July 7th, 2007
Innovative Use Of Google Earth Builds Business
(KUTV) There’s a lot of cool stuff out on the internet these days, so much of it is just cool. You have to wonder if it has any practical application.
Chris McCall knows swimming pools despite his young age. He grew up swimming competitively and working at a pool. Then he came to Utah.
"Ended up out here to come to school and worked for a guy involved in building the pools."
So, 15 months ago he decided to start cleaning and maintaining swimming pools on his own.
"Just kind of wanted to get a jump on life guess you could say."
When Chris McCall started his pool business, he gave a lot of thought as to how he was going to get new clients, instead of going into neighborhoods and knocking on doors he decided to take a look at the bigger picture from above.
McCall already knew there were a lot of pools along the Wasatch Front but Google Earth opened his eyes to just how many.
"Targeting people by using the satellite imaging, looking from I-15 up to the mountain range. Took them all compiled them together and got a list of about 5000 backyard pools," says McCall.
But Google Earth doesn’t list addresses, only streets so for five months he was on the road.
McCall says, "Five houses in or two houses in all I’d do is write down the address."
Take a look at all the pin points on his maps!
"There’s probably 300, 400 pools in Provo," he says.
Soon he was sending out 3000 flyers to people he knew had a pool. And this season he did it again, tripling his business.
"It took me a long time to drive by each house," says McCall. "It was worth it."
A good marketing plan seems to be only the beginning of the hard work. McCall puts in countless hours during the seven month season. He even has employees.
And he says his enterprising won’t end here.
"This has opened a lot of doors," McCall says, "I don’t know what I’d be doing If I wasn’t doing this."
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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