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.

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.

We set up a meeting and met at a local coffee shop.

There we were about twenty inches away from each other. We had a small little coffee shop table between us. About ten or fifteen minutes into the conversation, his phone rang.

He looked down at his phone, told me who it was, and then answered it. Then he started talking to the other person.

I’m sitting there thinking, “Okay. What am I supposed to do? We have this meeting to discuss his needs and how I can serve him, and he’s on the phone.”

I opened my computer and I started typing away. I acted like I was working on things I wanted to do. Secretly, I was looking at his Linkedin profile that he had just told me was “Awesome.”

After a while, he got done with his phone conversation and hung up. He then started to try and pick up his conversation where he had left off with me.

I let him talk for a while, and then finally I closed my computer, and brought my attention back to him again.

Should You Answer Your Phone In A Sales Meeting?

The question today is should you answer your phone in a sales meeting? I am going to give you three reasons that you absolutely should not answer your phone in a sales meeting.

#1. Out of Respect

The first reason is out of respect. You are called to respect people. When you have a meeting with someone, you are there to talk to them one-on-one and strengthen your relationship with them.

Suppose someone came up to your table. And you turn your back on the person you are talking to, and start talking with the new person. Your back is now turned towards the original person.

How would that make them feel? That would make them very disrespected, right?

Your phone is that third person. When you answer it, you’re turning your back on the meeting, and talking to a new individual who was not invited to the conversation.

That’s disrespectful.

So, the first reason you should not answer your phone in a sales meeting, is out of respect.

#2. Professionalism

The second reason is to be professional. You’re a professional. This other person is a professional. And you’re having a professional meeting.

It’s unprofessional to answer your phone in a meeting.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the best of friends. You can be best friends that go clear back to childhood. It’s still unprofessional to be having a meeting with someone else and then answer your phone.

#3. To Develop Trust

The third reason is trust. A sales meeting is supposed to build trust in the mind and heart of the person you’re meeting with.

Meetings are more about trust, than they are about content. It’s not about just getting through your content. It’s that unspoken sense that happens between two people, which helps the person determine whether they can trust you or not.

For instance, let’s pretend you are my prospect. I’m having a meeting with you, and you answer your phone. Because this phone call interrupts our conversation, my trust in you will go down. It makes me wonder what you’re going to be like as a client of mine. And vice versa… If you are meeting with me determining whether you can trust me to handle marketing your business for you, and I interrupt our conversation with a cell phone call, your trust of me will go down. You will begin to question what it would really be like to work with me down the road.

Conclusion:

If you struggle with answering your phone in a sales meeting, my counsel for you today is … Leave your phone in the car!

Time For Response:

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The post Never Answer Your Phone In A Sales Meeting – Here’s Why appeared first on Martin Holsinger.

I wanted to get some real feedback about our workshop. So I decided to send a free online survey to the attendees.

Sending a free online survey to your audience is so important. Whether you just did a live event or not, doesn’t matter. If you serve others, in any capacity, it is important to get feedback from them from time to time.

In this post, I plan to show you how…

How To Make a Free Online Survey With Typeform

I use a free tool called Type Form. Just go to typeform.com and set up a free account. They make it super easy for you to do this.

Setup Your Workspace and Template

First setup a new workspace.

Then if you want to create a new type form just click the plus button.

You can use a template or start from scratch. Remember, I want to get feedback about our workshop.

So let’s find a “post event survey” template. Just click on the template. And then it’s going to give me a preview of how it works. If I like it I just click “use this template.”

Build and Tweak Your Survey

Now let me show you inside the online survey itself.
Here’s the build, it’s already set up. All you have to do is come in and change the line items.

I didn’t have to do very much change because it was already set up for an event.

Line items were already setup such as:

• How would you rate the speakers,
• The workshops,
• The venue,
• Door prices,
• Food?
• How did you first hear about the event?
• How well did the event meet your expectations?
• And so on.

This is exactly the information we want to know about our workshop so there was very little I had to change about it.

Within a couple of these questions there are places for people to leave comments. Which is really nice. Because there are people who will take the time to type in a response. And that gives you personalized feedback.  Which is really great.

Change the Color and Design

Then you can go into the design panel, and change the color if you want. Or you can change the background image, the fonts, and almost everything about the design of the type form. But you know what? I didn’t change anything. I just left it the way it was and it worked great.

Distribute Your Free Online Survey

When you click distribute, you are given a link. Let me show you what I mean. Right here I just click “copy” and it’s copied to my clipboard. Now all I have to do now is go to my email, or social media, or whatever, and paste it in and send it out to the people who came to the event.

Analyze The Results

I think this is really cool.., When you click on “analyze” you’ll be able to see analytics, and you’ll be able to see all the responses.

