- Asking questions about what your business needs are and setting goals
- Understanding that quantity isn’t always better than quality
- Exploring the why behind your business needs
- How to construct a professional budget
Send us your questions, comments, feedback, praise! We can’t wait to hear from you!
Transcription:
Devon Hayes:
Welcome back, part two.
Amanda Joyce:
All right.
Devon Hayes:
Yeah, we got part two of our… What did I say? 57 part series, 2024 marketing plan. Get your shit together now.
Amanda Joyce:
Exactly. It was all analysis. Just get in there, dig around, look at the numbers. Where are you? Where are the leads coming from? Who’s your audience? Figure it out. Get your shit together and then it’s time to look ahead to what you’re going to do with all that information. So that is what we’re going to be covering today.
Devon Hayes:
Welcome To Trade Secrets, where we demystify digital marketing to help contractors get the most bang for their marketing bucks.
Amanda Joyce:
This is for you, if you’re a contractor looking for actionable marketing insights.
Devon Hayes:
Learn from home services industry experts to elevate your business through simplified marketing strategies.
Amanda Joyce:
Let’s dive into today’s Trade Secret.
Devon Hayes:
I think that was a good one. We didn’t really talk that much on part one about that competitive analysis, so not to take up this one, because we’re trying to be a little bit more succinct, but you can learn a lot from your competitors when someone’s doing it really well and just learn from them and then help that form your plan and how you’re going to do it better and maybe get your own spin on things.
Now that you have your information, you’ve analyzed what’s going on internally, the customer experience when they do sign up to work with you, where your leads are coming from, the quality of those leads, the whole what’s working, what’s not working, how do you know? That part’s done. So now the fun part, now you got to put together your plan for next year and maybe, I guess, Amanda, I think we talked about this part is where it’s maybe back into it instead of saying, “Okay… You don’t want to start out and say, “I’m going to post on social media. I’m going to post five days a week and I’m going to devote… I’m going to make sure that I comment and engage 12 times every day on each… Because that’s where you’re jumping into tactics without a plan. That’s the… Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s slow down. Why do you think that’s going to work? So, setting the goal and then deciding on the tactics is this next piece.
Amanda Joyce:
Backing into it so that you’re being strategic and you’re not just guessing, because at the end of the day when we talk to a lot of contractors, it’s like, “Marketing doesn’t work.” Or, “I tried SEO.” Or, “I tried this.” A lot of times that was how they went into it. They were just shooting from the hip and of course it didn’t work. And then they feel like they can throw it in the pile of doesn’t work for me and move on to the next. Maybe it’s time to just look at the goals, like you said, back into them and you might even end up deciding there’s a couple things that you might need to dust off that you tried a few years ago if you’re being honest with yourself and you realize maybe you went at it a little too wild west and maybe not strategically enough.
So, what do you need? What is your marketing goal? Do you need a certain amount, like we talked about in our last episode as well? Are you just going into it and saying, “I need 20 leads a week”? Why do you need 20 leads a week? Is it because you’ve looked at your close rate and you know that to get to your ultimate goal of the year, you’ve got to get 20, because you’re going to close 80% of them and all that? Sure, all well and good, but also; what’s the quality of those? Maybe every once in a while you’re getting some big commercial job that comes in that’s six times larger than some of the smaller jobs that you get. So it’s not always going to be just a flat easy number.
I could go off on a tangent about this, but at the end of the day, what is your marketing goal? What numbers do you need to be hitting and what does your marketing need to be? What portion of those leads does your marketing need to be providing outside of what your sales guys are doing or your other efforts are doing to get you to your goal?
Devon Hayes:
And I think you just brilliantly touched on a couple things right there. You talked about the close rate and you talked about that integration of sales and marketing. This is the time to… It isn’t just about marketing. We always talk about, well, everybody in your company should be part of marketing, number one. But number two, that sales and marketing relationship is so important. You may have done the analysis and stuff, but really part of that should have been talking with your sales team and what’s working for them and what are the quality of leads, what are they saying about the leads they get maybe from the office versus those self-generated leads, because that integration is important and if they do have a horrible close rate, maybe your overall strategic plan should have some budget for sales coaching. There’s a ton of great sales coaches out there that can help increase that close rate, so that you’re not needing those 56 leads a week or whatever, knowing that you’re not even going to close 50% of those.
So that’s a really, really key point when you’re looking at your marketing goals, thinking of how they can integrate seamlessly with the sales teams and the sales goals and again, reverse engineering what is working and then just doing more of that this year. Because no matter what marketing goals you set for the company, you are going to need to get everybody’s buy-in, and especially the sales teams buy-in. From a digital perspective I can tell you, reviews. We need reviews. You need reviews. In order to perform really well with SEO and local SEO, we need reviews. We need reviews with pictures. We need reviews in the areas you want to work. We need reviews from projects that you love and want more of. You, as the owner, you can send a follow-up, but your sales team, your project manager, your people that are talking to the homeowner every day, you need their buy-in with whatever marketing goals you set.
