So much of what we’ve talked about on this blog is on how to increase your contracting website’s Search Engine Optimization by improving your website itself; we’ve talked about fine-tuning each page, getting a secure server, and changing your website title. We’ve also spent a little bit of time just talking about SEO as a whole and why it matters for contractors. Today we’re not going to be looking at improving your website; instead, we’re going to be exploring the benefits of buying online advertising. Whether it’s to jumpstart your website’s reach or to connect with a new target market, we’ll cover it today. Enjoy!

1. Target Your Ideal Client

Paid online advertising gives you the power to target your ideal prospect. Taking all available data from people who are online will show you that it’s possible to place your ad in front of the exact person who needs to see it. This is a game changer for contractors.

You can show your ad to people living in a specific zip code, making a certain income, married with a specific number of children, owning their own home and who are interested in golf. Go back to our little exercise where you created your ideal customer profile. With online advertising, you can show your ads to those specific people.

2. Use Native Advertising

Native advertising is the ability to create ads that look and feel like the platform. For instance, if you’re advertising on Facebook, you’ll create an ad fitting into Facebook’s native format. Then while people are scrolling down it doesn’t feel like you’re shouting an advertisement at them. It feels more like you are joining the conversation they’re already having.

Instagram advertising works the same way. Create a short ad to be played or viewed on Instagram that appeals to your target audience and is like the types of videos/posts they regularly view. This allows your message to influence them without appearing pushy. Instagram also offers ads within Instagram stories. A very effective and attractive way to get attention.

3. Pay Only for Those Interested

You can advertise online and only pay if people are clicking on or watching your ad. You don’t have to waste money paying for advertising if people aren’t interested in your ad, and because you are using a targeted marketing strategy, your ad is not being seen by people who are not interested.

4. Click-To-Call

Most people today do their research on their smartphones. If your ad shows up on their smartphone screen and they want to call you, they can tap your ad and immediately place a call—they don’t even have to type in your phone number or visit your website.

This system removes all of the unnecessary middle steps—clicking, redirecting to your website, reading your message, getting your phone number, entering your phone number, calling you—making it much, much easier for the potential client to reach you. Furthermore, you can even add a tracking number to that ad so you will know exactly how many people clicked on it and placed a call.

 5. Retarget Prospective Clients

Internet technology allows you to track the people clicking on your ads and follow them up with another ad. For instance, imagine you have a piece of content on your website that you want people to read, so you advertise that content. Someone clicks on your ad, and they are redirected to your website.

Now they are added to your retargeting list. These are the people who have heard about you and read your content—therefore you are going to show them a totally different ad which will take them a little bit deeper into your business.

It’s most effective to advertise to the people with whom you’ve previously engaged; in this case, you do not waste marketing cash on people who aren’t interested, but you’re showing your ad to people who’ve already encountered some of your expertise and inviting them to learn even more.

6. Analyze Metrics and Analytics

Digital advertising makes it easy to measure and track the performance of your ads. Tracking your ad-performance is powerful, because you can see what people are clicking on, what that click is leading them to, and the results of their searching. This will help you know which ads are effective in getting you the most new leads.

7. Improve Your Performance

After measuring your metrics, go in and tweak small portions of your ads to see if performance can improve. If your changes improve your ad’s reach, draw, or effectiveness—keep them. Continue to edit them over time and refine your advertising until it’s a powerful marketing machine.

SUMMARY

Paid online ads are an investment, there’s no doubt about it. They take time and money to set up and streamline, but they can be an invaluable addition to your marketing scheme.

*****

Thank you for joining me today. If you have any further questions or comments, please join the conversation in the comments below.

*****

Follow me on Instagram for behind-the-scenes stuff. And if you want to go deeper with marketing your business, you may get a free copy of my contractor marketing book, Contractor Marketing Simplified.

The post 7 Benefits of Paid Online Ads appeared first on Martin Holsinger.

Actually, we have five important things to say, and they’re all going to be bitter pills to swallow.

