MegaMarketer Coachcast for Contractors

In this week's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Scott Smith talks to Sara Kathryn King about the in's and out's of Instagram marketing.

Main Questions Asked:

• What are some of the basics we should know?
• Can you tell us something about paid ads on Instagram?
• What is a carousel ad?
• How can you hone in on your target?
• What are some of the automation options?

Key Lessons Learned:

Instagram Marketing

• Instagram is extremely large and growing rapidly, more than 100 million users have come on board since April 2017. Many Facebook users naturally become Instagram users.
• The first step is to start an Instagram account and then create a business account either within Instagram or through Facebook. It costs nothing to set up and post, the only time you will spend money is when you want to advertise or boost your posts.
• There are several types of paid ads you can run on Instagram and most of the time, the ads themselves are very non-intrusive.
• Don't discount Instagram because you think it's only used by young kids, more and more of your key demographic is coming on the platform every day.
• Video ads are gaining popularity with users online, 87% of advertisers online are using video. 60 second videos are a great way to attract new customers and share your story or your customer's story.
• Carousel ads allow you to use more than one image at a time, this could be an opportunity to share a transformation.
• Stories are a great way to engage follows and create content for your highlight reel.
• Go back to the basics if you're on a budget and engage your followers. Reply to their posts, start a conversation, and make them feel valued.
• Share the behind the scenes work with your audience with the stories feature. Anything you can do to be at the top of your customer's mind is a good thing, even if they don't watch it your brand still appears at the top of their feed.

Targeting on Instagram

• You have to think about the medium you are using to target and adjust your demographics to fit the platform.
• Targeting your ads on Instagram works exactly the same as Facebook and can be customized extensively, including retargeting with the Facebook pixel.

Influencers

• Influencers are another great way to reach new followers. Your customers can actually be influencers within their social circle.
• The hardest part is the ask, the worst thing they can say is no.
• Reach out to notable people in your community and ask them to mention you.

Contests

• Contests are simple, fun, and an easy way to create a viral prospecting mechanism.
• Using hashtags to track entries is the easiest way and manage the contest.
• If you choose your winner, you can rebrand their post and highlight them which encourages them to participate again the next time.

Automation

• Social media is not meant to be time consuming. Hootsuite and AMP allow you to schedule out your posts for every platform from one place.
• Marketing can often become reactive, automation allows you to stay ahead.
• What gets measured, gets managed. You can learn a lot of what works and what doesn't from the analytics of the automation software.
• Facebook and Instagram are working on making it as simple as possible to understand how the system works and what to do.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

Call your coach 1-800-489-9099

In this week's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Scott Smith and Justin Jacobs discuss list segmentation and why fishing in the right pond is the best way to catch fish.

Main Questions Asked:

• How can I get the most out of my existing customer base?
• What does it mean to develop a customer avatar?
• How can I improve response rates?
• What is the best way to grow my list?
• How can I target a specific area without wasting money?
• What should my average value per customer be?
• What demographics should I look at when selecting a list?
• Do you have a recommendation for the number of prospects I should send to?
• Where can I get a list of prospects for my area?

Key Lessons Learned:

Loyalty

• Loyalty is a very popular word these days and it stretches across industries. Technology has enabled price shopping in retail but less so with larger purchases. In those situations, customers are looking for expertise.
• Price shopping may get the customer in the door, but service will keep them coming back.
• You don't want to be the lowest priced contractor, there will always be someone willing to go lower and there will be zero loyalty.
• Some of the biggest service businesses see the first call as a loss leader.
• Set the expectation early that your company is different and then exceed the expectation and follow up.
• Marketing is a momentum process, it takes time to become impactful.

Avatars

• You need to know who your customer is. When you understand the demographics and motivations of your customer avatar you can 'fish in the right pond'.
• You can learn who makes the best customer for your business and figure out what market is the best one to target.
• There is an immense amount of data that you can use to target on a list, once you have it take advantage of it.
• Having a customer avatar allows you to customize your message to speak directly to your ideal customer.

Direct Mail

• More people have been turned away from direct mail by using every door direct than any other service.
• Scatter shot marketing is the opposite of having a customer avatar. Everyone is not your customer.
• If you're not getting a return on your marketing efforts, it doesn't matter how cheap each piece was.
• The piece is less important than the list. Everytime you send something out, think about the audience that is seeing it.
• If the piece is bad, change it.
• If you want to target a specific area, you have to get to know the area and do what you can to create a presence there.
• A bill board can be useful but it is not a direct response piece.
• If you're not trying to aggresively grow, you should be sending out 70% of your mail to existing customers and 30% to new customers that are as similar to your existing customers as you can manage.

