Strategic Marketing

Background

Blind & Sons, a regional HVAC, plumbing and electrical company with 80+ years of experience, acquired Apple Heating & Cooling to expand its service area. Of course, increasing its potential customer base meant spending marketing dollars on way more people. We weren’t so sure the brand had the most efficient system in place.

Challenge

Blind & Sons was excellent at ROI tracking with sophisticated tactics for tracing leads directly to marketing pieces. The brand felt comfortable when its ad spend to percent of sales ratio was in the 6–8 percent range. However, several years after the Apple acquisition and rebranding, Blind & Sons was hovering around 9 percent.

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Solution

We had a notion that the client was spreading its marketing budget too thin, so we gathered all available sales data and used data visualization software to generate heat maps showing a detailed ZIP code analysis. We were able to gain insight into ZIP codes with major losses or gains, areas of high penetration, and more. This process identified areas of focus for the brand where ad spend had the most opportunity. Ultimately, we recommended Blind & Sons should focus on “owning its own backyard.”

Impact

While there have been some anomalies and this data visualization approach is ongoing for Blind & Sons, the client saw the following results in the first year:

• Reduced ad spend to percent of sales ratio
• Increased average household spend in focus areas
• Expected losses in areas outside of focus
• Improved operational efficiency
• A 12 percent increase in overall sales