The Cost of Event Marketing Whether they’re regulars at home shows or on tours or both, remodelers who make a habit of event-based marketing caution that these are not endeavors to enter into lightly. Squeezing the maximum benefit out of either event requires a considerable amount of planning and effort.
Lasting anywhere from a weekend to more than a week, shows require a serious time commitment. For that reason alone, some companies refuse to participate.
“You go from 10 in the morning until eight at night,” says Doug Reymore, president of Cascade Remodeling in Seattle. “It’s a long day.” The Seattle Home Show’s main spring event runs for nine days. “The first few days are fun, but after that it’s all uphill,” he says. Reymore and a number of other show participants hire temps to fill out the hours that regular staff can’t cover.
Shows aren’t inexpensive either. Annual show budgets for companies that enter a few shows a year run between $10,000 and $15,000, accounting for entry fees (typically in the range of $1,500), equipment and displays, staffing, and other incidentals. And although shows will provide a basic booth as part of the entry fee, show veterans agree that a high-quality display unit is an integral part of creating a professional presence. The display unit itself can cost thousands of dollars (though it should last a few years). Mark Brick, president of B & E General Contractors in Green Bay, Wis., recently dropped $25,000 on a top-line display usually found at corporate trade shows.
Dressing the booth is also important. Show-goers recommend extras such as lighting, plants, and carpet to create an inviting space. Some remodelers, among them guys who don’t normally trade in the flashy or unusual, recommend something gimmicky to catch the attention of passersby and stimulate conversation.
“Your booth has to grab their attention within about three seconds,” Poulin says, “so I think it’s important to have something to pull people in. This year, instead of photos, we used flat LCD screens to show slide shows of all our projects. That definitely got people’s attention.” “It’s marketing,” Brick says.
“If you present yourself well, you’re going to get business. If you don’t spend the money and do it halfway, you get halfway results.”
Prepping the House Entering a project onto a tour also requires a good deal of long-term planning and effort. Most importantly, the homeowner has to agree to participate. That agreement is best secured in the project’s design stage, because manufacturers offer substantial discounts on products that will be installed in a tour home.
“The savings, combined with client ego, really make it happen,” Metke says. “Those are the two things that get a client’s home on tour.” With discounts as high as 15%, homeowners who agree to show their homes can see substantial savings.
“We’re doing a $2.5 million project right now, and that client will probably realize easily $100,000 worth of savings,” Metke says.
The location of the home is important, too. To see the maximum number of visitors, it has to be among a cluster of other homes on the tour, remodelers say, and should be close to parking and the neighborhood’s main arterials.
Curb appeal is another important factor — make sure the house is well landscaped.
“They may have a beautiful kitchen but have dandelions all over the front lawn,” Potter says.
The house must also be staged and protected. “If the clients don’t want people to walk on their floors with shoes,” Brick says, “we provide booties. If they want an area of the house closed off, we’ll do that. We make sure their personal items are taken out and we bring our own.”
In the end, Brick says, the effort and expense stand a good chance of paying off.
“To make it worth our labor and time,” he adds, “all we need to sell is one project.”
David Zuckerman is freelance writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y.