List Building

• It depends on your definition of a customer, you can grow your list in 3 minutes if you're not picky.
• Identify your customer avatar and market aggresively.
• Spending 8%-10% of your annual revenue on marketing is a rule of thumb if you want to double your revenue next year.
• People have to be able to know who you are in order to respond to you.
• If you're only seeing your customers one time, you are actually going in the wrong direction and are probably losing money in long run.
• Acquisition is far more expensive than retention.
• Look at household income, age of the head of the household, the age of the home when selecting the demographics for a list.
• The best way to get something out of a list is consistency. If you can have someone call behind a direct mail piece you can increase the effectiveness exponentially.

Value

• If you look at your average customer base of people you've done business with in the last 48 to 60 months, the average value per customer should be around $500.
• If your number is a lot higher than that, you are probably doing a lot replacements. If it's less, you probably don't have a process of service agreements and are more service based.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

Call your coach 1-800-489-9099

[email protected]

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In this week's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Scott Smith and Justin Jacobs discuss why people don't like calling contractors.

They explore various ways you can defeat the objections of your prospects, how to ask questions that advance the sale, and the value of being the expert and authority in your local area.

Main Questions Asked:

• What are some questions that advance the sale?

Key Lessons Learned:

Contractor Business

• As a contractor, it's very important to stay up to date with what's going on in your industry and to be able to explain it to your customers.
• By conveying why certain aspects of the job are valuable to your customer, you become the expert. The key is to be knowledgeable and explain it in a way that makes sense.
• You need to understand what it is that your customers are going through. What is the reason they made the call in the first place?
• If you ask the right questions, your prospect is going to lead you down the path that you want to go.
• People want to trust you, don't use industry jargon that will go over their head. Show them the solution to their problem and give them control of the situation. Consult your prospects and give them options.
• Your techs need to be experts in your products or services. They need to understand the sales process and your sales people need to understand what the techs work on.
• Your team being experts gives your customer a better overall experience.
• The industry is always changing, if you can be the first business to bring something new to your area it can be huge. If you see an opportunity to differentiate, do it.
• Changes can be hard, but even small changes can help you stand apart from the crowd.
• When the right people, the right process, the right home, and the right time come together, everything gets easy.

Sales

• Asking leading questions doesn't get to the root of the problem. There is no set plan that works for everyone and every business.
• You have to get to know your customer in order to work with them the most effectively. Every time you go into your customer's home is a chance for you to get to know them and build a relationship.
• Getting to know your prospect gives you the information you need to tailor your marketing to their needs. It can also help you know which tech to send to the home.
• The more you are able to group and segment your list, the more valuable it becomes.
• Looking at certain demographics of your list is how you segment your list and get the most bang for your marketing dollars.
• Don't be afraid to ask your customer about what you can work on and improve. If you don't know, you can't fix it.
• Your tech should ask at the end of the job "Was my service good enough to earn your positive review?". Make positive reviews easy to get.
• If you have the opportunity to put together a quote for a prospect, take the time to research the prospect and customize your offering. Use their information to create a custom solution and sales process.
• Your prospects for the most part have no idea what they need. The more you can do to make them feel like they have the information they need to make the right decision, the more likely they will work with you.
• Ask the prospect "What criteria other than price you will you use to make your decision?" Explain the benefits of your options and personalize the offer to what's important to the prospect.
• Create some urgency and give the prospect a deadline. Don't be afraid to walk away from a deal.
• If the prospect has a fixed budget, put something together that fits their budget.
• Personalizing and customizing takes more time on the front end, but will increase your closing conversion on the back end and make your efforts more effective in the long run.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

Call your coach 1-800-489-9099

[email protected]

In this week's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, host Scott Smith interviews Justin Jacobs.

Today's podcast explores service and how to partner with the weather rather than being dependent on whether it is currently hot or cold. They also dive into retention marketing and how to get your past customers eager to work with you again and again.

Main Questions Asked:

• Do you notice a time of year where the weather really matters?
• Do you notice any trends about the best time of year to market?
• What should you expect for a response rate?

Key Lessons Learned:

Partnering with the Weather

• The effect weather has on the industry varies across the country and depends heavily on the month and the area. You have to track the cycles for your business.
• You should be planning for when your calls naturally start dropping off, the smart contractor starts marketing before the calls stop, not after.
• You have to identify where the slowest point of your season is going to be and then market around that. Back up from that day by 21 days and that's when you begin.
• Identify your target market, people you have serviced before, and market to them to get in front of them and on top of mind.
• 14 days out from your slowest time, push your marketing out towards your 'like' audience, people just like your target market. They are your second most likely to buy group.
• 7 days out, this is when you start to target geographic areas and aim for a broad market. Once you reach the slowest day of the season, that's when you begin marketing to the world with media like radio and television.
• Have your service techs look out for opportunities when they go out on service calls. Focus on maintenance agreements and older equipment.
• When the weather's nice, it's not that your customers are opposed to calling you. They just aren't thinking about you at the time. That's when you have to get your business in front of them and present your message that shows them it's smart to call you now rather than later when they are in an emergency situation.
• Putting the right message in front of the right people at the right time generates results. Craft your message so that it speaks to what they care about that season.
• When things are slow, reach out to your past customers. People generally want "their guy", remind them of that.

Retention Marketing

• Quality touches are different from a sales piece that goes out to everyone in the neighbourhood.
• Your existing customer base is your most valuable asset. Tend to your customers and let them know you appreciate them.
• You are recommended to have six or more quality touches per year.
• Quality touches shouldn't be a pushy sales piece, offer value and something that will help build your relationship. Make your customer feel special by sending them something unique from your business and they will be more likely to work with you again.
• These pieces can be a thank you card, an email, a phone call, there are a lot of options.
• Send out educational material once a season to stay in contact with your base.
• Don't buy email addresses, they are a waste of effort.
• A one off marketing piece will almost always perform poorly no matter how well designed or well written the copy. You have to integrate your marketing on multiple channels and platforms. Your direct mail piece is the most powerful, but it needs to be supported.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

Call your coach 1-800-489-9099

[email protected]

In this week's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, host Adams Hudson interviews Eric Shidell.

Today's podcast asks the question "are you chasing the ghost?". Learn how to eliminate excessive warranty calls and no money call backs and it's probably not the way you first think.

Eric Shidell gives advanced service training to contractors on his website and specializes in catching the ghosts for his client's business.

Main Questions Asked:

• What do you mean by "tracking the ghost"?
• How do we discover the scope of the problem?
• How do we minimize warranty calls?
• How do you handle this once you know there is an issue?
• Should we create competitive environments?
• What is an average number of call backs?
• How do you put a figure on how much it's worth to solve the problem?

Key Lessons Learned:

Chasing The Ghost

• All of businesses are focusing on attracting new customers, retaining those customers, and increasing sales which is a great focus to have but later on you may find that you are stuck in a realm of diminishing returns.
• Your bottom line may show you that sales are up, or that labour costs are up even more, but it won't show you why.
• Warranty calls and no money callbacks are affecting your bottom line more than they appear to do.
• Warranty calls are generally considered to be a fact of life but the truth is the vast majority of them are completely preventable. They are often unaccounted for correctly and end up looking like just increased labour costs. You have to accurately assess the dollar value of a warranty call and how it affects the bottom line.
• If you don't track something, you can't correct it. The first step is to assign a dollar value of every call. There shouldn't be an option for a tech to not complete a service ticket and there should never be a zero sum service ticket coming across the manager's desk.
• The technician should price out every field call, even if they are not collecting from the customer. In the situation of a warranty call, the tech should fill out the service ticket with the accurate value being provided and then subtract it from the price, so the price to the customer is zero.
• It's important to reassure the customer that their issues are incredibly important to your business instead of making a warranty call an unhappy experience for everyone involved. The most positive experience is the negative experience that never has to happen.

Warranty Calls

• Warranty calls have two main sources: manufacturer's defect and human error. Manufacturer's defect are extremely rare.
• 40% of warranty returns are found to be caused by damage done during the installation which is why it's important to know who was the tech involved.
• If you're doing performance tracking, the warranty dollar amount should go against that original job which will reframe the cost you are experiencing.
• There are opportunity costs to warranty costs that are often not seen as well. It's a much bigger dollar amount than most people realize, anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 times the original value of the ticket.
• Once you begin tracking, you will begin to see patterns as to who, and where the issues are coming from. There is usually a fundamental aspect of the installation that the field tech doesn't understand.
• You should look at these issues as opportunities for your team to grow and learn.
• Warranty claims under 5% is good measure of success. Anything in the double digits and you've got a problem.

