moment, you are an AV company with no AV to show.
The texts should offer concrete examples of technical solutions. The guy commissioned to buy in those cinema systems mentioned above will not be a numpty. He or she will the the chain's tech. director. They will have gone to the IBC and the CeBit trade fairs and looked at all the toys. They will be reading all the various trade magazines. Even at a church, a person with a technical background will be the volunteer dealing with tech. installations.
Out of the goodness of my heart, I lent my private DMX rig with 30 cans and 6 scanners to our local (rather elderly) am-dram group. I told them that they are on their own with the programming as I do not have the time to do all that for somebody. "That's OK," said the guy who picked it up. "my day-job is theatre lighting designer."
If you are selling professional installations, you must offer professional equipment and methods of working. For audio, that means using protocols like wireless MADI and for lighting, wireless DMX. When a customer sees that the bad old days of woolly-sounding 100V large and fugly speakers hanging obtrusively all over the shop are completely over and that they can have perfect and deeply satisfying sound without all that gubbins, that they can have crystal-clear images from the factory floor on the other side of the World, that they can stream what they are doing in real-time in HD or 4K, that the vicar can be wired for sound without having to worry about carrying a mic around trailing meters of wire, that the waitress can alter the ambient sound and lighting levels at a table using the same tablet she uses for the ePoS and ordering, you might find them reaching for their cheque books!
Last edited by a moderator:
Upvote
0
D
DotenHosting
Have you tried Local SEO and targeting your target audience but in the local area?
An option for getting leads would be to contact local event planners who would potentially be able to point you in the direction of venues that don't currently have equipment, or alternatively have a set of kit which could be hired out to these event planners and target them that way.
An option for getting leads would be to contact local event planners who would potentially be able to point you in the direction of venues that don't currently have equipment, or alternatively have a set of kit which could be hired out to these event planners and target them that way.
Upvote
0
Latest Articles
-
Should you crowdfund? A framework for UK founders in 2026Three articles into a series on what crowdfunding actually costs, the...- Ozzy
- Updated:
-
The polls, the reframing, and the billion dollarsHow three letters from the early years of Star Citizen's development...
- Ozzy
- Updated:
-
The values trap: what the Punks actually ownedWhy BrewDog's Equity for Punks investors were structurally locked out...
- Ozzy
- Updated:
-
When belief is the business modelWhat BrewDog's collapse and Star Citizen's billion-dollar climb are...
- Ozzy
- Updated:
-
AI, Virtual Influencers and the Copyright Minefield: What Entrepreneurs Need to KnowI'll be upfront: this article was written with the assistance of an AI...
- Ozzy
- Updated: