Welcome to the first episode of Marketing Panes - the show where I explain digital marketing tactics, interview company owners and providers to learn what strategies they’re using, and talk about marketing trends and tools that will help your window treatment or awning company get more leads and grow your revenue.
This is episode number 1 - The Introduction
My name is Will Hanke, I own a digital marketing agency based in Saint Louis, Missouri, and this is my 23rd year in the industry. Yes, I was building websites back in the days of web directories, before Google and search engines as we know them even existed.
My business is called Window Treatment Marketing Pros, and I’m going to explain a bit more about that in just a minute.
So let’s get started. First, who am I?
Well, my name is Will Hanke, my official title is Chief Marketing Strategist, and I am the owner of two companies, Red Canoe Media and Window Treatment Marketing Pros. I built my first website in 1997 for my church, while working full time for a government agency that provided the logistics software for the Army. We could tell you where any tank, rotor blade, tire or bolt was on the planet.
Prior to that I was in the Air Force, working as a radar technician. I was in Columbia during the time of Pablo Escobar, helping run drug interdiction and plenty of other things I’m not going to mention today.
In 2004 I was featured in newspapers around the world for a website I had built. When my 15 minutes of fame died down, I realized I hadn’t made a dime from that, and my career as a marketer was officially born. From there I started learning how to not just build websites, but build websites that produce revenue. By the end of that year I was teaching local classes to business owners on ways to get to the top of Google, Yahoo!, and Bing (which wasn’t called Bing back then).
For over 20 years I’ve helped thousands of businesses around the world with their online footprint, including divorce lawyers, mattress stores, and woodworkers.
In 2018 I realized that there was a big need for education and help in the window treatment and awning industries, and my company Window Treatment Marketing Pros was born. This business specifically focuses on educating and servicing these two industries, helping owners around the country get their websites more traffic, more leads, and ultimately more revenue.
We hold monthly online training sessions, I blog a lot on our website about trends and opportunities, and we have clients around the country that are ranking high in Google searches for industry terms, their phones are ringing and everyone’s businsses are growing.
Personally I’m a father of 4, husband of one for almost 30 years, and Peepaw of 2. I’m lucky to get to work with my daughter Amber every day, and a fan of our St Louis Cardinals and Blues (who just won the Stanley Cup, btw).
So alright, enough about me.
What is the Marketing Panes podcast?
Well, the idea behind the podcast is pretty simple - I want to provide an easy to understand and easy to listen to publication where window treatment and awning business owners can get information that will help their business grow. It’s really that simple. I want to provide value to an industry that I know, I understand, and could use this knowledge to make more money.
What is the format of the upcoming episodes? I’m going to do one of two things - talk by myself, or interview someone.
Talk by myself - On these episodes, like this one, I’ll have a format that typically centers around a specific topic, like getting more reviews or social media. Most of the topics will be marketing-based, although I may also bring in some general running-your-business topics, since I”ve been doing it for such a long time.
Interview someone - this will take on 1 of 2 forms, either I’ll interview another business owner about their business, their marketing successes (and failures),
