Google Ads is the Best Way to Advertise a Garage Door Business
The best way to advertise your garage door business is with Google Ads. Our Google Ads for Garage Door companies guide gives you the information that you need to get started. While it should probably be the first place you attempt to advertise your garage door services, it isn’t the only place. Once you get Google Ads up and running effectively, you should consider many of the other advertising options that are presented in this post.
For help with marketing for garage door repair companies, contact us.
Garage Door Advertising Doesn’t Include All Garage Door Marketing
Note, this post is about advertising only. There are many other garage door marketing strategies that don’t involve paying for ads – like garage door SEO. SEO is a top way to get This includes traditional search engine optimization techniques as well as local SEO techniques to try to get your Google Business Profile Listing (formerly Google My Business) to appear in the Google Map Pack.
You can also do social media digital marketing for free by posting updates to Twitter and Facebook – although this isn’t nearly as effective as advertising or search engine optimization. Other non-advertising garage door marketing ideas include attending garage door industry trade conferences or joining garage door contractor associations.
You’ll also want to get your garage door company listed in many online directories angi.com, the Better Business Bureau, and local business directories like your local chamber of commerce.
Direct Response Advertising vs Brand Advertising
Before we get deep into all the different places you can advertise your business, we need to cover the two different types of advertising: direct response and brand advertising.
Direct Response Advertising: Search Ads
The nature of most garage door repair services is urgent. A homeowner has an important meeting and they can’t get out of their garage. They search for you on Google, see your ad, and call you.
Direct response advertising is meant to get your garage door business leads RIGHT NOW. Of all advertising types, this is the best fit for the overwhelming majority of garage door repair companies.
Brand Advertising: All Other Ads (both offline and online)
Brand advertising works a bit differently. The goal is to build a brand in your local community through both online and offline advertising. These branding messages “interrupt” (and in some cases annoy) your target market.
As an example, they’ll be watching their favorite tv show – or browsing on their favorite social media platform (like Facebook). All of a sudden they see an ad for your garage door company that they didn’t really need or want to see. You’re getting the name of your business in front of prospects when they have no need for your services.
When you participate in brand advertising, you’re hoping that your ads have thoroughly saturated your target so that they remember your name. That way, when a homeowner’s torsion spring breaks, they’ll automatically remember your name and call you for servicing.
When Brand Advertising for Garage Door Companies Might Work
How can you get brand advertising to work for your company? If you’re a well-established garage door company with many locations in a sizeable metro area, brand advertising may be the right fit for you in some cases.
If the majority of your garage door service calls are focused more on garage door upgrades or routine maintenance (not emergencies) you may wish to consider experimenting with brand advertising.
Online Garage Door Advertising
There are three main ways that you can advertise your garage door business online:
- Search Ads
- Social Media Ads
- Sponsorships
I’ll dive into the concepts behind each of these as well as the different places that you can advertise.
Online Garage Door Advertising: Search Ads
Far and away the most effective place to advertise your garage door business is with search ads – also called PPC ads (which stands for pay-per-click). You’re getting your services in front of homeowners at the exact moment they need your help.
And these search ads work. According to MSNBC, 80% of Google’s revenue comes from Google ads, which generated $147 billion in 2020. Google continues to cash in on ads because advertisers are willing to pay to advertise on the search engine because they’re getting good results.
How Search Ads for Garage Doors Work
Here’s how search advertising works in both Google and Bing. In the screenshot below, the user searches for “garage door repair near me” on Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine. The bing results show 4 ads of local garage door companies (1,2,3,4) that can help the consumer with their problem.
The search results have so many ads, that you have to actually scroll down to see anything that isn’t an ad. Again, the ads are lucrative for the search engine and highly effective for the advertiser – which is why there are so many ads.
Note that you aren’t limited to attracting only residential customers who are looking for garage door installation and or repair services. You can also set up ads for working on commercial garage doors if you service business customers.
A search for garage door repair services on Microsoft’s Bing search engine
The Top Search Advertising Platforms
Google Local Services Ads appear above Google search Ads on the search results page
Google Search Ads are the Right Place to Start
Google Search Ads appear in Google search results and are the top online choice for a garage door company’s advertising dollar. Google has around an 87% market share in the United States according to StatCounter. You’re going to reach more garage door customers with Google than with any other platform. You’ll likely get more garage door leads as well. For more detailed information, check out our Google Ads for Garage Door Repair guide.
Your potential customer will search for a service that you offer – like “garage door repair service”, “broken garage door opener”, or “I need a new garage door” and your Google Ad will appear. The potential customer will click on your ad and be brought to your website. From there, you can convert the lead to a paying customer.
