The Cost of Fire Damage Leads: Understanding the Cost of Getting More Fire Damage Jobs
In order to get more fire damage restoration leads, you need to start by getting more leads. Whether you use display ads, local SEO, or any other advertising method, generating more fire damage restoration leads usually comes at a cost. Regardless of which methods you choose to you, you need to devote time and resources to manage your marketing efforts. From handling your own marketing to hiring an agency, we look at the 4 most common ways to run your marketing. Plus, we evaluate the cost of fire damage leads by each of these methods.
4 Types of Marketing to Get More Jobs for Your Fire Restoration Business
You need to market your business to get more fire damage leads. While there are a variety of ways to market your fire restoration company, you need to decide whether you’re going to do the work yourself or hire someone else.
- Do-It-Yourself Marketing – You choose to manage your own marketing campaigns or have an existing employee do it. You’ll pay for your ads and marketing expenses and the time required may cut into time for jobs or your personal life.
- Hiring a Marketing Professional – You hire a marketing professional to manage your marketing efforts. You still pay for your ads and marketing expenses, but you also pay for their experience and services.
- Advertising or Marketing Agency – You hire a company to manage your marketing. In addition to paying for your ads and marketing expenses, you also pay them for their time. They may also require a retainer or minimum monthly spend.
- Lead Generation Company – You buy leads directly from a company. Although lead generation companies vary, reputable ones only charge you for valid leads from the homeowner or decision-maker.
What are Fire Damage Restoration Leads?
Fire damage leads are opportunities to land a job. For example, a customer will contact you about fire clean up services by phone or message. You then have the opportunity to offer your services and provide an estimate. There are many methods to generate fire damage leads including direct mail marketing, email marketing, social media posts, and paid search ads. You will either need to manage these methods on your own or hire a person or agency to manage them for you.
Does Every Fire Damage Lead Turn Into a Job?
Again, every fire damage lead is an opportunity, not a guaranteed job. Many fire leads will turn into jobs, although some may not. Regardless of how you get your leads, it’s important to remember all leads are just opportunities. For this reason, it’s important to get as many leads as possible. While a few won’t work out, you’ll have enough leads to keep your crews busy.
Methods of Advertising and Marketing Your Business to Generate Fire Damage Leads
Whether you’re hiring a person or company or managing your advertising yourself, here are some of the most common ways to generate leads. While all can be effective, not every method works for every business. Finding the correct mix of methods will take some experimentation.
Modern Media Methods
- Paid Search – These are text ads that appear above organic search results. In most cases, you bid on specific keywords or phrases and only pay when customers click on your ad.
- Search Engine Optimization – Also known as SEO or organic search, you write content designed to target keywords customers are searching for. If you write your own content, there is no direct cost. However, it requires your content to convert customers.
- Display Advertising – These are the banner ads that appear across the internet. You have to have them designed, which may come at a cost, plus pay for each impression of your ad. Some websites may also charge per click as well. Prices usually vary depending on audience demographics and website traffic.
- Local SEO – Similar to SEO, you optimize your content specifically to appear in map websites and apps. Typically this involves standardizing your address, phone number, and business hours, as well as clearly identifying the services you provide.
- Social Media – Many businesses choose social media because it’s free. While technically true, you will probably need to pay to promote posts or advertise to reach new customers.
Traditional Media Methods
- Print Advertising – This includes printed media like newspapers, magazines, bulletins, and other publications. Pricing usually varies by the audience demographic and circulation of the specific publication. Like most traditional advertising methods, it’s hard to track the performance of these ads.
- Out-Of-Home Advertising – Out-Of-Home includes billboards of all sizes, from giant freeway signs to smaller bus stop ads. Pricing will vary by size and location and tracking performance is harder than digital ads.
- Broadcast Advertising – Broadcast radio and TV ads offer wide exposure and pricing will vary by individual stations, time of day, and, in some cases, frequency of ads. Again, these are harder to track that other types of ads.
Trust-Based Methods
- Referrals – The first of two free methods of marketing your business, you ask existing customers to refer your business to family and friends. Because of the trust factor, these leads often convert at a very high rate. Unfortunately, they are often few and far between.
- Reviews – The second free method of marketing, you ask existing customers to review your business on popular websites. Reviews have a very similar trust level as referrals, but the conversion rate is often lower. They are often most effective in conjunction with other marketing methods like SEO, local SEO, and social media.
Comparing the Cost of Fire Damage Leads
Do It Yourself Marketing
Do-it-yourself marketing offers the most control over your messaging and how much you spend. As long as you remain active in maintaining your marketing, you can adjust your budgets when necessary. By spending more when business is slower and less when its busier, you can balance your overall marketing spend and workload.
