Subscribe to our newsletter!
We don't spam. You will only receive relevant and important tips for you and your business.
Unsubscribe anytime.
By Darren DeYoung
If you can spend about $2,000 a month on marketing, all in, you can't do everything. You can do one job well. Pick the leak that costs you the most work, whether that's your Google Business Profile, your website on a phone, slow quote follow-up, or a small ads test. Fund that first and score it by cost per booked job.
You've heard the pitches. A video crew wants to film your brand story. Someone says you need five platforms. Your nephew says to hire him as your marketing person.
So the money gets spread thin, and at the end of the month you can't say which part put a job on the schedule. The real cost of a tight budget isn't the size. It's the guessing.
Score every dollar by cost per booked job: what you spent on a channel last month, divided by the jobs from that channel that actually landed on your schedule. Not clicks, not likes, not leads. A cheap lead that never books is not cheap. A pricey call that books a big job can be a bargain.
We've broken this math down in our post on comparing cost per booked job across Angi, Thumbtack and Google. You need two numbers per channel: spend and booked jobs. The second one is the hard one. Call tracking tells you which channel made the phone ring. Your job software (ServiceTitan, Jobber, Housecall Pro) tells you which calls became jobs, if you log where each job came from. If you're shopping for one, here's our Housecall Pro vs ServiceTitan comparison.
Four things usually fit: a healthy Google Business Profile, a website that doesn't lose people on a phone, a narrow ads test, and faster quote follow-up. You probably can't fund all four at once. Start with the one leaking the most work.
| Usually fits | Doesn't fit yet |
|---|---|
| Business Profile and reviews | Six-month brand film |
| Fixing site leaks | Five channels at once |
| One-service ads test | Full-time in-house marketer |
| Faster quote follow-up | Full rebrand |
What it looks like: old photos, hours from two winters ago, and the last review from last spring.
What it's quietly costing you: the customer who checks you against the company with fresh reviews, and calls them instead.
This is the cheapest leak to fix. Not sure how your profile looks to a customer? Our walkthrough of what customers see when they look you up takes about ten minutes and shows you.
Our Google Business Profile guide covers setup. Then build a habit of asking every happy customer for a review and replying to the ones you get.
What it looks like: visits come in, but the phone stays quiet.
What it's quietly costing you: people who were ready to call and couldn't find the button.
A monthly budget won't usually cover a new build, and it doesn't need to start there. Check the basics on a phone: a call button at the top, a short form, fast load, and clear service areas.
Our guide for sites with traffic but no leads and the website mistakes that cost jobs list the usual suspects.
Your website still matters a lot. It's where the customer decides. If it's past patching, read whether to rebuild the website first or hire marketing.
What it looks like: "We tried Google Ads once and it didn't work."
What it's quietly costing you: the jobs going to whoever shows up first when someone searches "garage door repair near me."
Keep the test narrow: one service, your best towns, business hours, and calls tracked from day one. Look at Local Services Ads if your trade qualifies. Judge it on the paid ads numbers that matter, which ends at booked jobs.
What it looks like: "This looks great," then silence.
What it's quietly costing you: the drive, the walkthrough, and the evening you spent writing the price.
More calls won't help if quotes don't close. We wrote a whole post on what happens when customers get your quote and disappear. Faster replies help too; see our tips on improving response times.
A six-month brand film, five channels at once, and a full-time in-house marketer usually don't fit yet. None of these are wrong forever. They just need more room than one tight budget has, and each one would starve the job that brings in calls today. Think "later," not "never."
A brand film or full rebrand. A strong brand pays off, and we help owners do it. Street Smart Rental set its rebranding goals with Hoist. When you're ready, start with how to rebrand your business. Just fund the calls first.
Five channels at once. Each channel needs time, content, and someone watching the numbers. Split one budget five ways and none of them gets enough to work. Our post on how to spend your marketing budget explains how to match channels to whether you need calls now or later.
A full-time in-house marketer. One salary, plus benefits, plus the ad spend they'd manage, doesn't fit in a $2,000 total. If someone in the office already helps, read what an office manager can cover vs. an SEO company.
Cut the vanity channels first: anything you're doing because it feels like you should, not because it books jobs. Social platforms nobody on your team really understands, sponsorships with no tracking, and paid listings that never send a booked job are the usual first cuts.
Social media can work. But only if you have someone who manages it and actually knows the platform.
Don't be on TikTok if nobody on your team understands how TikTok decides what to show people. A half-run account with three posts from last year can look worse than no account at all. That goes double if your customers don't spend time there.
If you do have the right person, pick one platform where your customers already are. Our post on choosing the best social platforms for your business helps you pick, and tracking social media keeps it honest.
A Garage Door And Gate Store came to Hoist short on leads, with mailers showing "diminishing returns." Hoist focused on one job: Google Ads campaigns built to drive calls. The result was so many leads that they were booked out for six months and asked to pause ads so they could catch up.
Read the full A Garage Door And Gate Store case study.
Hoist does website design and marketing under one roof, so when your site is the leak, we fix that, and when it's calls, we run the ads.
Pick one job, more calls, and fund that before you fund a rebrand. Find your biggest leak, put your budget behind fixing it, and score it by cost per booked job. When that job is working, add the next one.
Not sure which leak is costing you the most? Talk to Hoist. We'll look at where your calls come from and where they drop off.