Google Local Services Ads – Also May Work for Your Garage Door Busines
As you can see in the image above, Google Local Service ads appear above Google search ads in the search results. Local Services Ads are prominently displayed on the search results page and are fairly easy to set up once you’re approved – although you’re somewhat limited in what information is displayed in the ads (when compared to Google Search Ads).
For more information on how to get started, refer to our Local Services Ads for Garage Door companies article.
Microsoft Search Ads
Microsoft search ads appear on the Microsoft Bing search results page in a very similar fashion to how Google search ads appear. The structure, setup, and optimization of these ads are very similar to how Google Search Ads works. While Google Ads tend to get better results, you can still get a solid return on your ad budget, making Microsoft Ads one of the best ways to get customers for garage doors.
Your best strategy is to get your Google Ads account up and running and performing effectively, then port your campaigns over to Microsoft Ads.
Fortunately, Microsoft actually makes it easy for companies to import their Google account into Microsoft Ads and run ads on Bing. For all the details, see our post on Microsoft Ads for garage door companies.
Online Garage Door Advertising: Social Media Ads
You should experiment with search ads and local ads (covered in the previous section) before considering advertising on any of the major social media platforms. When you’re running ads on social media, you’re usually interrupting your prospective customers. They’re tweeting or liking or messaging – not looking to get their garage door serviced.
In general, social media is best for brand advertising and name recognition.
Let’s take a look at some of your social media advertising options:
Yelp
Of all the social media advertising options, garage door repair advertising on Yelp may be your best bet. While Yelp doesn’t have nearly the same reach as Google, people still turn to Yelp when looking for local services.
According to reviewtrackers.com, 45% of consumers turn to Yelp when looking for local business reviews – not too far behind Google’s 63%.
Yelp results prominently features paid listings for garage door repair related searches just like Google and Microsoft search results
You’ll notice that as with Google and Microsoft, these tech companies want to get paid. You have to scroll down quite a bit on the page to get past the ads (sponsored listings).
NextDoor
NextDoor may be a viable advertising platform for many home contractors including your company. NextDoor allows you to reach homeowners on a very targeted level – including the neighborhood level.
If you’re able to advertise and get a couple of highly satisfied customers on Nextdoor, it could potentially help your garage door company get more referrals and recommendations via word of mouth. According to NextDoor, 2 out of 3 NextDoor members share recommendations with neighbors, and 76% of NextDoor members have been influenced by one of these recommendations.
Look for our post on NextDoor advertising for garage door companies (coming soon).
Facebook has amazing demographic targeting options for advertisers. So you can easily get your ads in front of your target client specifications.
If you’re targeting wealthier homeowners for garage door system upgrades, then Facebook may be a good fit.
The major problem you’re likely to run into with Facebook is that your ads will appear in Facebook users’ feeds. As they’re immersed in going through photos of their friends’ vacation or new baby – there will be an ad for your garage door company.
For some home services companies – like remodelers – Facebook may be a good fit to build a company’s brand. Garage door companies generally rely on emergency repairs – this makes Facebook less than optimal.
LinkedIn is generally used for professional networking. People on LinkedIn aren’t actively searching for home services pros to solve issues with their houses.
LinkedIn advertising might be a good fit for your garage door company if you’re focused on building relationships with community associations for garage door repair and maintenance.
For more details on Linkedin advertising for your company, check out our post on the topic.
Online Garage Door Advertising: Sponsorships
As a garage door company owner, you could sponsor local podcasts to try to advertise your garage door services. This would probably only work for some select markets – and only for some very specific podcast types. You would have to be very careful in selecting the podcast you would want to sponsor – as well as their target audience.
Podcast sponsorships aren’t going to get you instant business. You would have to be satisfied with the potential for future business based on building your brand within your local community. For all but the largest garage door companies, this would make podcast sponsorship a poor fit.
Offline Garage Door Repair Advertising
Offline Garage Door Advertising: TV
Television advertising has the ability to target potential customers to a much more local level than in years past. How many times have you watched a national broadcast on a major network – only to see commercials from small local businesses in your area? On streaming services like YouTube TV and ESPN+, I’m constantly seeing local businesses. Sometimes the transition is kind of jarring as they start to show an ad for a national advertiser, and then 2 seconds in, a local business advertisement appears instead.
While you garage door companies can advertise on television, again, you would be smart to do so only if you’re interested in branding your garage door company. You may build up some name recognition, but unless you have multiple locations in a large metro area, tv advertising is very low on the list of garage door marketing ideas you should experiment with.
