Three Deep Marketing has a large home improvement client base.   We work with a variety of home improvement companies that are truly a cross section of the industry, helping them with their internet marketing and lead generation needs.  These home improvement companies include some of the largest  companies in the country, as well as companies that are strong regional players in their local markets.

While paid search management (PPC) is usually the first service we engage with a client, we actually offer a full compliment of services, including:

• Website Development
• Landing Pages
• Blogs
• Social Media Campaigns,
• Call Center services (we operate a call center for many of our clients)

The main objective across all of our services is to use technology to develop a pipeline of cost effective inquires (prospects) for our clients.  Through this experience we have realized that how those inquiries are handled by the Client will have a dramatic effect on the success of any Internet marketing effort.

With that said we’ve developed this list of the Top 6 Reasons Why Your Home Improvement Company Isn’t Getting As Much Business As It Could From The Internet.

1. Your website sucks

Our team looks at well over 100 home improvement websites each year.  The rules for websites have changed over the last 10 years, unfortunately most of the contractor sites we see haven’t kept up and look like they haven’t been touched since the early 2000’s.  A modern website should be built with search engine optimization (SEO) as a primary goal.  That means optimized title tags, header text, meta descriptions and plenty of fresh, engaging content that is useful to your prospects.  (Content copied off a manufacturer’s website doesn’t count!)

Statistics show that over 80% of all product and service inquires now start online.  Can those prospects quickly find your company through the search engines – most importantly Google, who has 80% of the market share in search? Does your website put your best foot forward in telling your story?  Once a prospect gets to your site, does your site have a strong call to action on it?  Do you have site analytics installed and does someone monitor those stats routinely?  Setting up conversion tracking on a site is essential; once you know the percentage of visitors actually convert into prospects you can start to test new offers to improve that statistic.  Because one of the primary factors that the search engines use to rank websites for relevance is inbound links — what other websites are linking to your site?

2. All politics are local and so are most searches

Over the last two years local search (LSEO) has become an even more important consideration for the Internet savvy local business.  Local search is commonly referred to as the “map” or the “ten pack” of companies listed at the top of an organic search.  For a company that does bathroom remodeling in St. Paul its essential that he show up “in the map” for that keyword search, because the existence of the map pushes all the organic listings down below the fold.

Our home improvement clients have asked us “How do we get listed on the map?”  There are reams of articles out there about LSEO, but the Reader’s Digest version is that it takes a concerted effort of:

a.)    Claiming your listing on Google Places.

b.)    Optimizing your listing by including a complete and keyword rich business description.

c.)     Claiming other Free listings on local directories and pointing the links to your website.

d.)    Soliciting links to your site from other reputable websites that you do business with.

e.)    Soliciting online consumer reviews from your satisfied customers.  This one is likely the most important!  Google places a high value on consumer reviews.  If your customers are happy with your work, they likely would be happy to write an online review – but you have to ask them and likely show them where to do it.

We maintain that a well rounded internet marketing strategy consists of a search optimized website with good content and calls to action, a well optimized Local Search Strategy and an aggressive Paid Search campaign.  But what if…

3. Your Paid Search program is hemorrhaging money

This goes back to point number one.  We find most home improvement contractors who attempt a paid search campaign on their own start by sending traffic to their website homepage.  (The one with lousy content, no call to action and no conversion tracking.)  You know that you are getting clicks because Google is charging your credit card, but you aren’t getting many leads.  As a result you quickly form the opinion that “PPC advertising doesn’t work.”

The problem is that unless you know for certain what your website’s conversion rate is, (and most sites we look at have conversion rates less than 1%) sending traffic to your website is throwing money away.  We coach Clients that a better tactic is to develop a standalone landing page and send their PPC traffic there.  While the purpose of a website is to inform and educate, the purpose of a landing page is to engage a prospect and convert (meaning fill out the form to request more information.)  Statistics show that 50% of visitors to a landing page leave within 8 seconds, so you don’t have much time to state your case and get them to convert!  We’ve tested just about every conceivable offer and have developed best practices that depending on the Client have resulted in conversion rates between 5-15%.  One of our larger home improvement Clients spent over $60K on Google paid search advertising last month.  His campaign had a 7.27% conversion rate – meaning he generated 877 PPC inquiries, not counting phone calls which we usually track on a campaign as well.  This company had direct marketing costs from PPC alone of under 10%, meaning they sold in excess of $680,000 just from PPC last month!  When you factor in the phone calls as well he likely sold in excess of $1mm.  Clearly, if implemented correctly paid search advertising works!