Catching The Ghost

• Once you identify the issue, you can find training opportunities that your techs will probably be happy to take advantage of.
• Incentivising your techs to become better is the best way to improve them, punitive actions will often reduce overall performance.
• If you want to create a competitive environment, offer rewards that will get them to strive to succeed without making them jealous of other people on the team. The goal is friendly rivalry.
• It's very difficult to solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that got you into it. Understanding the why of what you're doing is how you take things to another level.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

In this week's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, host Scott Smith interviews Hayley Bridges.

Today's podcast with Scott Smith and Hayley Bridges covers the digital marketing strategies you can use to grow your contracting business.

Main Questions Asked:

• What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
• If you have a limited budget, should you improve SEO or spend money on paid ads?
• What type of budget should be allocated to online advertising?
• How often should a contractor contact their customer via email?
• Should you manage your social media yourself?
• Do you have any tips for using YouTube?
• What are the options when it comes to social media for paid advertising?
• How much does social media impact your SEO?
• Should a contractor manage their email marketing?
• What are some best practices for a website?
• What are some tips to convert traffic into leads?

Key Lessons Learned:

Digital Marketing

• The world of digital marketing is always changing so you always have to stay up to date to stay on top of the newest tech.
• SEO is a part of your overall SEM strategy. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing, and SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is just one of many tools in the SEM toolbox.
• There is no one tool that is the best for everyone, every tool works in specific ways depending on what your goals online are.
• Your long term goals should be to succeed in building up your SEO rankings. If you are in a very competitive market, a good short term goal would be to use PPC and other paid ads to get an edge over your competition.
• PPC and paid ads give you analytics that allow you to make even better decisions about your marketing. Analyze the main source of your traffic and focus on maximizing that source.
• The magic number for online marketing when it comes to budget is 36%. This includes nearly everything that you spend online. It may sound like a high number but it will be money well spent.
• Emailing your list once a month is a good rule of thumb, if you have a sale going on, once every two weeks works well too.

Social Media

• Social media generally works faster than email. Posting once a week is a good start. The content you post should be educational but can also be light and personal as well.
• The key to social media is to be consistent. If you can't commit the time you may want to work with an agency that can take care of it for you. If a customer looks at your Facebook page and doesn't see anything recent, they will probably think you've gone out of business.
• Contractors should be on YouTube because it's an asset you can use on other social media sites. People go to YouTube searching for content so it can be a bit more relaxed than other forms of content.
• Putting out value without asking for something in return is how you build good faith with your audience and turn them into customers down the road.
• Facebook has an exceptional ad manager that allows you to control exactly who you target and how much money you spend.
• Social media shares and likes impact your search engine rankings very positively.

Email Marketing

• Email marketing can be pretty complicated. Having an agency manage your list is usually your best choice.
• Analytics are one of the most important tools when it comes to communicating with your list via email.

Websites

• Your website is your hub for all your digital marketing. It should function in a way that takes some of the work off yourself.
• Using blog posts and content will make you an expert in your space and improve your SEO.
• Make sure your website is always up to date!
• Install analytics on your site so you can understand your traffic and how your site is performing.
• You need a good partner to manage your site, keep up with software updates, and making sure it's fulfilling your marketing goals.
• Create a lead magnet that gets your traffic onto your list. You can also ask for an email address in order to access a popular piece of content. Make sure the value of the lead magnet is worth it to the user so that they want to give you their email address.
• Your digital marketing and your offline marketing working together is what will give you immense success. It's not a question of one or the other. Integrate your marketing efforts.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

www.hudsonink.com/scorecard

America's Service Coach, Joe Crisara shares his expertise so you can learn what verbal packaging is, how to create them and how they can be used to close more sales.

Learn what influences people to act, the anatomy of a sales call and how to be world class so you can boost your conversions.

Top marketing questions answered by Adams Hudson, with a focus on coaching and consulting. Adams Hudson discusses topics such as where to start, how to approach your marketing budget, knowing the best marketing channels to reach your audience and basic metrics for evaluating your marketing plan.