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Contractor Marketing Online

Make it Easy For People To Remember Your Website With a Memorable USP Offline

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Yesterday I spoke about the primary goal of any contractor website…sales. Today, I am going to start helping you piece together the components of what makes that happen.

I am going to start with the 10,000 foot view…brand

Contractors are not unlike real estate agents or lawyers in that most try to promote their names as a brand, hell, even I do it. Doing this kills two birds with one stone (which is why the smart ones do it 😉 ) because you don’t have to manage both a corporate brand and an individual brand.

Branding is easy to understand, but a pain in the ass to execute on. I mean think about it, Coke spends $5 million a day to make sure you remember their name, logo and image. So, don’t feel bad if everyone in your town doesn’t know who you are or what your website address is. This is why I want you to use…

Your USP as a first line of defense

A lot of contractors do what you do in your area, and many may have websites that look better than yours. What you want your USP to do is tie in your offline marketing with your online presence. That way, when someone finds your site either by accident or by looking for you on purpose, they will KNOW they have the right contractor simply by remembering your tagline.

But USP’s are tough, and I honestly, I hate working on them because I can never be as close to the business as you are. I will try to help, but you really have to be the one that says, ‘yeah, that’s it, let’s go with that one’. In fact, I have spent a few hours kicking around ideas with someone only to walk away with nothing. Meanwhile, a couple of hours later I get a phone call from the client who had his or her “eureka” moment while standing in line at the supermarket. That’s the trick with USP’s, you can’t manufacture them, they are born from the DNA inside your company.

So start with this first

So, your homework assignment over the long weekend is going to be to come up with a solid USP if you don’t already have one. If you do have one, but think it could use some tweaking, do that. Then next week I am going to talk about tying your USP with your logo to really create a kick-ass first impression for 1st time visitors to your site.

So, have a great 4th of July weekend, be safe, and see you next week!

 

Measure Twice, Cut Once Works on Websites Too!

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I want to cover some things you and your staff (if you have any) should do before launching an advertising campaign online. The biggest thing you need to consider right now, today, before you spend one dime promoting your contracting business online is – your existing website.

If your current website is merely a place holder or “online brochure”, then it’s time to get real. If you’re lucky, people are coming to your site everyday and leaving without contacting you. Yeah, you read that right, I said lucky. You are lucky because prospects are finding you in spite of the fact that you have a shitty website. Trust me when I tell you, not having traffic and still having a shitty site is much, much worse!

Why is a terrible site with traffic a good thing?

Because fixing the site means people will stay around longer and God forbid, maybe join your mailing list or even become a client or customer! Now, I am a marketing guy from way back, so I never really adopted the “sticky” philosophy many web types talk about. You should want prospects to stop by your site to educate themselves on your business, become clients or customers, and continue to buy your products or services while referring you to friends and family. If your goal is anything other than what I just laid out for you, then you are reading the wrong blog!

So, let’s talk about fixing your site

Now, I am a firm believer in the old saying “You don’t know where you are going if you don’t know where you’ve been”, so let’s get an idea of where your site is. First, let’s find what Google knows about your site:

Step 1: Go to the Google search page at www.google.com and type the following without quotes “site:YourDomainName.com” in the search bar. It should go without saying, but in case you haven’t had enough coffee yet, replace YourDomainName.com with your actual website address. Google will list all of your pages they have in their index. The higher the number of pages listed the better. You can also try this tactic for your competition. That way, you can get a nice list of sites and review their material all at once.  Then test some of your links by clicking on them to make sure they go to the pages they are supposed to. If they don’t, get them fixed ASAP.

Step 2: Now, go back to the Google search bar and type “links:YourDomain.com”. This is the total number of sites that link TO YOUR SITE. Again, the higher the number the better. To Google, more links means you are an authority on your topic. You always want to be increasing your links and you should have a solid linking strategy and stick to it.

Step 3: If you haven’t already, go to Google Webmaster Tools and sign up for an account. Once you sign up, you will be given a piece of code to insert on your site. This code is what Google uses to give you vital information about the status of your site. You can read more about Google Webmaster Tools here.