But facing these contractor marketing hard truths is the only way to stay afloat and efficient when it comes to achieving your online marketing goals in the years ahead. Listening to them will make you a better person and a better marketer.

So you may as well get it over with. Here are the five most important contractor marketing truths you have to come to grips with in 2018 and beyond…

1. You Need an Ad Budget to Get Any Traction on Social

Nearly 100% of contractors have strong reasons to be on social. Without a social presence, they miss out on online reach and lead gen capabilities. Their current and potential customers will also think less of a company that doesn’t have an adequate social presence.

Yet, these construction businesses are at the mercy of constantly changing social platforms. Companies like Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn make major changes to improve the experience for the average user and help the company stock go up.

Notice how business users and advertisers are left out of the equation.

What I’m getting at is this: organic reach is tanking.

You have little chance of your posts showing up on people’s newsfeeds unless you apply some sort of budget to promote your posts. Contractors actively trying to boost conversions may also want to consider paying for banner ad space.

The good news is that even with a small budget you can get great results. Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and other platforms all have great tools for helping you experiment with audience targeting and other parameters to chase better-optimized performance.

Start using these tools now, or else you won’t get anything out of your social channels. Even a small budget of $75 – $100 a month is enough to learn the ropes and start earning positive results.

2. Vanity Metrics Won’t Get You Anywhere

When marketing your contracting company online, you should tie your campaigns to target metrics that directly generate a dollar value — or that at least have a high chance of leading to extra money in the bank.

Yet, too often contractors prioritize vanity metrics. A “vanity metric” can be anything that is easy to measure and that can make you feel good but that ultimately has no connection to higher earnings.

Take this example from Social Media Today. They posted a hilarious meme five years ago that still gets thousands of shares and likes. Periodically, the meme will pick up steam and go viral in connection with current trending news.

But ultimately the post equals zada when it comes to actual marketing performance. People who engage with or share the post are not likely to visit Social Media Today’s website since the post has no link to speak of. They are also not becoming more aware of the company’s offerings.

So, instead of just focusing on the amount of likes and followers you have, think fourth dimensionally. Identify metrics that lead to actual revenue, like quote requests.

If you have a part of your contractor marketing funnel that is lagging, then you can also prioritize things like email signups, landing page visits, and shares for your big online promotions.

The bottom line is to think about your bottom line with everything you do.

3. Keeping Up With Contractor Marketing Hard Truths Through News, Data and Research is Essential

What worked with contractor marketing five years ago may not work today.

Construction businesses used to get away with poorly written content as long as it had strong keyword signals, but that’s no longer the case. Now, high quality content that leads to low bounce rates is more important for ranking. You don’t even need the related keyword in the body of your page if your content is strong enough.

A mobile friendly website was once a nice-to- have, but now it’s essential.

Developments like these don’t come out of thin air. Companies like Google and Facebook will announce most changes well before they take effect.

Other developments, like what factors influence search engine ranking, must be learned through diligent research.

If you don’t keep your ear to the ground and actively search out this information, you will be basing your contractor marketing strategy on myth and conjecture. Prioritize staying educated to stay ahead.

4. Bad Reviews Will Tank Your Reputation Unless You Actively Ask for Good Ones

50% of people check online reviews “most of the time” or “always,” but 55% of people say that they “rarely” or “never” leave a review.

This statistic shows that people put a lot of weight on the content of online reviews but usually don’t feel inclined to leave one themselves.

Contractors must therefore actively court reviews from all of their customers. Otherwise, they risk having their review score skewed in favor of people who tend to leave the most reviews: complainers.

Put another way, you have to keep actively adding to your volume of reviews. Most people who have a pleasant or positive experience will be likely to keep it to themselves unless you directly ask them. Remind them that their opinion is important to you and to others online, and you will see your score remain stable.

5. You Have to Be Constantly Gathering Data and Learning From It to Keep Up

This last truth is hard to hear because it involves lots of work. Simply put: digital marketing for contractors is an ongoing, fairly labor intensive process.

Most small construction business owners prefer not to work this way. They want to establish baseline practices and stick to them.

This approach may result in happy customers when it comes to your actual operations, but it will never lead to growth through online marketing.

