This issue comes up so often, I feel the need to post this powerful Gary Vaynerchuk video about how to monetize a blog.

Now, this video is about a different market than construction, but that doesn’t matter one bit.

For those of you hustlers out there trying to figure out how to do some fun new stuff online and with your website, take a good look. This principle works across the board; for a contractor, a builder, and a construction small business owner, etc.

It’s just good old nose-to-nose marketing at it’s best. Gary V does it right!

Anyone using Adsense might begin to think….”Hey, what if I just sold some ads directly, and kept the entire profit, instead of just a trickle of it?”

Simple (and pretty basic for you old pros) but it works.

Myself, on this blog, I’m not looking for ad revenue like Gary shows us how to do here. I publish this blog for other reasons. But the principles in this video really teach a guy something, don’t you think?

Technorati Tags: Construction Blog

Are you maximizing 100% of all four marketing quadrants in your business? Which areas are you neglecting?

I’m going to break construction marketing down into four quadrants. Doing this allows us to drill down our marketing strategy and allocate our time and resources to the most effective marketing activities.

Here are the four quadrants:

1. Face-to-Face Marketing

• Ask Questions – Focus all your energy on how you can really help your clients most.

• Use a strategic referral request system.

• Networking on steroids -Only go to events that put you in front of real prospects, not fellow contractors.

• Know how, when (and if) you should give a prospect your business card.

• Form strategic alliances and joint ventures with other business owners.

• Use positioning & reversal techniques to close more sales.

2. Direct Response

• If you don’t use direct response you are leaving cash on the table.

• There are two very simple keys to direct response that will explode your results:

-An Offer

-A Call to Action

• Integrate your direct response marketing offer and call to action into everything you touch.

• Use persuasive communication (NOT intrusive sales jargon) to influence your prospects to buy from you.

3. Media and Advertising

• “Advertise the advertising”, or…

• Use media to drive prospects to your offer and your call to action.

• Use “guerilla” free press techniques to position yourself as an expert, and—you guessed it—drive traffic to your direct response system.

• Use persuasive copy and direct response in all your sales letters, ads, flyers, brochures, tv & radio scripts, webpages, articles, yellow page ads, signs, your trucks, and ANY contact with a potential prospect.

4. The Internet

• Use email autoresponders to build a list of prospects so you can market to them.

• No one cares if your website is pretty, especially if they can’t find it. Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

• Don’t make the common mistake of designing your website like it’s just a way for the people who already know you to find your address.

• If your website doesn’t offer something of value, you are wasting your time (and $) on an expensive “business card” hidden in the cyber jungle.

• Offer + Call to Action + Autoresponder = “Drag It Home” approved marketing.

So, those are the four quadrants. Look around the site to learn more about how to maximize all for quadrants in your construction business.

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Technorati Tags: Construction Blog, Construction Marketing, Construction Small Business

As a contractor, you must design your website around sound marketing principals.

Your website needs to:

1. Get traffic, get visitors to your site.

2. Convert those visitors into actual clients, actual customers, and actual sales.

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Technorati Tags: Construction Blog, Construction Marketing, Construction Website

Enjoy this video? Send it to a friend, or use your favorite social bookmarking site below.

Technorati Tags: Construction Blog, construction marketing videos

It’s all about the new global dynamic of information spreading to those who care about it, rather than to everyone.

This is the direction our world is going. Get on board. It’s fun.

Try it now. Go login to Digg.com and digg this blog if you enjoy it and think others might enjoy it as well..

Don’t forget to share: Please show this post to your friends, who might not see it otherwise.

Technorati Tags: Construction Blog

Sometimes search engines give you exactly what you’re looking for. Other times, not so much.

Check this one out.

Take the category “Construction Blog“, for instance. Now, I have found a thick list of excellent blogs relevent to the construction industry in my own online research. But what do we find at the top today? A spammy-looking directory site called Blogflux.

It’s one of those sites that requires participants to register and even pay to get listed. Which is a shame. Because when you take a look at the list of blogs it’s completely irrelevant to the term “construction blog.”

Now, I know that Google does a good job in some instances of weeding out this type of site. But sometimes they can’t. I hope someday they figure it out for the sake of knowledge and progress.

OK, let’s check out the #2 listing. It’s the good old Construction Jobs Blog. This site actually has some interesting posts. Still, the value of this site is somewhat up in the air.

Finally, at number three we find the Construction Contractors Digest at contractorsblog.com put up by Stevens Construction Institute (a consulting firm). Now this one actually has some really good stuff on it. I just wish they would post more often.

Alright, that’s enough search engine fun for today. Let’s hope in the future more guys like Mark Buckshon make their way to the top of Google for construction related keywords. You know, guys (or ladies, you too) who actually have something to say!

Don’t forget to share: Please show this post to your friends, who might not see it otherwise.

Technorati Tags: Construction Blog

It’s pretty simple how it works, but in case you had any questions, you can watch this video to learn more about it.

I like how it also describes how to go about actually organizing your own Meetup. Starting your own Meetup group is a great way to inexpensively position yourself as an expert in your field. (Of course, it helps if you sort of are an expert. But you get the point, right?)

Let me know about your experiences, good or bad, gained through Meetup.com, and I’ll post them.

Technorati Tags: Construction Blog, Meetup

Construction newsletters, articles, and books on construction marketing are too few and far between, at least compared to other industries which are commonly conceived to be more “professional.”

But, like a good contractor buddy of mine says:

“A surgeon client complained about my prices and said, ‘I don’t make that much for my time, and I’m a surgeon.’”

To which the contractor responded:

“Neither did I when I was a surgeon.”

The publics’ perception of lack of professionalism among general contractors is something I’ve ranted about many times in the past. It’s frustrating. But it can be overcome.

I guess the best defense against this perception is simply living a life of integrity. Eventually, where it counts, your integrity will rise to the top.

But in the mean time, we can use marketing practices that work to boost our sales and increase our clients’ satisfaction level.

Because, as many experienced contractors know, client satisfaction can often times be influenced by your client’s perception of reality. And your client’s perception of reality can often only be altered through effective marketing techniques.

And that’s where the importance of Construction Blogs comes in.

If we read, and discuss, and comment on things that work and things that don’t, we help advance our cause as an industry.

Here is a list of some of my favorite construction blog and forum resources:

Contractor Talk

Construction Resource Forum

Construction Marketing Ideas Blog

There are a few other excellent resources for contractors that can be found online. But that’s a topic for another day.

You could spend 6 months reading non-stop and learn a ton with the three listed above.

Happy learning!

(Also check out: Blog Flux Directory)

Technorati Tags: Construction Blog