The first thing you get is an overview of the metrics. This tells the average time to complete was 4 minutes and 46 seconds, 14 unique visits and 12 responses. It shows whether people filled it out on their laptops or tablets or smart phones.

There’s a visual report also.

When you pull up the visual report, you can see the average of all of these responses. You will know overall how satisfied people were.

And it goes deeper from there… How did you first hear about the event? It tells how people heard about it and so on. There’s graph averages of what all of the respondents entered.

Share The Results With Your Team

Then there’s a way for you to share this general report with your colleagues. If you had somebody else, like I did, who did the workshop with you. Just go to the bottom of the page and copy the public link. I did this,  and sent it to him and said, “Hey, check out the responses.”

So cool! This is so easy and they’re beautiful. You can upgrade your account for more functionality. But, the basic version right here, the free version, was enough for me to get the feedback I needed to help continue growing my business.

If you’re an entrepreneur, or small business, it’s important for you to survey your audience and find out things that you need to know.

Response Time:

1. Have you ever used a free online survey tool before? Let me know about it. 
2. Please share this post with others you know could use this help.
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Watch the FULL Video about how to make and send a free online survey here:

The post How To Make a FREE Online Survey appeared first on Martin Holsinger.

How can I cut through the noise of #holidaymarketing?

If that’s you, then keep reading.

Holidays are a festive and wonderful time of year. They bring happiness and joy to our otherwise mundane lives. Holidays also make an incredible opportunity to market and grow our businesses.

But everyone is running a sale it seems. So, how do you cut through the noise and stand out from the crowd?

Here are 3 ways to cut through the noise of holiday marketing:

1. Be very clear on who you are targeting.

So much of the noise is because everyone is telling everyone that their product is best for everybody. That’s just a bunch of noise.

If you want your marketing to stand out this holiday season, then you need to narrow your message down to speak only to your perfect customer.

2. Use Facebook ads.

Once you have your perfect customer identified, then it’s easy to target them with Facebook ads.

Create a landing page that calls your visitor to a very clear and specific call-to-action, and then drive hyper-targeted facebook ads to that landing page.

For instance, you may want to offer a coupon. Then, people who visit your landing page should give you their email address so that you can send them the coupon.

3. Follow up via email.

Now, you have their email address, and they’ve requested the coupon that you offered on your landing page.

Send them their coupon via an email autoresponder. Then send them a few more emails over the holidays, of your other products and special offers.

See how this works?

1. You decide who you want to buy your products.
2. Then, get in front of them with targeted fb ads.
3. Then, you send them emails of your products and special offers.

It’s a win-win situation for everyone. The people who are interested in your offers will opt-in with their email address. And you get to sell your products to your favorite customers.

This is one of the simplest and easiest ways to cut through the noise of all the holiday marketing chatter.

Thanks, Martin

Time for response:

1. Get started with your own holiday marketing. (let me know if you need help)
2. Share this post with others.
3. Get the free PDF to this blog post and save it in your folder for later.

The post Cut Through The Noise of Holiday Marketing appeared first on Martin Holsinger.

Have you ever said anything like this before? Guess what. Roughly 99% of my business comes through word of mouth too. However, I still need an online presence, and so do you.

In this post I will share with you three reasons having an online presence with referrals is better than word of mouth alone.

#1. Reachable

Let’s suppose that one of your clients goes and tells their friend how wonderful you are and gives you a referral. They get your name and number, and then promptly forget your number.

But they remember your name so they “Google” you. They look you up online, but lo and behold you can’t be found.

However, while they are searching for your number, they do find your competition, and end up calling them. Bummer. You just lost a job from a referral, simply because you weren’t reachable.

#2. Trustable

So, your customer gives you a referral to their friend. The friend however, wants to look you up online and do a little research about you before hiring you. Not that they don’t trust the referral of their friend, but they want to be in control of their research. It’s the age we live in. You must accept this fact.

When you have an online presence, you give them a way for them to do a little research before they call and hire you. Your online presence helps build even more trust in their minds.

#3. Professional

Your online presence is the “curb appeal” of real estate. I mean that when a person sells a house, they should make it look good on the outside. It’s the same online.

When you are aware that people are looking for your name and number online, and they are doing research about you before they buy, it changes the way you present yourself.

You want your online “curb appeal” to be professional and attractive. Take the time to think this through and apply it to your online presence. It will set you apart from 95% of your competition. And people who look you up after a referral, will find your professional online presence will help seal the deal in their mind. You will get a new customer!

Response Time:

1. Get my FREE Cheatsheet – 5 Sure Fire Ways To Use Video To Market Your Business. (See the right hand sidebar at the top.)
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3. Do you still have a burning question about this topic? If so, what is it?

Join the conversation below…

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