How can I get new customers for my CCTV/Alarm business?
You have completed a hands-on experience CCTV installation course with Cube Group Ltd. You have also gained valuable insights of how a CCTV system is installed and maintained. It all sounds good, but have you started your career by working in the industry? In this article, I would like to share some ideas that you can implement to expand your business or create a new business from scratch. This article is aimed at those who are self-employed and looking to start their own business. If you are looking to work for someone, please refer to my previous posts.
You have either decided to run your own business, or you may already have one, and you have also completed our 3 day hands-on experience course. Now, the big questions are how can I get customers? Where can I get my first job? How can I provide a competitive quote?
We all have these concerns, and it is critical to understand how to get your career off to a good start after completing the CCTV installation course. Let’s start with the most crucial component of your business: your goals and objectives. It is critical to have clear corporate goals and objectives. For example, I’d like to provide CCTV/alarm installation services to small businesses and residential consumers. Within the next 12 months, I will become the most trusted and chosen CCTV/Alarm installer in North West London and the neighbouring areas.
Once you have defined your goals and objectives, you should then identify your strengths and weakness. For example, have you got enough money to spend on marketing activities? Have you got all the tools you require and other questions that may think are relevant.
SWOT analysis is a good tool to use.
Once you have defined your business goals, objectives and SWOT, you can now start acquiring new customers and contracts.
There are many ways to get new customers. The main two ways of getting new customers are:
- Offline marketing
- Online marketing
Offline marketing
Offline marketing includes the traditional ways of marketing your business. Below are some of the popular offline marketing methods:
- Newspapers
- Leaflets
- Brochures
- Business cards
- Word of mouth
- TV and Radio commercials
Small business digital marketing
Offline marketing is generally expensive, and it may take a long time before you see actual results. In contrast, word of mouth is a powerful offline marketing tool and is cost effective as well. It will be an excellent idea to print your business cards and distribute them to your friends and families. The rest of the offline marketing methods are quite expensive, and unless you have a huge marketing budget, I will not recommend them.
Online marketing
Online marketing is generally defined as digital marketing. Many of your target audience use all types of digital tools to find their suppliers. For example, let us imagine you are trying to get someone to install a CCTV system at your place. What will you do? The first thing most of us do is to ask people to recommend a company, as this means that you can see what they have done before. But it is not always easy to do that. You may have very limited time and resources to find a CCTV/alarm installer. In that case, you will go to a search engine and type the service that you are looking for. This is what your potential client is going to do. Therefore, it is very important that you have a digital presence.
Small business digital marketing
Online marketing techniques for CCTV installers
Often, digital marketing is very expensive, and if someone is starting this for the first time, it is going to be very difficult to understand. If you have the budget for marketing, you can outsource the whole digital marketing to an agency. It is advisable that you check customer reviews and all other information before you give them the contract. If you a small player and don’t necessarily have big budgets, don’t worry. The below techniques will help you to get more customers and expand your business.
Digital marketing techniques for small businesses
Have you got your website ready?
Have you got a website? If you find the whole process of developing your own website challenging, there are companies who offer free websites and cost effective web solutions. Wix.com offers easy website templates and hosting.
Godaddy is another company that provides cost effective web solutions.
Don’t spend too much time developing animations and flash objects, as it is not really important. You should make sure that your website is readable and gives clear information to your target audience.
Once your website is up and running, you should now promote it.
Did you register your company with Google maps?
Google offers a simple and effective listing solution for small businesses. This will also bring your website onto the first page, when someone is looking for local CCTV/Alarm installers.
Have you indexed your website? In order for search engines to find your site, you should start indexing your site. Most website hosting companies offer this service, or you can manually submit your site to search engines. Search for site submission on google and bing, and submit your site’s URL.
Have you shared your website on to your social media profile?
Try sharing your business details with Facebook, twitter and other social media sites.
Keep your website content fresh – by updating your site on a regular basis with your jobs and other activities, keep your site up to date.
Lead generating agencies –
There are several lead generating agencies that can help you to get more customers. Mybuilders, service magic and companeo are some of the agencies that can help you to get new customers. Once you have created a profile and specified your services and preferred areas, they will start sending emails to you when they have jobs from those areas. Some of these agencies will send one lead to more than one client. You should be expecting more competition in winning the contracts. I strongly recommend that you do your research about these agencies.
Job agencies
By working with job agencies and other companies with similar products and services, you can form a business alliance with companies targeting a similar audience, for example electrical contractors, plumbers, and other traders. Job agencies are companies who provide CCTV/alarm engineers to bluechip and medium size companies. Once you register yourself with them as a CCTV/Alarm installer, they will pass jobs to you. However, in some cases you should expect to pay a commission fee to them.
I believe that this article has provided you with an insight into how you can grow your CCTV/Alarm business. Please share this article by clicking on the below share buttons.
Cube is a leading training provider in electronic security products installations. Please see our website for further information.