4. Your phone response time on internet leads is too long

This one can kill you if you aren’t on it.  Think about your own experience, if you send in a request for more information online when do you want to get an answer?  Tomorrow…?  Next week…? How about..Now!  Online shoppers measure time in minutes, not days.  If you don’t have a system set up to respond immediately to an internet request you are missing the boat.  By the time you get around to contacting the prospect the odds are likely that they will have found someone else to do their home improvement work.

5. Your phone staff treats internet inquires like any other lead

A call in from a media campaign and an internet inquiry are not the same thing, and shouldn’t be treated the same way.  A person calling you requesting an estimate is much farther down on the buying spectrum than an internet shopper who is researching their project and requested the informational report on your website.  (Oh, you don’t have an offer for an informational report on your website?  Refer to item number 1 on this list about Calls to Action!)

That isn’t to say an internet inquiry can’t be set into an appointment.  An internet lead just needs some finesse on the part of the appointment setter.  You can’t just call the prospect and say “We got your name off the internet and we’d like to schedule a time to give you a free home improvement estimate.”  Taking that approach will scare them off more often than not.  The top home improvement industry consultants refer to an approach of “Selling the Value of the Visit” in order to increase appointment setting efficiencies.  This step is crucial when it comes to internet leads.  It is also essential to have a good CRM system in place to manage the calls and contacts you make with these prospects, because if you don’t set a lead into an appointment immediately you should be able to nurture them along with other marketing methods like email marketing and direct mail marketing and so that when they are ready to set an appointment – you’ll be on the top of their minds.

6. You are over qualifying your inquires

Over a year ago, we set up a call center that takes call in inquires from paid search landing pages, and immediately responds to internet email requests and sets appointments for our Clients because we realized that there was a tremendous opportunity to help Clients overcome problems 4 and 5.  One of our home improvement Clients so far this year has sold over $800,000 off the internet with a fully loaded marketing cost under 6%, including PPC fees and call center fees to Three Deep.  This Client is well on his way to selling over $1.5 mm off the Internet, which would triple the amount of business he’s generated any other year from the internet.  We have another Client who’s business was up 150% over his best 1^st Quarter by utilizing our call center.  These results can be directly attributed to calling Internet prospects immediately with a scripted appointment setting methodology and using a CRM system to manage them.

It’s not surprising how many home improvement companies we talk to that tell us they have a problem generating enough appointments.  Cost effective lead generation is the number one problem facing the home improvement industry today.  Industry best practices would define a qualified appointment as a prospect who:

a. owns their home

b. has a need and an interest in the product

c. agrees to have all homeowners present

d. agrees to give a representative an hour of their time.

We’ve found too many home improvement companies who as a matter of course ask qualification questions over the phone about the size of the job, the prospect’s budget, financing, time frame for doing the job, number of other estimates the prospect has had before deciding whether it’s “worth their time” to set the appointment.  At the same time they complain that they don’t have enough leads and that their marketing cost is too high – notice a pattern?

Here’s an idea, if someone has reached out to you over the Internet asking for help on their home, and they fit a. b. c. and d. above – set the appointment and go see them!  A good home improvement salesperson is an agent of influence not an order taker!  Let the sales rep do his job, that is to show and demonstrate your products and talk about your company.   You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!  If you increase the number of demonstrations you can do per day, your sales will increase and your marketing costs will decrease.

This is a pretty long list and to implement all of these items likely will represent a change in culture for a lot of companies.  However, times have changed.  Media advertising isn’t working as well as it used to; neither are direct mail or newspaper ads.  The yellow pages are on the endangered species list.   For home improvement companies to survive and thrive in the future, they are going to have to embrace Internet marketing – for it represents the single largest opportunity for lead generation and revenue growth today.  The home improvement companies that we work with have realized this and are experiencing tremendous success by knocking down the six items mentioned in this post.

Related posts:

1. Home Improvement Close Rates: Which is Better, 50% or 35%?
2. Local Search for Small Business – Part 2 – Clicks vs. Leads
3. Three Deep Marketing Client Cardinal Builders Featured In Replacement Contractor Magazine.