However, this does require a certain amount of commitment to your campaigns. In addition to the time spend managing your advertising, you also need to factor in additional time to keep up with the latest changes in technology. Google, Facebook, and many other websites and apps are constantly updating their platforms.
Once you get the basics down, you can probably run your own advertising and marketing campaigns effectively with just an hour or two a week. However, it may require several hours or even days when you are first starting out. This can cut into both personal time and the number of jobs you can do.
Depending on your experience and technical level, this might be overwhelming. Some contractors give up after a few attempts or lack the patience to see what works out for you. If you plan to do your own marketing, remain patient and be prepared for it to take some time.
Hire a Marketing Professional
The biggest advantage of hiring a marketing professional is that they already know the tools and have the time necessary to keep up with updates. This decreases the time it takes to takes to launch campaigns. Ideally, it should also ensure your campaigns perform better from the start.
However, this does mean adding an additional employee to your staff. You can hire on a full or parttime basis depending on your needs and your budget. The GlassDoor national average for a marketing professional is $67,000 plus benefits. An hourly marketing person may change anywhere between $25 and $100 or more per hour.
Unless the marketing person you hire has prior experience with fire damage or similar services, you may still need to coach them on your industry. Factor in time to train them in the first few months of their employment. This will ensure your ads are as effective as possible.
Advertising or Marketing Agency
An agency offers the same advantages of hiring a marketing professional, with the added benefit of having a team to manage your marketing and advertising campaigns. They can analyze your competition and create a strategy to compete against even the biggest brands.
While an advertising agency offers many advantages, they also have higher costs. In addition to the costs of your ads, you should expect an hourly rate of $50 or more per hour. The hour rate is billed for strategizing, designing, implementing, and managing your ad campaigns.
Some agencies may also either charge a monthly retainer or require a minimum monthly spend. Retainers often range between $1000 to $3000 per month while monthly spend requirements start as low as $500 per month and increase from there. The lack of billing transparency is a common concern.
Lead Generation Company
Lead generation companies offer a competitive level of marketing experience, but with a focus on related industries like restoration services. This gives them a slight edge in targeting the customers you are looking for.
Additionally, lead generation companies only get paid for valid opportunities so their revenue is closely tied to your own. Fire damage leads usually start around $75 for text-based leads, with phone leads averaging between $350 and $700 depending on the service area.
Choose a lead generation company that only sends each lead to one contractor. Other things to look for include upfront pricing, clear billable criteria, ability to pause your account, and process for disputing billable leads. Avoid companies that send leads to multiple companies, have long term contractors, or charge monthly fees.
Measuring the Real Cost of Fire Damage Leads
Determining the actual cost of fire damage leads involved a wide variety of variables. In our calculations, we assumed that all leads were generated with paid search campaigns at an average cost of $15.50 per click. Additionally, we assumed all of these methods generated 2 fire damage leads a week.
In calculating the do-it-yourself marketing costs, we based our math on industry-standard hourly rates. Assuming you spend 4 hours each week maintaining your campaigns, that’s $150 for your time, plus the cost of the paid search ads.
We used the GlassDoor estimate of $67,000 per year as the basis for hiring a marketing professional. That works out to a weekly salary of approximately $1290. For the agency scenario, we assumed 5 billable hours at $100 per hour and a monthly retainer of $1000.
For the lead generation rates, we used our own average billable lead rate. While our fire damage leads vary between $350 and $700, our average billable lead cost was $360 over the last 3 months.
We used the latest industry research and statistics available in our estimates, but your actual costs will vary. To calculate your own cost per lead, divide your total weekly marketing cost by the total number of weekly leads. As a reminder, these are just the cost per lead and not every lead will turn into a job.
Which Method is Best at Getting Fire Damage Restoration Jobs?
The best method is the one that gets you the most leads for the lowest cost. Unfortunately, it’s hard to predict which method will do that for your business. When you are considering how to manage your marketing efforts, take into account fixed costs like advertising costs as well as variable costs like that amount of time required to manage campaigns.
Whichever method you choose, try to remain patient and commit to at least 10 billable leads. This ensures you have a clear picture of how that method performs for your business. For any method other than lead generation, you should also assume your first few leads will be more expensive than average as you perfect your campaign performance.
Get Flat-Rate Fire Damage Restoration Leads Starting at $75
Start getting high-quality, flat-rate fire damage restoration leads today. Our text-based leads are just $75 each, while our phone-based leads start at $350 each. You only pay for valid leads from the homeowner or decision-maker calling about a service you’re signed up for in your agreed-upon service area. Plus, you can pause your account or cancel at any time. Get more fire damage leads today. Request a free demo of our leads now by filling out the contact form below or call 888-594-8381 to speak with our business development team.