And there’s a lot of really smart people out there that will coach you and help you get that buy-in, but ultimately everybody has to know what the goal is and as always, if they understand what’s in it for them and they’re incentivized, that tends to help goals, people get to that finish line on goals a lot sooner. But, I think my point with the marketing goals is just having the entire team’s buy-in on it or you’re going to be like a lone man, trying to pull a train up a mountain. It’s not going to be the best use of your time if you try to do it alone.
Amanda Joyce:
Absolutely. Okay, so the other thing you got to do too, maybe you’ve set those marketing goals, you know what success is going to look like from your marketing plan, so it’s time to really think. The next two things we’re going to talk about are budgeting and putting the plan together, and it is like chicken or the egg here with that one, because it might be hard to assign the budget until you know exactly the whole breadth of your marketing plan, but you probably have a pretty good idea of what you can comfortably afford at your current burn rate for marketing for next year. So, it’s a good idea to just sit down at the table knowing what you’re comfortable spending, knowing it might have to go up a little bit or go down a little bit, as you put the plan together, but you need to come into it having a pretty good comfort level with what you’re willing to invest in the marketing and then it’s time to really lay out what it is you need.
Maybe you’re really happy with your website and all that, and all you really need to do is figure out how to drive some more traffic to it and get more people to pick up the phone and call you guys. Great. That’s what your marketing plan can encompass. But maybe you do need a new website. Maybe your sales guys are complaining all the time about how embarrassed they are to send people to the website, that it doesn’t serve the purpose that it needs to. It doesn’t reflect who you are as a company and especially if a new website is going to fall within that marketing plan, talk about the time to get your shit together, because if you want a website in Q1 or even Q2 of next year, it is time to start picking that vendor. It’s time to start to really start planning and pulling that…
Obviously you got to pull the whole marketing strategy together, but if part of that is a website, it’s just like if you have a homeowner come to you and say they’re going to want their entire kitchen remodeled next year. You’re like, “If you think it’s going to be ready for next summer, you need to be in my plan. We need to be planning in Q1.” So, same thing with your website. You got to treat it that same way. Look at it like a project that you would be managing.
Devon Hayes:
Yeah, and that goes for anything. I think now obviously the planning, so it can be implemented and maybe kickoff in January, but I think having an expectation for each piece of the marketing plan is also critical. So, if you decide in your marketing mix, you want to incorporate SEO and paid media and social media and email marketing, having a realistic expectation of when you’re going to actually start to see some ROI on those marketing channels is imperative. There are pieces of marketing that are branding, top of mind awareness and really drilling your brand into a customer’s name, so they know you. What is it? Know, trust and like you. Email marketing is part of that. You may not get a lead every time you send out a monthly newsletter, but you’re reminding people of who you are.
So, understanding the value of each piece of your marketing mix and having realistic expectations on when you’re going to see some ROI and how you correlate that ROI, you don’t need to write that down, but just have that in mind. If you need to fill your pipeline right now, immediately, SEO is not going to be the most important piece, but you need to know that it takes 9 to 12 months before SEO is going to start to work for you and start to yield results.
So, if you need your pipeline filled, maybe you have more of an aggressive paid media strategy that you’re going to implement right away. You know you’re going to spend a boatload for three months, start to fill the pipeline for everybody and then wean yourself off of that. And then as that happens, hopefully maybe your SEO cadence starts to pick up or whatever else you’re doing. Maybe you want to invest in direct mail marketing. It’s the consistency in the marketing channel that you choose, that’s going to make it effective. And I just bring up timelines, because if you launch a website and you let it sit there for five months and then you’re like, “Well, where’s all my leads from this? I see I’m gaining in keywords, I’m gaining organic traffic, I’m gaining in search positioning, but my leads aren’t there.” You’re not really giving it enough time to do its job.
Amanda Joyce:
Absolutely. And to that point too, if you are spending money in all these areas, and it is a good chunk of the money that you have there to invest back into your company, talk about all the more reason that you do need to be educating your salespeople, your administrative staff, everyone who’s going to have a touchpoint with any of these potential leads. They need to understand what an investment is being put into them, and that will ideally help with the close rates, with the customer experience. If everybody understands, “Well, we’ve got a lot of skin in this game. This isn’t just some casual call that just happened. Somebody didn’t just drive by and pick up the phone.” We are really investing in these and really put it on everybody to have ownership in making sure that you get those across the finish line. Especially when you’re paying for that traffic, like, oh my gosh. It is so critical that everyone is on board with making sure that you are nurturing that lead from start to finish.