Here at Three Deep, we are constantly thriving to provide actionable insights for our clients. For those who are unfamiliar with our company, we are a very data-centric organization. The name Three Deep actually refers to our discipline of looking past surface-level data, and digging three levels deep into the data at hand to provide the highest quality feedback possible.

We have recently developed a way to tightly integrate phone conversions with web analytics data to paint a more accurate picture of our clients’ marketing efforts, right down to the ROI.

The idea was sparked when we identified a disconnect between the online and offline conversion data of lead generation clients in our home improvement vertical. Nearly every lead generation website (regardless of industry) includes a phone number as a point of conversion, but we never really had a concrete way to tie this to online metrics.

Our solution involves dynamically writing the phone numbers on a given website based on the traffic source and/or medium. This is done with the help of the Google Analytics cookie (_utmz to be exact) and a bit of JavaScript on the website.  The JavaScript extracts the visitor’s traffic source and medium from the cookie, which is then used to determine the phone number that displays on the site. Therefore, this can be applied to any traffic source or medium, and since multiple tracking phone numbers can be directed to the same phone number, the number of different sources tracked is essentially unlimited.

This solution is most valuable for PPC traffic, as it helps provide more accurate data for metrics including the actual number of conversions, cost per conversion, and conversion rate.

From a referral standpoint, the level of granularity is unlimited considering that referrals (such as banner ads or email campaigns) can be tagged with URL tracking elements for each unique campaign.

This can also be used to effectively measure search engine optimization efforts. Not only will this provide a more accurate count of conversions resulting from organic traffic, but the JavaScript mentioned above can be used to extract the actual search term used to find the site (this can be done for paid search traffic as well).

To take this one step further, this information could be fed into a CRM system along with the lead itself, providing the sales staff with more information about the visitor’s intent, their stage in the buying process, and so on.

You may be wondering how all of this data is consolidated. Don’t worry, Three Deep has a solution for that too. We are pleased to announce that we are currently in the process of developing a consolidated business intelligence reporting platform that will combine data from over a dozen data sources to provide some of the most accurate and insightful reporting in the interactive industry. Be sure to follow Three Deep on Twitter, Facebook, or RSS for updates!

Related posts:

1. Google Analytics: Inferring Conversions with No Goals
2. Inheriting A Google Analytics Account
3. Google AdWords New Features – Call Tracking

Congratulations to our client, Minnesota Exteriors for their participation in an upcoming episode of ABC’s television show, Extreme Makeover Home Edition. The popular TV show, that builds a new home for a deserving family in less than one week, recently announced that it had selected the Morris family of St. Paul, MN for this amazing gift.

Hundreds of people gathered on October 2nd, to surprise the Morris family to tell them they’ll be getting a new home. Sandy Morris is an important part of her community and provides day care for many children in St. Paul. Unfortunately her 100 year old home, the home she grew up in, is in despair and unless it is fixed Sandy will be unable to renew her daycare license this winter.

To the people in Sandy’s neighborhood she is more than just a day care provider. She is a teacher and a friend. Sandy lives with her 2 children and is known to those who love her as “Tia Sandy”, or Aunt Sandy in Spanish. She gave up a promising teaching career 14 years ago when she herself could not find quality day care for her daughter. Since then she has been providing a safe learning environment for the children of St. Paul.

The project will begin on October 2nd and be completed on October 9th when they “Move That Bus” and reveal the new home to the family. The show will air later this season on ABC. Minnesota Exteriors has generously donated all the materials and manpower to install James Hardie siding and Windsor windows in the new home. During tough economic times, the overwhelming generosity of Minnesota Exteriors, the builder TJB Homes and all of the other companies involved in this project really is quite amazing. You can learn more about this project here.

This is the second time the team at Minnesota Exteriors has participated on the popular television show. In 2007, MEI installed James Hardie siding on the home built for the Swenson-Lee family in Minnetonka. That landmark show was the series’ 100th episode, and made national news due to the tragic circumstances surrounding the family. You can read more about Minnesota Exteriors and that project here.

Related posts:

1. Three Deep Marketing Client Cardinal Builders Featured In Replacement Contractor Magazine.

Recently, our National Sales Director for Home Improvement Contractors, Tom Audette was interviewed by the folks at Remodeling Magazine for their article, Web Marketing Makeover.  You can view the article here.

