Get Marketing Pro Help from Titan Advising Gurus

When Jessica Kralemann began working as an office manager for a previous company in 2019, she learned they had just onboarded ServiceTitan field management software—and her main responsibility was to set it up and show everyone how to use it.

“I had no idea. I'd never worked with the trades before. It was a mess,” Kralemann says.

Undaunted, Kralemann dove in, learned how to use the software, became a ServiceTitan Certified User, and helped the company grow from 25 employees and two trades to 75 employees and five trades in three years. 

“Once they got going, I actually started freelancing for some companies at night and helping them set up their marketing,” Kralemann admits. “I felt really guilty. I told the owners what I was doing, and that's when we started helping others, and started a secondary company with it.”

Now Kralemann, the Founder/CEO of Titan Advising Gurus, leads a team of Titan Gurus who help companies set up their ServiceTitan accounts. While other Titan Gurus focus on helping customers set up different areas of the platform, she drills down on marketing.

“I just stick to Marketing Pro,” Kralemann says. “ServiceTitan goes so deep in so many areas that I don't touch much of it anymore. I just stick to the marketing side, and just go as deep as I can with it and help as many people as I can with their setup.”

In a recent episode of the Mastering ServiceTitan podcast—where we get expert advice from power users—Kralemann shares tips and tricks for setting up Marketing Pro campaigns that target the right audience, grow revenue, and boost ROI.

“Marketing Pro does everything, anything that you could possibly need for your company,” Kralemann says. “You can send any message and target any client that you'd like to target at any time. You can send multiple emails, single emails, [text] messages, whatever your heart desires.”

>>Listen to the full podcast on Marketing Pro campaigns now on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube.

Benefits of Marketing Pro

ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro, a marketing automation tool built for the trades, makes it easy for contractors to target specific audiences with the right messaging at the right time. With pre-built templates and powerful automation features, Marketing Pro helps you create ad campaigns that engage and resonate with customers.

Contractors realize the true value of Marketing Pro, Kralemann says, when they’re able to use real-time performance data to drive revenue. Realizing the most ROI on your marketing campaigns depends on how far you go with it and if you're going to stay on top of it. 

“A lot of these campaigns, you can set them up, you can let them go for a year, but you need to revisit them, check your numbers, and make sure things are working the way they should,” Kralemann advises.

Titan Advising Gurus helped a client set up their Marketing Pro account three months ago. In the first 30 days, the client made $4 on every dollar they invested in marketing. After three months, the same client made $12.70 on every dollar.

“I got them completely set up, and then I keep an eye on it, making sure things are happening the way they should,” says Kralemann, adding how this client also uses Marketing Pro Reputation and Scheduling Pro to improve operations. “With all of those different things together, it's giving them a great ROI at this point.”

Marketing Pro Text, Direct Mail and Email campaigns

Text messaging campaigns typically fall into two buckets: transactional or promotional.

Transactional text messages can be sent to remind customers to take action on an unsold estimate or schedule recurring services they already paid for. Sending promotional text messages can inspire new customers to opt in to see your special offers and discounts.

But direct mail, Kralemann says, is her favorite.

“I have one client, their attributed revenue for direct mail is at $357. So for every dollar they put in, they're getting almost $400 back at this point. Their ROI is sitting at about 2,000%, and it's a single postcard,” she says.

There’s nothing uber special about the year-long direct mail postcard campaign, Kralemann explains, except for the fact that the client chose to send it through the direct mail channel.

“They're just messaging the right people in a way that other people aren’t using. Nobody else is using mail anymore,” Kralemann says. “They're using text messages. They're using email. That's a lot of chatter. People become resistant to it. They don't listen to it anymore.”

Marketing Pro pays for itself

Contractors can also be resistant to investing in Marketing Pro because they think it will take too much time to set up, cost too much, and not deliver the results they need, Kralemann says.

“Is it going to pay itself off? I would say, yes,” Kralemann says. “If it's set up properly, it absolutely will. It might take a month or so. But once you get past that setup phase, it's going to be paying itself off month after month. You're going to see those returns every month as you go forward in time.”

If setting up Marketing Pro campaigns seems a little intimidating, all Marketing Pro users can now access Marketing Pro Autopilot to run effective campaigns. Autopilot determines your target audience, subject line, content, graphics, promotions, and more for various automated campaigns.

“Once you get the hang of it, it's easy. And if you can't get it, you can hire companies to do it for you. And even with those costs, you're still going to see a return,” Kralemann says. “Maybe just start with something like campaigns. You don't have to get the whole shebang rolled into one.”

Where to start

When creating Marketing Pro campaigns, Kralemann suggests starting with something basic like unsold estimates or recurring services. Your field techs have already been to these customers’ homes and submitted a work estimate or the customer signed up for future services.

“With those two alone, we pay for Marketing Pro,” Kralemann says.

For unsold estimates, start by refining your target audience and the timeframe for your campaign. Kralemann likes to layer her campaigns.

“A text message campaign goes out to the client two days after the initial appointment, reminding them, ‘Hey, here's your estimates. Don't forget about them. Let us know if you have questions,’ and we'll have a link to those estimates,” she explains. “And then five days after the appointment, they'll get an email with the same information with the same link. And then 10 days after, they’ll get another text message with the link.

“I do layer it. Just because most people like text messages, doesn't mean everybody does. So, I try to hit them in the avenue that they like to be talked to,” she adds.

For recurring services campaigns, you should also start by refining your target audience and the timeframe for your campaign.

“What are we targeting? Spring? Summer? Fall? And setting those parameters within the audience,” Kralemann explains. “And then it can be a text message or an email or both.

“When you're setting up your memberships, there's going to be date ranges that people's recurring services fall in,” she adds. “When you're setting up your audience, you can pick what time frame you would like to reach out to them. And then it's going to pull that data from their membership.”

Which marketing channel is best to use for which type of campaign? 

“If we're talking unsold estimates or recurring services, text messages are 100%. The numbers are so much higher than they are on email. It's incredible. I mean, you're talking 90% compared to 30% on open rate,” Kralemann says.

Email or direct mail postcards might work better for other types of reminders.

“If you're talking about seasonal maintenance, and you're trying to hit people that normally don't use you but you have their contact information, you go with direct mail at that point. Because if they're not regularly using you, they might not open an email from you,” she adds.

Direct mail pieces also work well to attract new customers. 

“Keep talking to them,” Kralemann advises. “There are clients who call in, they're brand new, whether they book an appointment or not, we're flipping out a postcard to them, giving them a coupon, or telling them about our services.”

Just be creative with your marketing

Marketing for the trades doesn’t need to be this complex, time-consuming process that produces little return. By using the powerful automation of Marketing Pro, contractors can grow significant revenue with less effort.

“Just be creative with your stuff,” Kralemann suggests. “If you think everybody's doing it, do something else. Stand out, and think outside the box. And just remember with marketing, you're the one driving everything. So, just be on top of it and don't be scared. Make mistakes, and just make it happen.”

You can find this interview and many more by subscribing to Mastering ServiceTitan on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or our website, or search for Mastering ServiceTitan in your favorite podcast player.

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