How to cut the fat & waste from your marketing budget and at the same time increase your sales by up to 30% in 90 days.

The business owners I talk to on a day-to-day basis are usually in one of three categories:

• Their business is OK but they want to do better.

• Their business is stagnant, flat-lined, no growth in sight.

• Their business is declining.

Where is your business today?

Here are some of the most effective local marketing techniques for service businesses:

1. How is the business handling existing traffic? Are people getting a warm friendly welcome and excellent follow-through? This is a VERY common problem. Everyone is so obsessed with Google traffic but then they have a site that won’t convert for squat, no clear compelling offer, and terrible phone answering infrastructure. A friendly voice goes a LONG way.

2. DATABASE: Does the business have automated follow-up to it’s database of customers? A fun, entertaining, engaging newsletter is cheap, extremely effective, and can foster referrals quickly. This can be automated. If I had a database of 100 clients as a builder and could only do one marketing effort, it would be this.

3. Sales training for all staff (or the business owner). More balls are dropped in this phase than anywhere else. Everybody thinks they are just naturally good at sales, but having a sales system is paramount.

4. Asking existing clients for referrals. Don’t offer anything in return, but then thank them and maybe send a little gift if they refer people. The single most effective thing a builder could do right now is just sit down in front of the phone and start calling past clients with the intent to get into friendly appreciative conversations and then ask for 3 names. You will call their friends and offer to come inspect their home for XYZ important preventative whatever. Or you could offer an educational lunch-and-learn on a topic of “How to Increase Curb Appeal” or “How to Maintain Your Home to Prevent Lost Home Value” or “Easy DIY Green Home Makeover” or something compelling. Have them come to your local library or Whole Foods or something and talk to them for an hour about your topic and then answer questions, and leave them with a nice newsletter or guide or book.

The above can be sold to cold prospects using a very similar script to the one on page 67 of Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes.

5. Differentiate or die: Create a USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Sounds cliche, but it is a MUST. Integrate USP with all Marketing material. Integrate with all staff, vendors, customers, etc… Add USP to business cards, invoices, letterhead, trucks, uniforms, etc…

“Marketing and innovation make money. Everything else is a cost.” -Peter Drucker

6. THEN you think about your website. MUST HAVE a lead capture and compelling offer as the PRIMARY FOCUS on the website. Model after this guy: http://www.vamedmal.com/

7. The money is in the list. Set up e-mail responder. Capture e-mails on website. Create auto responders. Professionally written e-mails. E-mails can be forever, unlike a home address. Implement drip campaign.

8. Off-site online marketing: Press releases are AWESOME for SEO. Video marketing and distribution (Traffic Geyser or Tubemogul), podcasts on Apple.com and blog talk radio interviews, publish a book on Amazon.com (VERY easy to do…only has to be 28 pages long), big-budget PPC on all three major search engines, banner ads, build links.

9. Joint Ventures can be the fastest way to huge opportunities. What organization has a large list of your dream clients? Find ways to add value and serve their members or clients, and they will promote you to their list. This is a HUGE opportunity.

10. Direct Mail: use the Dunning mailer method (see this video, skip to 1:00:51 to get right to it) to your dream neighborhoods. Most people try direct mail ONCE and then quit. Direct mail works like crazy used as a CAMPAIGN, rather than a one shot deal. The keys are, mail to your dream neighborhood, have great copy, and sequence the mailer properly. It’s a campaign, not a single promotion. Most businesses aren’t serious enough about how they approach direct mail, so they fail.

Anyway, those are some of the best things a business can do to get results. If you want to have a conversation with me about how you can do this for your own business, talking is always free. Fill out my contact form here, and we can schedule a phone call.

Technorati Tags: Contractor Marketing, HVAC Marketing, Plumber Marketing

My favorite one is “We’ll go ahead and pay for this this time, but just show us how you made it, so we can do it again in-house, from now on.”

In the construction industry–especially lately–it’s a common occurance to get low-balled and otherwise manipulated by vendors, contractors, and subs. This video shows us how ridiculous these situations can be to construction companies and, really, all business owners.