Instead, contractors must actively measure their online marketing performance and learn from it. They have to establish benchmark metrics, set goals to improve them, experiment, and then measure the results. Then, they have to keep tweaking their approach until they can reliably grow their KPIs (key performance indicators).

Most galling of all, achieving consistent success is not an invitation to rest upon your laurels. Instead, you have to be prepared for ongoing changes and shifts that naturally occur.

Contractor marketing is not a factory. You can’t just put in the same inputs and expect the outputs to remain consistent.

Instead, contractor marketing is a sports car engaged in a constant race with conditions that change all the time. It requires frequent tuning, measuring, testing and maintenance. It also requires you to change up your practices as the weather changes or the track itself is reshaped. Sometimes you have to swap out your entire engine just to stay in the race.

Yes, the act of continually taking the temperature of your contractor marketing strategy and making adjustments can be exhausting. But it’s the only way to stay ahead in a modern era where past performance is no guarantee of future success.

You have to make your own way while keeping your eye on competitors in the rear view mirror. And if you can stay focused on learning and improving, you will always come out ahead.

*****

Thank you for joining me today. If you have any further questions or comments, please join the conversation in the comments below.

*****

Follow me on Instagram for behind-the-scenes stuff. And if you’re wanting to go deeper with marketing your business, you may get a free copy of my new book Contractor Marketing Simplified.

The post 5 Contractor Marketing Hard Truths You Don’t Want to Hear appeared first on Martin Holsinger.

Maybe you haven’t; it’s tricky to define the exact client you want to work for, when growing a business. Usually we take on the first customers to raise their hands and any other job we can find, simply because we need the work.

Of course, this gives us work, projects, and clients—but for consistent business growth, it’s not really the best method. We will often end up with more “problem clients” or jobs, when we are not selective with our client choices. We want to do what is best for each client and also what is best for our contracting company.

The alternative to this issue is to decide who you really want to serve. In your business, who is your Ideal Customer?

Isn’t Everyone My Ideal Customer?

I was once active in the Business Network International organization, the world’s largest professional networking program. BNI’s whole purpose is to offer professional referrals for you, and to help you refer other members. The best way to give a good referral is to know exactly what type of customer it is that they are looking for. If a member in your referral network has done a good job of describing their ideal client, then you may know a specific person fitting that description you can then refer for/to a job.

One of our members, was finding it very difficult to narrow down what his ideal client looked like. He said, “everyone is my ideal customer, because anyone can pay for my services.”

Think about it; when you take the time to narrow down who your ideal customer is, it clarifies things in your brain. If you know exactly who you want to talk to, you’ll be able to speak their language. If you know exactly what their needs are, you’ll be able to directly help them. If you know exactly where they’re located, you’ll able to present your marketing to directly attract them.

Serving your Ideal Client, makes you provide better services because you’ll be working with the kind of clients you really connect with.

Who Is My Ideal Customer?

So, let’s talk about how to determine who YOUR Ideal Customer is.

Some of this comes with experience. The more work you do, the more you will naturally find out who you like working for. But, even if you are relatively new, you can still do this exercise to think through who you want to be serving.

I recommend that you take time to sit down and actually put names to these Ideal Customers. Something like, “Bill and Jane.” Or whatever best fits your ideal customer in your mind.

Define Each Category Of Your Ideal Customer:

• What is their Age?
• Gender?
• Household Income?
• Where are they located?
• What Neighborhood do they live in?
• Are they Homeowners? For how long?
• Do they have Children? How many?
• Do they want a remodel? A custom home?

Here’s an Example:

They’re Bill and Jane. They’re in their mid-forties, because that’s the age group you want to work with. They’re a two-income household, and they’ve owned their home for ten years. They’re looking to remodel. They live in the specific neighborhood where you want to work. They have some children. Be sure and think about the children’s ages, and what they’re interested in as well. All these things add up to create a profile of your ideal customer.

Customize Your Marketing To Target Your Ideal Customer.