Sure, they’re not all going to close, but everyone needs to know that the close rate needs to be a lot higher on those leads, because you’re spending a lot more money on them. And ideally they’ll lead to more referrals and all kinds of things and continue to pay off down the road, but now is the time if you’re really making marketing a big focus for 2024 to make sure the whole team is on board with just really loving on those leads and making sure they make it through the funnel.
Devon Hayes:
And to your point, track where they’re coming from. With our clients, we definitely have updated those form fills from the paid media landing pages to say, “Paid lead.” So, it might be somebody else’s turn in the office, it’s on their rotation, but their close rate is not great. You might give that paid lead to someone who’s got a much higher close rate, because you just paid maybe $200 for them to come to your website and to convert, and you don’t want to lose that. So, tracking for marketing is so important.
I’m sure everybody knows this, but maybe you don’t know there’s ways to track a paid lead versus an organic lead from your website. Maybe they’re all coming in on the same form. So just knowing that there’s ways to track that specifically and even tracking, I don’t know, if you’re running a billboard in an area, it sounds like, “How do I track my ROI on a billboard?” There’s ways to do it. So, as you roll out this marketing plan, just making sure that whatever it is that you do is tracked to make sure that you can look at that ROI, even though with something like branding, it’s so hard to have a direct correlation, but we talk about social media, which is more and more important. We use it, our agency uses it as a tool of SEO, and we don’t promise to make you an influencer and grow your brand, but it’s good for top of mind awareness, good to have fresh content on there.
But engagement in those social posts is really important in order for your content to get served, but is it so important that you’re going to hire a social media coordinator who’s full-time creating video and content and posting three times a day on seven platforms? I don’t know. It’s something you got to look at with your business. I’ve seen some contractors out there who have some really good-looking social and they definitely invest in a lot of video and it looks awesome, but I don’t know what kind of leads they’re getting from it. They must be investing for a reason, so it’s just a matter of; who’s your audience? Where are they? Meeting your audience wherever they’re at.
Amanda Joyce:
A hundred percent. And on the tracking topic as well, in our last episode, we talked a lot about just this time of year being the time to analyze and decide what’s next. Maybe right now you’re doing the analysis and you’re a little frustrated, because you don’t have all the answers and you can’t really put the whole puzzle together, talk about now’s the time to do it, so this time next year, the guesswork is out of it and you have a much better look at your acquisition channels and where stuff’s coming from. You can put CallRail tracking in place and that will tell you… You can go back and listen to quality of phone calls and you can tell where they came from, whether it was organic or through a paid ad or things like that. So if you don’t have that oversight now, now’s the time to put it in place and it’ll only make your marketing that much stronger and more data-driven moving forward.
Devon Hayes:
Excellent, excellent point. I think I get lost in that sometimes too, and I forget that it doesn’t have to happen immediately. I start to do that, so excellent point that it just, not a big deal. Just get it in place now and like you said, or before you start 2024, make that a goal. Just be like, “I just want to make sure Google Analytics is set up correctly now that they switched over to GA4.”. And maybe that’s your goal in terms of tracking or in CallRail, that would be a really, really critical piece I think to listen to as an owner.
Amanda Joyce:
Yeah, we’ll listen to them and then I’ll send them links to the ones that I find concerning or that I think they might need to give some coaching internally. That’s a quick way to really get rid of some bleed real fast if you just suddenly realize this certain person shouldn’t be on the phone, or maybe you figure out that your answering service is not cutting it. It’s a real quick, easy way to figure out what your customer experience is like, especially at that critical first stage where they’re probably comparing you and three other local competitors and trying to decide who they’re going to go for.
Talk about a quick way to figure out if that’s where you’re losing business or maybe you’re the one that’s… I have listened to some calls where people are like, “Oh my gosh, I’m just so glad you answered the phone.” So maybe you’re finding like, “Wow, we’re killing it. Everybody else locally here isn’t picking up the phone and we’re doing it.” Maybe you need to tell that receptionist that… Give her a $500 Visa gift card, because she’s killing it, or maybe you need to replace her. So, it’s a quick, easy way to really improve business operations and track at the end of the day.
Devon Hayes:
Yeah. I think that’s awesome. So I think we’ve covered everything we wanted to cover on part two here, some really valuable feedback. The call listening is incredible. Anyways, all right. So, I think we’re going to wrap up episode two. I think we’ve covered some good stuff here. Setting the goals, budget planning, timeline.
Amanda Joyce:
Exactly. Get it in place, you know what you’re going to execute and then tune in next time, because in our final part of this series, we’re going to go into execution and analysis and just really following this marketing plan through into 2024 and making sure you get the most out of it.
Devon Hayes:
Love it. All right. If you know anyone that or if you found this helpful or think anyone you know would as well, please share it and we’ll see you next time.
Amanda Joyce:
That was today’s trade secret. Thanks for listening.
Devon Hayes:
Did you find this helpful? We’re just getting started.
Amanda Joyce:
Subscribe and don’t miss our next reveal.
Devon Hayes:
Until next time.