More favorites:

1. We didn’t budget for this.

2. I mean, lunch at the taco stand was about $12. Sir, this is not the taco stand. Well, it was, I had beef… Sir, you had the filet. Yeah…cow.

3. I’m not making any money on this either.

4. We can do this. This is not a challenge. This is an opportunity.

5. Well I can cover your hard costs, but that’s really as far as I’m willing to go.

6. We’re gonna make it up on the next one.

Heard any of these before? How do you deal with these “opportunities” in your business?

(This video was brought to my attention by the awesome folks over at CenterNetworks.)

Technorati Tags: Contractor Marketing, Vendor Bullshit

Overwhelmingly, my time is spent answering questions about how to create an online lead generation campaign that gets results in the construction industry.

For most contractors, builders and remodelers, this goal can be achieved with either a minimum of effort, or a minimum of expense. But you usually have to choose one or the other.

You can pay someone to do it for you, or you can do it yourself. Assuming you have a bare minimum level of tech savvy, you can create your own lead generation website system.  This is true as long as you have some serious time on your hands. (If you’re already to the point where you can’t sleep at night from the stress of economic uncertainty, this might be the best way for you to spend those early morning hours.)

Conversely, you can find someone to do it for you. This can cost anywhere from $0.00 all the way up to $10,000+. And, to a point, you get what you pay for.

If you are thinking about trying to dominate your local market on the internet, here are some free resources to help you determine either how to spend your time, or how to get your money’s worth:

1. Report: How to Dominate the Internet Marketplace in Your Industry

2. SEO Book Video – The Web is a Social Activity

3.


Construction Marketing Website Awesomeness.

So, take a look at these resources and see if you can’t come up with a way to create your own lead generation website that works for your business, your budget, and your lifestyle.

Pass it along: If you know someone who could use help with website promotion and online marketing, feel free to send them a link to this page, or link to it on your own website.

Technorati Tags: Construction Marketing Online, Contractor Marketing, contractor website

Hi, I’m Seth. Good to meet you. Look around, everything on this website is yours for free! Oh, and let me know if I can help you and your business in any way.

Overwhelmingly, people have been coming to me for online marketing advice more than any other construction marketing topic these days.

It’s an exciting time for online marketing. Our changing economic landscape combined with all the crazy, fun new changes in the way the internet works add up to some interesting opportunities.

There’s all this new stuff like social media, “new media” link building, and online video marketing.

I talked to one established construction marketing expert the other day who mentioned that “social media” has been killing him lately. And I know some folks who are real newbies, but have cracked the social media nut and are achieving huge results.

Also, I’ve found there are rafts of old, outdated information floating around in our sea of knowledge. Watch out for them, because if you jump on one of those rafts, you might go adrift towards the marketing “Bermuda Triangle.”

Marketing has changed. BIG time.

Has “relationship building” changed? No. Do we have new ways to establish relationships now? YES.

Have referrals dried up? No. Are there exciting new ways to maximize referrals? YES.

Is advertising obsolete? Yes. Ha ha. Sorry, I mean “No.” But do the old established advertising methods work for contractors? Not really. Not anymore.

Overall, adding real value for free, and making real personal connections will get you far.

1. Be helpful with no expectation of gaining anything in return. You will gain instant trust.

2. Help others make connections and grow their businesses every chance you get. Watch them reciprocate with referrals.

3. Answer questions and give your best information away for free. Become a trusted advisor (and make the sale.)

This new wave of online marketing and the viral spreading of ideas might be foreign to you. That’s OK. You don’t have to become a social media expert to run a construction business.

But you can take a look into the future of ALL small business marketing by taking note of the principles that the online community has adopted.

People buy from people they like. That’s a timeless principle.

Why is today’s marketing landscape different from the past?

Because now we have access to tools that allow us to connect exponentially faster than before.

Add value to the conversation, and make personal connections. Do this by shaking hands, one at a time. OR, inject these principles into your online presence, and do it everywhere, all at once, even while you sleep.

That’s the opportunity we have today.

Pass it along: If you know someone who could use help with website promotion and online marketing, feel free to send them a link to this page, or link to it on your own website.

Technorati Tags: Construction Marketing, Contractor Marketing