Step 4: Again, if you haven’t already, go and sign up for a Google Analytics account. It’s a free service from Google and it tells you everything you need to know about the visitors to your site. Once you install the analytics code, you will know how many visitors come to your site, how they got there, how long they stay, how many pages they view and much more. You can find out more about Google Analytics here.

Once you have this information, you can then begin to track your progress. If up until now you have just relied on the reports you get from your webmaster then you are doing yourself a huge disservice. You need to be involved in every aspect of your website just as you are in your business.

Design Consideration for Contractor Websites

Color: Just like your home or office, a fresh coat of paint does wonders to freshen up a stale looking website.  How long has it been since you changed the look and feel of your site? Does your color scheme scream 1990’s web 1.0?

Spelling & Punctuation Errors: Do you know if your site has any spelling or grammatical errors? I bet your customers do! You need to check your site and make sure everything passes your 3rd grade English teacher’s smell test. If your site is too big to check, offer a small reward to your visitors by pointing out any errors they find.

Layout & Usability: This is the ultimate website functionality killer! More people leave a site because of navigation issues than any other reason. To combat this, follow some simple yet effective tips to make sure your visitors are getting the experience on your site they deserve. Things like broken links, pages that end without giving any direction on what to do next, PDF files that take forever to load. These are just some of the layout issues that send people screaming into the night and off of your pages. Now, I understand you have a business to run, and maybe all this website stuff is beyond your ability. Then you need to read just one book; “Don’t Make Me Think ” to realize how site design and layout determines the way your visitors interact with your site and by extension, your company.

Selling Factor: This isn’t a typical metric or deliverable you are going to find from most site designers, but it needs to be a key factor to you. You basically need to know how well your site does at converting a prospect into a lead, and then into a client or customer. If you haven’t gotten much business from your website, then there is plenty of work to do. The good part is, just fixing the selling factor alone could be enough to start the sales engine your website needs. You can determine the “Selling Factor” using Google Analytics or with the help of your webmaster.

Scalability: How open is your current website to scale? What that means is any online advertising is going to put extra strain on your site and system resources. Ever hear of the Digg effect? It’s when a site or blog gets on the front page of Digg and all of a sudden thousands of visitors show up on your virtual doorstep. If your site isn’t hosted on a robust enough server it is going to crash at absolutely the worst possible time. In other words, now is a good time to evaluate your current hosting company BEFORE the heavy traffic comes. And to make it easy on you, if you are paying $4.95 for a basic shared plan, then I have two words for you…your screwed. So, if you are in the market for a new hosting company, check out BlogOnCloud9, they can handle all the traffic you can throw at them.

So, that’s a pretty good start to getting your website ready for what hopefully will be a flood of new clients and customers. If you want to get a copy of my “website preparedness” worksheet, drop me an email or let me know in the comments below and I will get one out to you.

Paint a Picture. Tell a Story. Close More Leads

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contractor marketing is about telling a great storyFor most contractors, winning a bid is about sharpening the pencil to the point of lost profits. But I have a better way. Instead of becoming a better salesman, become a better story-teller.

What the hell are you talking about Darren?

People buy out of emotion, then rationalize the dollars. This is true especially with women, who make up the bulk of home improvement clients. Emotional purchases have to be the reason behind such crazy buying decisions as $600 Manolo Blahnik heels right? I mean a pair of Nike does the same thing right?More

Websites Deconstructed – The Mini Series

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Most of the questions I get from contractors these days are how to improve their websites. How to make them “stickier” or how to make their landing pages convert better. So I decided to do a second short post each day for the next few weeks to discuss some key points that you (or your webmaster) can start right away to help generate more leads organically.

Today’s contractor website tip is to buy multiple versions of your domain

This tip is especially important if you use location+industry based URL’s for your website. Meaning, if your site is OrlandoPlumber.com, you want to make sure to register the .net and .org versions (at the least) as well to prevent any type of confusion in the market. You can either redirect all the domains you buy to your primary domain or you can just park them. The idea is to just make sure you own them so no one does. Sure it’s going to cost you a couple of bucks, but being penny-wise and pound foolish costs you too!

Sometimes it Isn’t Nice to Share!