For the most part, the article provides a high level overview of what you can expect from your website, how you can refresh your website to receive more leads, and how many companies are relying on the web as their primary lead source.

While I agree with the general tone of the article (contractors need to have a web presence, NOW), I can’t help but feel as if they may have overstated a few points and left out some vital pieces of information.

Particularly, there are several points made in the article that I would like to refute (as well as several true statements):

Myth #1: SEO Is Cheap

“Companies can get optimized for less than $2,500,” says Martin Gould, of marketing and communications company Focalize Consulting, in Cooper City, Fla. “But you can also literally spend nothing, since most high school juniors can do this.

As the old adage goes, you get what you pay for. While you may certainly be able to find a company that will optimize your site on the cheap, what kind of results will they deliver?  How long will these results last?

In a recent post, I lamented the fact that one of our least successful SEO engagements occurred when we developed and optimized a site initially, but did not have an ongoing SEO maintenance contract in place to continually improve the site.  After an initial push and lots of traffic being driven by SEO, our clients rankings and traffic declined gradually until very few search visits trickled in each month.

The fact is, it takes time and money to optimize your site.  Sure you might be able to pay someone $10 an hour to work on your site (or nothing if they are still in high school), but chances are that you won’t like the results and they won’t last long term.

Myth #2: SEO is a One Time Project

The search engines are constantly changing their algorithms, and as a result, you may need to tweak your site often in order to stay at the top. While anyone can learn about search engine behavior and get a site to achieve quality rankings (heck, even a high school juniors can do it for free!), staying at the top of the search engines requires spending a lot of time reading about search, experimenting, and delivering results.

While you may be able to receive some initial results from the high school junior’s optimization, what happens to your site rankings when they go away to college? What about when they stop reading about search engine changes and your rankings suffer? What if they get greedy and implement tactics that get your site banned by Google? What happens when Jr. wises up and realizes the value they provide your company?

You may certainly achieve a boost in your SEO traffic by undergoing a one-time optimization, but chances are these results won’t stick around forever. Hiring an agency to stay on top of the search engine marketplace is often more cost effective than hiring a full time employee… but obviously more expensive than an intern.

As for the high school junior analogy… I think that this population segment is a little more suited toward blinging out MySpace.com profiles than optimizing your website for the search engines.

Myth #3: Google Analytics is a “program” that you “download”

“Programs such as Google Analytics or Alexa — both free downloads — tell you how many visitors are coming to your site and how they behave when they get there. They also point to ways in which you can improve site design and content.”

I’m sorry, but I just found that to be hilarious.  Google Analytics is a SaaS application (Software as a Service) that is hosted in the “clouds” – No download required.  In fact it’s not even a program… just a website with an amazingly intuitive interface and some very actionable data.  We highly recommend that ALL companies place it on their website; especially contractors.

Also, Alexa hasn’t been relevant since the early 2000′s (and some say it was never accurate).  You should try compete.com or quantcast.com if your site is large enough… or just focus less on the vanity of your traffic rank, and more on GETTING TRAFFIC!

True Statement #1: You Need Someone to Make Web Analytics Reports Actionable

‘Web marketing expert Gamse suggests that business owners familiarize themselves with analytics programs and manage their sites accordingly. “You have to have someone who can look at those numbers and create actionable intelligence,” she says.’

She had me at actionable analytics. As we have said many times in this blog, collecting data for your website is a great start.  However, this data doesn’t do much for your company if you don’t apply it to your company and make it actionable.

True Statement #2: Customer Ratings Enhance Your Online Presence

“Click on any one of 10 subject headings on Eberle Remodeling’s website, for instance, and a link on the left side of the screen says, “Click here to view our customer satisfaction ratings,” and steers you to the company’s GuildQuality page, which incorporates responses from 72 clients and gives the remodeler a “100% Recommended” rating.”

Remodeling any part of your house can be a very expensive proposition… and a lot of trust goes in to your visitors even contacting your company the first time.  Adding reviews and ratings from other satisfied customers helps establish trust in your online presence.  It’s all about trust and transparency online, so help visitors make informed decisions by providing ratings from previous customers (but make sure that these reviews/ratings are easy to see and understand).

As an avid online shopper, I often make purchase decisions without ever seeing a physical product.  These decisions rely 100% on peer reviews (both negative and positive).  Help online visitors trust your company by incorporating feedback from their peers into your web presence.

