March Madness and Marketing

I have been a college basketball fan ever since my alma mater, George Mason University, made an inexplicable run to the Final Four in 2006.

Before that? Couldn’t care less.

Why the change? Because I got caught up in the Cinderella story of GMU, a sleepy, commuter school in the Virginia suburbs thrust into the national spotlight after beating teams like Michigan State, North Carolina and Connecticut. Now, not only do I follow GMU hoops, I also follow some of the other local college teams. I enjoy sitting down and watching a game. And I’m looking forward to March Madness.

That might be a little odd for a middle age woman who never played basketball. (For the record, I could play a mean game of horse with my brother and his friends!) But the point is we never really know what is going to capture our attention. And the same holds true with our prospects.

Our prospects move along through their busy lives until, one day, they begin to think about a remodeling project. We don’t know what starts the thought—a television show, a friend’s project, a lifestyle change. It truly could be a thousand different reasons. It may be the beginning of a plan to remodel, one that gets tossed around for quite some time. Or the idea may take hold and become uppermost in our prospect’s mind immediately. We really don’t know when and why the idea comes to mind. Just that it does.

And once it does, we must capitalize on that attention. And build on it. And that’s where our marketing comes in. We need to be “out there” so that when the prospect begins to explore the idea of remodeling, our company pops up. It might be in the form of an ad in a newspaper or magazine, or maybe a postcard, possibly our website comes up during a search. And it’s not going to be just once. The prospect will need to see us over and over again. That’s where our marketing plan helps us to be seen by as many prospects as possible and in a variety of venues.

Make sure that your marketing plan gives you the most bang for your buck. And be ready for the madness to begin.