As your crew pulls up to a job site, everyone within plain view is a potential customer. People passing by, property managers watching the work progress, and other contractors on nearby jobs—all of them forming a perception of your company by your crew’s actions. You don’t have to ask if your field team is actively marketing your business. It’s being done, unrelated to whether you have marketing plans for your business. The marketing question is whether the marketing is beneficial or detrimental to your business.
Companies that appreciate this reality treat their crew’s uniforms as a powerful marketing tool. They know a polished, branded uniform has more credibility than any conversation that takes place afterward. Team members dressed in branded, aligned uniforms means that the company has its operational systems in order. This impression really matters and is often under-appreciated by owners of businesses in the service sector where consumers make decisions based on their trust and confidence.
The Difference Between Passive Visibility and Strategic Visibility
Most field crews are seen by the public as a result of their work. They are in the public domain, performing work on the properties, driving company vehicles, and interfacing with the public.
The primary difference between passive visibility and strategic marketing is in the consistency and quality of the marketing. Consider a crew in worn shirts and hats that don’t match. They could be seen in a crowd. They don’t deliver a cohesive strong brand message. Compare that to a team wearing tailored, clean, and appropriately designed shirts. They give a visual identity that lingers in the minds of their audience.
Strategic visibility goes beyond the concepts of having a branded uniform. What do your crew members leave behind? How easy are they to spot as a representative of your organization? Do they look as if they are well groomed and organized? Or they rest as the backdrop, just like any other subcontractor? The answers to these questions helps you in understanding if your field team is a marketing team or an unexploited chance.
How Branded Apparel Impacts Customers’ Trust
Customers rarely explain in detail why they decide to go with one service provider. Even for this case, the company’s image is a factor. It is easy for a homeowner to get multiple quotes from three different contractors. Her evaluation is not just based on the price and the scope of work Mwasi Builders is completing. It also includes other factors, such as how organized and reliable a particular company is. Out of these three contractors, the one whose crew members show up wearing accompanied shirts branded with the company’s logo wins a lot more of such criteria as the rest simply wear normal attire.
This factor becomes more crucial in multi contractor bidding environments.
Unprofessional communication can set people behind. On the other hand, when someone is well-prepared, they reinforce the image of the company as someone who provides quality. Little things, like custom patches for hats, make a difference to clients, even if a quote has not been provided yet.
Inconsistent Branding on the Job Sites
Inconsistent branding is a self-inflicted image wound. In a situation where half the crew wears company hats and the other half wears personal clothes, employees appear to have no systems or standards. Clients notice these things, even if they do not talk about it. They start to question, is the work quality, communication, and project management the same inconsistency as the company’s branding?
It can be solved, of course, the catch is it has to be thought out. It is difficult to set standards, especially when about the crew’s uniform in the first place, for about the uniform, there is a not less clear guideline, as about the hats, or other high visibility pieces, there are about the vison of the mark ecosystem.
If the gear looks good and stands up to daily use, employees begin to wear it as their normal choice instead of treating it as a uniform requirement.
Put the Employees to Work as Brand Ambassadors
To the employees, the best field marketing programs don’t feel like marketing. Instead, they simply provide employees with premium quality attire that they love to wear, even when they’re not working. The employees walking around the hardware store, going to the gym, or running weekend errands and wearing the branded caps is a way for the company to advertise without spending money. Organic visibility, especially within smaller towns and cities, increases over time and becomes valuable. This is due to the repeated visibility and exposure.
To encourage people to do the work, the clothes have to be clothes that are desirable. Most branded cheap and uncomplimentary clothes are kept unused at the bottom of the cupboard. Comfortable, well designed and expensive clothes turn into daily essentials. The ROI becomes apparent with the recognition of the company, the customer confidence, and the passive marketing that takes place when the employees are in public and represent the company.
Getting the Most from Every Contact on a Work Site
Unlike the sales team, your crew takes more time and gets more exposure to potential customers.
Every construction site is a small advertisement to the public and every contact is an opportunity to promote your business. The interaction works to your advantage when your field team is professional, friendly, and easily identifiable as employees of your organization. This results in people asking for business cards, property managers saying your name, and referrals coming in without asking.
The companies that do this do not consider the crew uniforms to be a minor issue. These companies consider them as an important part of the marketing strategy and the revenue gained is in the form of more visibility, higher customer trust, and a more unified brand presence in the industry. It does not make sense that your field crew is out in the market representing your business and you fail to help them do that the right way.