Vander Els Partners
You gave us the business name, the towns you drive to, and an email address. This is what we found. The answer is not the one either of us wanted, and it is better read now than found in month seven.
The market
Your service area is a ring of small towns around one mid-sized one, with a build season that runs about half the year. The total search demand for decks and outdoor structures across that area is real but small, and it is concentrated in a window of a few months.
a single line across a year, near zero for half of it, one hump in the middle.
There is not enough demand in the off-season to learn from, and the on-season is short enough that a campaign launched in it is still learning when it ends.
The competitors
One company holds the map and the top of the results across nearly every point on the grid. It has been in the area for decades, has more reviews than every other builder combined, and its owner appears in the local paper twice a year. It is not doing anything clever. It is simply the default, and a default that old is not moved in a season.
a grid of points, almost all of them the same colour, labelled with one competitor's name.
Below it, a handful of small builders trade the remaining positions between them. You are one of them. You are not losing to a weak competitor with a good listing. You are losing to a strong one.
The budget
The starting budget would carry the work. It would not carry enough media, in a season that short, to produce a sample worth acting on, and the search work needed to move a decades-old default is measured in years, not the months you described wanting.
A thin version of this would not fail loudly. It would quietly underperform for a year, and nobody would pull the plug because it would never get bad enough to force the conversation. We would rather not sell you that.
The verdict
No, not now.
What would change it
Three things, any one of which would make us read this differently.
A second line of work with year-round demand, screened porches or covered structures, that gives the account something to learn from in the off-season.
A service area that reaches the next metro over, where the demand is larger and the default competitor is not the same one.
Or a longer horizon. If the plan is to be the default in ten years, the search work is worth starting, and it should start with reviews and the listing, which cost you time rather than money.
If any of those is true or becomes true, write back. The read changes.
This is what a read looks like when the answer is no. You get it in the first reply. Tell us about your business →