Your social media posts, your captions, your website, each of these actions should speak directly to this Client. They have needs; market your business as the perfect way to fulfill those needs.

When your Ideal Customer sees your company set up to meet their needs, they’ll know you’re the one to hire. Of course, the more jobs you get from this ideal customer profile, the more testimonials and reviews you’ll get from people just like them. Eventually, if you continue to target your Ideal Customer, dozens more Ideal Customers will see you and hire you.

Summary

As a contractor, don’t just work for anyone. Decide who you want to work for and put your business in front of them. The best business ventures happen when the contractor and client can perfectly meet each other’s needs.

*****

Thank you for joining me today. If you have any further questions or comments, please join the conversation in the comments below.

*****

Follow me on Instagram for behind-the-scenes stuff. And if you’re wanting to go deeper with marketing your business, you may get a free copy of my new book, Contractor Marketing Simplified.

The post Creating an Ideal Customer Profile appeared first on Martin Holsinger.

For me, the week after Christmas is always reflective, and anticipative. I feel like the year is winding down, and It’s almost time to begin the new year.

We all know the old chime… “We wish you a Merry Christmas,We wish you a Merry Christmas… and a Happy New Year!”

The “Merry Christmas” is the easy part. But how do we best prepare for a happy new year?

A Goal Setting Blueprint That Actually Works

Preparing for another year is imperative for a contractor. And in order to do that. I’ve found it necessary to do two things: 1) Reflect on the past year, and 2) Plan for the next year. The cool thing about this, is that you can do it in July, and it still works! So, even if you are reading this in July, you can still do this.

Let me show you the exact process I use to reflect on the past year, and plan for the year to come. As we go through this together, I hope it will inspire you to do it as well.

Choose Your Location

It doesn’t really matter so much where this event takes place. What matters is that you set aside ample time to go through it completely.

I usually take at least one whole day and go away somewhere and work through this. A coffee shop. A mountain cabin. A quiet place at home. The important thing is that you cannot be distracted by work or other obligations.

Reflections Of The Past Year

This part of the process is just as important as the planning part of the process, if not more so.

This past year you’ve had wins, losses, personal growth, and much more. All these things have brought you to where you are now, and will prepare the foundation for what’s to come next year. That’s why it is so important to spend plenty of time going through this part of the process.

First of all, look at what you’ve gained and experienced.

Then, look at what needs to be released in order to make room for more.

To get started…Get out your journal, or calendar,  and go through it looking at the events of your past year.

Answer the following questions as completely as you can: Note: Modesty is not allowed here. Elaborate as much as you can.

• What are some of the successes, wins and accomplishments of the past year?
• What was the major area of growth?
• What are you most proud of?
• What have you learned about yourself and your life?
• What insights have you gained?
• What are you grateful for?
• Who were the important people in your life during the last year?
• Is there something that used to be important to you, that no longer is?
• Is there something that used to be unimportant, but now has greater importance in your life?

Time To Release

• What are your disappointments, failures and breakdowns? Acknowledge these as an opportunity to let them go.
• What events occurred that you can make peace with and let go of?
• What negative experiences and associated negative emotions are you ready to leave in the past year?
• Who are the people that you said goodbye to? Acknowledge them … and then let ‘em go, along with any negative emotional association.

The Coming Year

Choose A Theme

1. Choose a theme for the entire year. It can be “laughter” or “financial success” or “health.”…etc.  Pick a theme that resonates with you.
2. Make a commitment to yourself to weave this theme into your work, play and relationships.
3. Visualize the Year
4. Transport yourself to Dec. 31 of next year. Contemplate this for a few moments in silence.
5. Write a letter to yourself or any of your loved ones as if it was written New Year’s Eve of next year. In it, describe all of the amazing things that happened to you over the year. Include items about your career, your financial situation, your love life, your health and your free time. Make it bold and exciting to you. Feel what it would be like to have lived that amazing year. Write this letter in past tense.