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When you spend the time to create a video, edit it and get it ready for human consumption (you could always just point and shoot like I do) you want the resulting traffic back at your place, on your website. Having a solid construction website will tell a lot about you, your products and services and your company’s personality, so don’t let sites like YouTube cannibalize your traffic and steal your thunder. Make sure people have to come to your website to see your stuff. That way, they can learn more about who you are, what you do and God forbid, fill out a contact form or make a phone call.More

The Market You Don’t Know

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I talk to contractors everyday who can tell me everything there is to know about their best customer. But as the conversation moves along, there is one aspect of their market that I always educate them on because they never seem to focus on this type of client or customer…

New Movers

New movers represent a black hole to many contractors, but to the smart construction companies out there who spend a portion of their marketing budgets catering to this demographic, the return is absolutely ridiculous!

The big deal about new movers

Did you know:

  1. New movers typically represent about 25%-35% of your local market
  2. New movers, on average, spend more on their homes in the first 5 months than they do over the next 5 years.
  3. New movers are influenced by your advertising, not referrals.
  4. New movers have no idea who you are, how long you have been in business, or how many people you have worked for over your 40 years in business. In other words, you mean nothing to them, so your “everyone knows me” excuse for not marketing falls squarely on its ass right about now.
  5. You need new movers to replace your former clients or customers who moved, died or went with your competition.

But what do new movers buy?

If you took a sampling within the first 8 months, 100 new movers will need:

  1. Electrician 30% of the time
  2. A new fence 18% of the time
  3. Masonry services 15% of the time
  4. Plumber 28% of the time

And I am not talking chump change here. On average, those same 100 new movers will spend:

  • 72% – Between $10-$25k
  • 14% – Between $25k-$40k
  • 6%  – Will spend over $40,000

Now, there are only a few ways to get after these types of prospects and you need to have a consistent marketing program in place to make sure you are hitting each batch of new movers as they migrate into your area each month.

Depending on your particular industry, direct mail, YP or search marketing will give you access to these hyper-active buyers who have cash in hand and NEED to buy. But, If you prefer to keep thinking that everyone knows you, just ask yourself, what are you doing to replace the 25%-35% of those people each year who die, move or shop else ware?

5 Reasons To Use How-To Articles for Contractor Marketing

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You have a lot of information locked away in that head of yours. Information (and skill) that people are willing to pay for dearly. Your job is to get that information and your skill into your prospects hands as often as possible.

That’s where writing How-To articles comes in…

Let’s say you are a remodeler, and you specialize in green building initiatives. You could kill multiple birds with one stone by creating How-To articles for consumers on how to become energy-efficient and save money around the house. Writing these types of articles will:

  • Expose prospects to your company, brand and message
  • Plant an impression in their minds about your business
  • Sets you up as an expert
  • Puts you above the pack when they are ready to buy
  • Increases web traffic over time to your site

So let’s break it down:

  1. Expose your company and message – How-To articles target the early stage shopper. I say that because as a marketer, I want to tell them what they need to do, then charge them to do it. Same thing with you. You want to give Mrs. Jones tips on cutting energy costs, but when it comes time to install new windows, you want her to hire you to do it.
  2. Plant an impression – Impressions are what make people buy over time. Unless you are a plumber and the crapper is overflowing, people need to be exposed to your message over time, so being seen by a prospect is a good thing and leads to new business over time.
  3. Sets you up as the expert – When you write enough How-To articles, people will position you as the expert in the topic you are talking about. You aren’t going to get there writing one article and being done with it, you need to spend time crafting yourself as the expert. The benefit to this is that over time, people will seek you out AND price will not be the primary topic of conversation, your skills will.
  4. Puts you above the pack – This one is obvious, if you are the expert who has positioned themselves properly in the marketplace providing consumers with enough impressions to develop a positive opinion of you, then you have moved yourself to the head of the pack above all of your slacker competition who are sitting around doing nothing to promote themselves.
  5. Increase web traffic – Having 5, 10, 50 short, 250 word articles on your website will increase your organic traffic tremendously over time. The more you write, the more traffic you will get, I promise.  And

And you don’t even have to be the best writer or a writer at all. You can use video to do the same thing. In fact, video How-To’s do a better job of teaching and will move you into “expert status” faster because people now have multiple touches or “impressions” of you and your company during the same video.

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