Offline Garage Door Advertising: Radio
Another offline advertising option for your garage door repair business is radio ads. Radio advertising might be worth looking into for larger garage door services companies with multiple locations across a metro area, however, it isn’t a great option for most garage door repair businesses.
With radio ads, you will most likely reach more people than you could with newspaper ads or magazine ads, but very few will need your services – especially emergency repair services – when they hear your ad.
Radio advertising is another form of advertising that is best if you’re interested in brand advertising and name recognition – which isn’t the best way to get new customers for garage doors.
Offline Garage Door Advertising: Print
Newspaper publishers will be happy to take your advertising dollars, but you probably shouldn’t consider print ads for your garage door services.
Most advertising dollars are now spent online these days. According to Statista, in 2006, $53.5 billion was spent on newspaper advertising. That number has since slipped to be just an estimated $8.3B in 2021.
While you’ll likely be able to negotiate good rates for newspaper ads due to the desperate state of the newspaper industry, your ad budget will be much better spent elsewhere.
Offline Garage Door Advertising: Yellow Page Ads
Thankfully, the yellow pages aren’t delivered to everyone’s residence in the United States anymore. It is difficult to find statistics, but printed copies of the yellow pages used to be everywhere. Years ago, yellow page ads used to be extremely effective at generating leads for small business owners. Not anymore. Their online directories may drive some leads, but most people don’t head to the Yellow Pages online directory when search for a garage door repair company.
Offline Garage Door Advertising: Billboard
Billboard advertising is another advertising option that should not be considered for your garage door business. Billboards tend to work best in densely packed cities with traffic problems – where commuters are stuck for long periods of time with not too much to look at except billboards and the car in front of them.
They can also be effective in sparsely populated areas of the United States – like I-40 in New Mexico – where there isn’t much to look at except billboards. Getting locked into a monthly billboard contract probably won’t be the right fit for you unless you’re focused on branding your business across a larger city.
Offline Garage Door Advertising: Direct Mail
Direct mail advertising for your garage door business may be effective in many situations. Unlike newspapers, direct mail hasn’t seen a massive decline and is still effective for advertisers. According to Fundera, direct mail open rates can reach up to 90%, with nearly half of those scanning through many of the advertising flyers.
Also unlike traditional media (radio, newspaper), direct mail does have demographic targeting so that you can ensure that your ideal homeowners are reached. For example, larger houses with multiple garages would be a good target as they’ll need servicing more frequently. Direct mail is a top offline garage door marketing strategy to try to get people who need servicing of their garage doors.
Offline Garage Door Advertising: Business Cards – a Must for Your Company
I’m including business cards as an offline advertising option because you must have business cards as an essential part of your overall advertising strategy. You’re probably aware that leaving your business card next to the wall-mounted garage door control panel in a customer’s home after providing service is a tried and true method to get repeat business a few years down the road.
When the customer’s garage door won’t open or they’re experiencing other problems, your business card is within their line of sight as they’re trying to troubleshoot the problem. Due to their emergency situation, they’re not going to wait and are highly likely to call you.
You obviously must politely ask the customer if you can affix your business card to their wall.
Offline Garage Door Advertising: Door Hangers
Door hanger advertising is a common way for home services businesses to attempt to get new customers.
The advantages of door hanger advertising are that it is easy and cheap. You can get door hangers in bulk for a relatively cheap price – as low as pennies per hanger ad depending on your specifications.
It is also very targeted. You can also leave door hangers on the exact types of homes that have the ideal types of garages that you’d like to service – perhaps slightly older homes in a wealthy community.
The disadvantages are that it may not be allowed in some areas. It can also damage your brand or reputation as homeowners will certainly find it annoying that you’ve attached your advertising message to their house.
Check out our post on door hanger advertising for home contractors for more details.
Advertising for Your Garage Door Company: Wrap Up
Unless you’re a large garage door company with multiple locations, you’re generally going to want to avoid any sort of marketing that doesn’t get a direct response from customers.
This means that the ideal situation is to get your services in front of your target customers when they have a garage door emergency. This means running search ads through Google and Microsoft.
Other online methods you should consider experimenting with are advertising on Yelp and NextDoor – but only after you have search ads up and running.
As far as offline advertising is concerned, doing your research and exploring direct mail would certainly be worth attempting. You absolutely MUST have business cards made that you leave in the customer’s garage to generate repeat business years down the road. You can even consider trying out door hangers – just make sure that door hangers are allowed in a community before you start placing them on people’s doors.
