Sometimes the longer you have been successful at something the harder it is to change. This is the case with many successful Home Improvement companies.
Your business has done fine over the years. The customer that use to find you in the yellow pages or by word of mouth are not calling in like they use to. Your work is still good. Your commitment to the customer and the quality of your work has never been better. So what is it?
Why isn’t the phone ringing like it use too. The answer to this question, for far too many contractors is they haven’t kept up with how the customer does their business.
Word of mouth is now digital. Google search, websites, social media, mobile phones and tablets are the tools they use. They use these tools at any time or more importantly when it is convenient for them. If you are not in front of the consumer when and how they are looking, then how do you expect to be considered when they are ready to make a decision.
The good news.
There is a blue print to change how successful your business can do in the digital market place. The even better news is, that you generate this new business the way you have always preferred to. They find you. They see and understand the quality of your work. The Blue Print to successfully marketing your business online is called Inbound Marketing. Moreover, once you adopt an inbound marketing approach you will be asking yourself why you haven’t started sooner.
What is inbound marketing?
The inbound marketing methodology is “the best way to turn strangers into customers and promoters of your business” as described by Hubspot the worlds #1 marketing software platform company. This is the blue print to for home improvement lead generation. The is for the contractors who want to experience steady business growth.
The foundation of your digital business will be built on a website. A website that is able to adapt to how the consumer likes to search. Does your current website offer a way for visitors to get and give information easily? Does if reconfigure and optimize the user experience depending on what type of devise they are using to view it. Does your business utilizing social media to expand your reach. Once you have a solid foundation and your website is optimized to capture and convert leads, you will begin to build your digital business.
The four components that will put your business in front and produce more of the right customers are;
1. Attract
This means to drive traffic or ATTRACT traffic to your website. What is traffic? Visitors to your website that are seeking information. The key is to develop the right content that will speak to your ideal customer. The more information you can provide to these prospect, the more of this type of traffic you will attract to your website.
The best tools to attract the right visitors to your site
- Customized responsive website
- Content Creation
- Your Blog
- Keyword search
- SEO
- Social Media Marketing
2. Lead Conversion
Step 1 is the foundation, the website, and that you are attracting quality traffic to it. Step 2 is where I see many contractors fail. The do not convert the traffic that they are generating to the site into viable leads. The do not give themselves a chance to convert this traffic into new business. Inbound marketing strategy is all about optimizing the conversion. You have traffic to you website and your social media pages. Now you need to capture the visitor’s information. An email address, a phone number, what type of project they are interested in. You know as well as I do, the more information you can gather about a prospect, the more likely you will know if they are a good fit. If they are a good fit, the easier it will be to land a new customer.
Far too many contractor, do not capture the amount of leads they could because they do not optimize the conversion paths they have set up. The do not have enough conversion path to capture enough leads to build their business.
Are all the people coming to your website ready for an estimate? What if they want to know more about what type of financing is available for a major project? Or, “How can they prepare for a major renovation”. Every time, you provide useful information to a prospect and help them along the decision path the more info you can and should get from them.
What is a productive conversion path?
- Call-to-Actions that motivate
- Landing page that capture leads info
- Forms optimize to improve conversion rates
- Contact database helps ease of interaction and measuring success
3. Close
Step 3 in this inbound marketing blue print is all about the close. It’s about the finishing work, clean lines, crisp workmanship, professional. When you’re inbound marketing efforts are really in full gear it is like just that. Turning your leads into customers has never been like this. I mean it. When you are doing it right, you will look back and wonder why you haven’t adopted this before. You will actually find it better than the “old word of mouth” leads. How is that so? Information!! No more guessing what is important to this specific lead. You will have enough information that not only will you know what this potential client is looking for. You can know what is important to them in terms of selecting a contractor. You will have enough information to make sure the client is the right fit for your business and if not. Be able to make the decision early in the game not to disappoint them or your business.
The tools that will help close more of the right clients.
- Lead scoring – you are generating the volume of leads to begin scoring them for sales readiness or decide to nurture them to increase the likelihood that they will become a customer when they are closer to that time to decide
- Email marketing
- Marketing automation – having the ability to email market and lead nurturing depending on where your leads are in the buying cycle
- Analytics – having the data to make good sound decision on the leads you generate. What is more effective and what needs to be improved on.
4. Delight
Just like you have been doing to keep you in business this long. Satisfied customer. You want to create satisfied users. Users of the information and content your company produces for digital consumption. You become the leader on line. The educator, the one they come to, when they want quality information about what you know most about. You give it to them. You will see your business grow exponential if you adopt this methodology. To make it possible you utilize.
- Smart calls-to-action
- Social media
- Email and marketing automation
It may sound like a lot. Especially if you are not familiar with internet marketing or even if you are not proficient about being online yourself. I will tell you though, it is the right thing to do. It is what the successful Home improvement contractors are adopting.