Major Goals

• Pick 3 to 9 things from your letter that you most want to attract in the coming year and begin writing a plan for attaining those things.
• Make sure that each goal is constructed in such a way that it is possible to see if you have accomplished it by the end of the year. (Use S.M.A.R.T. Goals. See illustration below)
• Include each major area of your life – health, career, finances, etc.
• Do not choose more than 9 goals for your entire year. You can break each major goal apart into sub-goals. But, you do not need to set more than 9 major goals for next year.

Write Them Down

Now it’s time to write them down and publish them. No, I don’t mean publish them for the world to see. In fact, it has been proven scientifically that sharing your goals with the world has a reverse effect. Your brain experiences a release when you share it with others, which in turn, triggers the same feeling as if you accomplished the goal. So, your brain now thinks you’ve already accomplished it, and there is no need to go for it. So, the experts do not recommend sharing your goals publicly.

However, if you are like me, and you need a little accountability… Then there is nothing wrong with being open and honest with your mentor, coach or friend. but make sure that they will hold you accountable to really accomplish these goals. Otherwise, there’s no point in sharing them.

How to publish them

Calendar. You can put them on your calendar, first of all. That’s right. Go ahead and schedule the accomplishment of these goals on the calendar. Setting a due date will motivate you to accomplish your goal.

Laminated. You can print them out and have them laminated. Then you can put them up in strategic places around your life.

Screen Saver. You can put them on your screen saver. That way whenever you aren’t active on your computer, you will be reminded what your goals are.

Conclusion

Congratulations! If you make it through this entire process, you have done WAY more work towards creating an inspiring future than most people ever will.

Thinking it through. Visualizing the result. And writing them down. This all takes work. If you have done this, you are well on your way to the best year you could imagine.

I can’t wait to see you, and your results, next year at this time, and wish you “A Happy New Year” all over again.

The post How To Prepare For A Happy New Year appeared first on Martin Holsinger.

But on this particular day. I was working on a writing project in Starbucks. At about 3:15pm I decided to get up and go for a quick walk to stretch my muscles and get the blood flowing again. And clear my brain.

I walked into the bookstore next door. 

As usual I went straight to the business section. Sometimes just seeing the titles of all those great books gives me an extra boost. You know what I mean? Just reading the titles of published books, can give you insight. Especially if you are a creative.

Anyway, I saw a new book by Jon Acuf titled: “Start”.

“Hmmm. I thought. I haven’t seen this one before. I think I’ll pick it up and leaf through it.” 

I flipped through a few chapters. Until I found a chapter near the back about why he is working for someone else while he grows his own platform. 

Then, I read a few more pages about “doing reps,” you know, becoming an expert at one thing by just doing it over and over again. 

Boom! the fire started to grow inside me. It was just the fix I needed to keep going with my creative work. 

No, I didn’t buy the book yet. Sorry Jon. But, it did inspire me, and that’s what counts. 

So do you need a quick fix on a lazy afternoon?

Here are 3 things that you can do for a quick boost.

1. Go For A Walk

Getting up and going for a walk is stimulating to the brain. It releases chemicals that we need in order to be creative. It provides a washing of the mind. That’s why we call it “clearing the head”. It opens your mind to other things. That kind of distraction is actually healthy. 

So, if you find yourself nodding off. Or not getting as much done as you hoped. Go for a quick walk. 

2. Read Something Inspiring

Don’t do this at the same location as your work. You have to get up and go somewhere else for this to work properly. Just like my story above. I went for a walk, and then read a few pages that inspired me. 

Can you do something like this too? Find something inspiring and read it. 

3. Listen To Something Inspiring

Podcasts are awesome! I love to listen to podcasts when I’m not working. I listen to a few folks on a regular basis who continually inspire me. 

This is certainly something you can do while you are on your quick walk. Just put your earbuds in and listen to a quick inspirational podcast while you walk.

There you have it. 3 quick and easy things that you can do the next time you need a boost in the afternoon. 

Questions for Response. 

• Have you found any other ways that offer a quick boost in the afternoon? 
• Do you do any of those things I mentioned above on a regular basis? 
• What is your response?

The post How To Get A Quick Boost On A Lazy Afternoon appeared first on Martin Holsinger.