Having a private investigation agency or business in itself is not sufficient to get customers. If you conduct a quick search online for private investigators in your location, you will find many results which means that any customer searching for a private investigator has many options available. Therefore you need to level up your private investigator marketing efforts to stand firm amidst competition and to grow your business. We have compiled a list of top marketing ideas for private investigators which would help them to get more clients.
1) Website
A website is the first impression generator for all the clients who choose to search for private investigators online. While putting up a website, certain factors must be kept in mind to make sure that you can get the maximum results out of it.
A) Your website must have a direct calling number placed on the most visible part of the website.
B) Your website must have testimonials and case studies (with personal details changed) to show your authority.
C) Your website must be adjustable on mobile devices for people who browse through mobile phones.
D) Accreditations, Awards, Recognition, etc must be showcased prominently to build the trust factor.
2) Get Ranked Well
One of the first places where people look around for day-to-day information is Google. There are many pages (in thousands and more) that show up for every query entered in Google but only those pages that rank on the first page get the mega share of traffic and leads. There are two places within the first page results where you can get your private investigator website to rank. One is the local listings and the other is the organic listings. The factors that determine placement in both these factors are different and varied. Any SEO agency can help your business with ranking in these places and thereby getting clients.
3) Paid Advertising
When it gets to getting results soon, nothing can beat paid ads on Google and Facebook which are the most powerful and quality lead generation sources. However, before getting excited about the possibilities, you must know that it takes some time and effort to understand and operate paid ads successfully because a variety of factors determine the success and failure of paid ads. Novice people may end up spending much more than they get per lead. You can take some time to understand the various parameters and then start with a small budget or better get an experienced marketing agency to handle advertising your private investigator services on these platforms.
4) Social Media
Social Media is a free and big source of leads if you handle it without being pushy in marketing. Social media marketing for a private investigator will require patience and subtle marketing until you build up a good audience on such platforms. You can start with posting content around social problems that require investigative service, funny photos, quotes, etc along with some promotion of your investigative agency to start getting traction and visibility. One big advantage of social media platforms is that you can join groups that are closely related to your city and location to make more contacts. Once you spend a few weeks actively involving with people, you can start seeing your follower base growing which is the first step in establishing a business brand on social media.
5) Press Release
You might have seen many press releases online issued by companies and businesses. Do you think that they are mere announcements? No. Press releases are a powerful marketing tool besides serving as traditional announcement-related content. This is because the level of distribution done by most press release service providers reaches and publishes on 100’s of sites thereby gathering backlinks, attention and traffic. Further, some powerful press release platforms are proven to rank high in Google due to which they help to bring traffic regularly.
6) Partnership
By fostering partnerships with other businesses and services that are more likely to receive customers requiring investigative services, you can add a new marketing channel. You can conceptualize all such businesses and services that might have the target customer base required by your service. Divorce attorneys, relationship counselors, business consultants, security agencies, business auditing agencies, etc are some of the good potential partners who can refer customers to your investigative service.
7) Sponsor Marketing
You can sponsor or co-sponsor events in your area so that more and more people would become aware of your investigative services. Rather than randomly sponsoring all or any event out there, you must calculate the possible returns to better judge upon good events to sponsor. At the sponsored event, you can distribute your pamphlet containing all the best features of your service to all the attendees of the event. You can also collect the phone number/email addresses of the attendees to set up a constant line of communication with these people.
8) Fine-Tune Your Service
While there is more competition in the broader niche of investigative services, the competition decreases significantly when you narrow down your focus to a specified sub-niche. It also enables you to become an expert in that field which helps you to better position your services in the market. For example, you can focus only on accident investigation, background investigation, corporate investigation, Insurance fraud, civil litigation support, cheating spouse surveillance, etc.