Closing Point

Since most of my experience working with contractors comes from online initiatives, I would love to say that all you need to do is “go online” and all of your lead generation problems will be solved. However, that’s not the case for most contractors.

For most contractors, online leads should simply be a component of your well balanced marketing mix. Relying too heavily on one single tactic is probably not the most responsible way to market your business.  In fact, we have clear evidence that your online marketing efforts are significantly enhanced when they are tied closely to all of your offline marketing. All of your TV, Radio, Newspaper, Yellow Pages, Canvassing efforts can help bring visitors in to your site through direct visits and searches for your brand name.

Make sure your website does a good job of converting these visits into LEADS.

Related posts:

1. Three Deep Marketing Featured In Replacement Contractor Magazine
2. Three Deep Marketing Client Cardinal Builders Featured In Replacement Contractor Magazine.
3. 6 Reasons Why Internet Marketing Isn’t Working For Your Home Improvement Business

If you were a business owner, would you rather have your sales department closing on average 50% of the leads they run or 35%?  At first glance this seems like a stupid question, obviously the higher the close rate translates into more sales, right?

We recently had this discussion with one of our home improvement clients.  Last year his company ran 2500 appointments and installed about 1200 jobs — 48% close rate.  The sales manager was very proud of the fact that his team’s close rate was as high as it was.  This is a home improvement company that does a lot of advertising on radio and outdoor billboards, so the phone is ringing constantly with people looking to set an appointment.

What we realized very quickly was that the company spent a lot of time on the phone with each caller.  They were extremely selective about which appointments they set and ran.  As a result a lot of potential appointments were never set, because the company determined — over the phone, that the home improvement prospect either “wasn’t ready” or “wasn’t worth running.”  We find this over qualification of sales inquiries to be a common practice among too many home improvement companies today.

Sadly, over-qualifying sales inquiries can actually be detrimental to your bottom line!  Being overly selective with who you choose to visit means that you might be leaving money on the table.

We showed our client that if he were able to double the number of home improvement appointments he ran (by increasing his appointment set rate), he would sell more business — even if his close rate dropped!

The numbers don’t lie, so here is the reasoning we laid out before them:

Option 1 (Current Operations):

2500 Appointments Issued

x 95% Demo Rate   =  2375 demos

x 50% Close Rate   = 1188 Sales

x $4500 Average Sale = $5.34 mm in revenues

Option 2: With Increased Throughput

5000 Appointments Issued

x 85% Demo Rate = 4250 demos

x 35% Close Rate = 1487 Sales

x $4500 Average Sale = $6.69 mm in revenues

In this case this home improvement client would sell an additional $1.35 mm annually, by simply running more appointments.  The close rate went down, because not every appointment was “ready.”

But as the great coach always said: “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” — and through the law of averages, he’ll come out ahead because of the increase in opportunities.

Close rate is important, but if it is too high, it may mean that you are leaving business on the table.  A 50% close rate is an indicator that a company may really be missing out on key opportunities to grow their business by not taking advantage of all possible opportunities.

Are you leaving money on the table?  Contact us for a free lead generation assessment.

Related posts:

1. 6 Reasons Why Internet Marketing Isn’t Working For Your Home Improvement Business
2. Local Search for Small Business – Part 2 – Clicks vs. Leads
3. Home Improvement SEO: Three Deep in Remodeling Magazine

In Why Most Local Search Resellers Fail Their SMB Clients, I reacted to a recent study that revealed 90% of SMB’s quit their search marketing programs after 6 months.  It turns out that the reason why people quit these programs is because they do absolutely nothing to help the company generate new business!

700 clicks per month for $1500 — Where do I sign up????

Caveat Emptor: Clicks don’t mean a thing!  They  aren’t phone calls, don’t generate sales, or pay the rent.  Most importantly, if these clicks are “bad clicks” — meaning coming from people not actually looking for your particular service — your ROI won’t justify the expense.  Bad clicks waste your company’s time, and cost you potential revenue by throwing off your signal to noise ratio.  If you become accustomed to only seeing bad clicks/leads, then you may become jaded toward the good ones.