9) Community Events
By engaging actively in events in your area, you open a new means of establishing direct communication with people and businesses. You don’t have to be actively present in all such events as you can hire a person to attend and look after the marketing aspects of your business. You can also tie up this marketing method with sponsors and co-sponsors to reduce your overall costs. Further, you can also host community events targeting your subject expertise like safety and security concerns, marital background checks, etc.
10) Email Marketing
All people do not make decisions quickly. Most people spend a few hours to a few days in order to finally decide before choosing a product/service. This is why you will only gain a fraction of actual clients out of all the traffic received by your website. In order to cater to these long-thinking clients, it is best to seize their email address (by offering some freebies on your site like an ebook, etc) using opt-in forms and then follow up with them a few times to increase the overall return rate (conversions) from your website.
11) Case Studies
Actual case studies are a very interesting way to engage people and to convert them to clients of your investigative services. You can have a separate case studies section on your website where you can share successful cases solved by you (obviously with the names and other personal details being changed for privacy). You can also approach other big sites closely related to your niche to ask for sharing your case studies on their site so that your content can get more traffic and in turn clients.
12) Referrals
Getting referred by other people or businesses is one of the most revered forms of marketing as it has a very high conversion rate due to the presence of the trust factor. One of the basic necessities to get referrals naturally is by giving a good service. But to add more momentum to the referrals, you can come up with various incentives that can compel other people to refer your business. These incentives can either be in form of cash, gifts, rewards, etc.
13) Broaden Location
You can broaden your operating service area to get more clients for your investigator services. This can be done either by opening more franchises in other locations or by partnering with other private investigators in different regions. Since traveling is part f your business, you must also target locations (through ads and your website) that are connected around your main physical location. The more areas you serve, the more profitable your investigator service will become.
14) Chamber of Commerce
The Chamber of commerce is a great meeting point with hundreds of businesses that may require your service for some or other reason. Since businesses are more likely to spend more on investigative services, therefore utilizing the chamber of commerce in your area can be a great way to get a good push for your investigative services. Nowadays, you can also get details of the chamber of commerce of other regions using Google search due to which you can also explore options to connect with and participate in many such chambers across your country.
15) Marketing Using NewsPaper Editorials
One of the powerful brand building as well as marketing techniques for any investigative agency is to have its brand name appear in newspapers and magazines through guest content/editorials. The trust level enjoyed by newspapers and magazines is way greater than other forms of content and therefore utilizing such platforms can give clients as well as recognition. You can start reaching out to editors of local newspapers and magazines to contribute content related to your niche as a guest editor/contributor. This process can then be expanded to national newspapers and magazines too.
16) Efficiently Handling Reviews
Whenever any person or business comes across the name of your investigative agency, it is natural for them to search for reviews about your service. This trend of searching for reviews has been increasing lately due to easy access to information online. In such a case, if your investigative agency has either negative reviews or no reviews, then it may cause a significant portion of your potential clients to choose any other investigative service that has favorable reviews. Therefore ask your every satisfied client to leave reviews online and constantly monitor the reviews of your business online.
17) Jumping on Authority Sites
For any new site, it may be hard to gain visibility initially but there are many heavyweight authority sites like Yelp, Homeadvisor, etc that rank easily for millions of businesses and services. You can make an account on such sites and can put out the details of your investigative agency so that people can also find your business/service on such platforms. In short, you are leveraging the trust and traffic power of such authority sites to advertise your private investigator services.
18) The Traditional Marketing Method
To get more business as a private investigator, offline marketing is a good complement to online marketing. Newspapers, magazines, billboards, flyers, etc have been the obvious offline marketing methods for decades. They still work well for many businesses and services. In terms of cost and targeting options, it ranks poorly compared to online marketing. But when it comes to marketing to a segment of people who are not that tech-savvy, it produces results. Therefore, it is wise to integrate offline marketing methods too in your overall marketing strategy.
The private investigator marketing ideas given here are a definite way to increase your clientele and revenue. To discuss anything concerned with this subject, do use the comments section below.