What do I mean by “bad clicks“?  Here’s a real world example:

If you are a replacement window contractor in Minneapolis, you want clicks from people looking to have someone install replacement windows in their home.  Unfortunately, if you buy a guaranteed number of clicks from a reseller, these clicks have to be supplied from from somewhere.  A lot of the times, they will sell you clicks from people who searched for your company name or web site address; they are literally being a middle-man and charging you for clicks form people who have already found you! These navigational visitors actually tend to perform quite well, so we often recommend that you pay a premium to pull in these visitors (the alternative being that these clicks would otherwise go to a competitor).

When the navigational searches dry up, you will likely get clicks in your general area of service, but without any quality control measures in place.  For every visitor who is searching for replacement windows, you will often get 3 clicks from people wanting window repairs or wanting to buy windows wholesale. There is even a chance some of your clicks might actually be coming from people looking for computer software!  Unless you are selling an OEM version of Windows Vista alongside your double-hung or slider windows, you DO NOT want these people visiting your site!

Unfortunately, most SMBs are simply unaware when it comes to online advertising; they don’t know, what they don’t know. For that reason, they are easily impressed by the resellers sales pitches and as a result they make lousy online purchase decisions.  When those investments don’t pan out, they drop the program as soon as possible.

Because the search management company I had worked with in my previous role as marketing director gave me a pretty good education, (Thanks Jeff), I was a consciously competent online buyer — I knew what I didn’t know.  As a result, when I asked questions like:

• How many of those monthly clicks could I expect to become actual leads?
• What was their landing page’s conversion rate?
• What was their keyword optimization strategy?
• Do you A/B test your ads and offers?

I would usually receive a deer in the headlights look from the sales representative.  Most even said that I was a lot more savvy and sophisticated than their typical SMB client - which proves our point that these resellers are preying on unsuspecting business owners and looking for a short term boost in revenue, and not long term customer retention.

These resellers rarely make an attempt at understanding their client’s business.  Because they are paid on commission, they want to make a quick sale, lock you in to the longest term they can — and move on to the next sucker.  At the end of the day they don’t care whether the program actually works for you.  They sell clicks, end of story.

The landing pages they develop – if any – are nothing more than a yellow page ad placed online.  They are hardly conversion optimized.  Many of these outfits don’t even develop landing pages — they just send the clicks to the SMBs own website, which is often a mess of logos, badges, photos, numbers and other content that confuses the user.  As Jeff likes to say,”Most home improvement contractor web sites look like a NASCAR… and I don’t feel comfortable sending my precious search traffic to their confusing home page!”

I was at a home improvement industry summit in April, and the prevailing sentiment among the business owners assembled in the room was that the guys selling online advertising today ranked just below pond scum and slightly above the Swine Flu in terms of popularity!  Why?  The business owners feel they’ve been sold a bill of goods by these guys.  The sales reps create the impression that those 700 clicks translate into 700 potential new customers.  When the advertiser doesn’t see this monumental bump in business — it’s cut bait time!

The fact is that an average website or landing page conversion rate to clicks is often around 2%. (Three Deep’s is usually much higher than that, but that is for another post.)  What this means is that if you spent $1500 to get 700 clicks, with a 2% conversion rate about 14 people would likely have contacted you.  If you are a SMB with a small ticket sale, like a dry cleaner, a car wash, a plumber or a restaurant,  it’s hard to justify a $1500 investment to get just 14 customers — assuming you could sell them all!

But say you were that window contractor and you got 14 conversions, either through phone calls or emails.  If you could set 75% of those inquiries into appointments that would be 11 appointments for your $1500 investment — $136.40 per appointment.  That’s actually a pretty good number, given the fact that the average cost of generating a home improvement appointment today is well over $350!

Assume further that you could close 30% of those appointments and that you have an average sale of $8,000.  That would be 3 sales for $24,000.  Your $24,000 in business would have had a 6.3% marketing cost.  When you consider that a lot of contractors today have marketing costs from 15-25%, a 6.3% marketing cost puts profit in your pockets!

The key here is conversion rate, not the number of clicks.  That metric, while central to the work that we do for our clients is never, even spoken about by most resellers.  Why?  Because increasing a site’s conversion rate is where the heavy lifting is.  Selling clicks is the easy part.

It reminds me of a quote from an old Dan Akroyd movie: “You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve worked in the private sector. They expect results!”

Three Deep’s only focus is to drive results.

I hope that you have enjoyed my two part series.  I have a lot more thoughts on this subject and hope to do more posts of this nature in the future.  In the meantime, if you’d like to talk with Three Deep about what we can do to help YOUR business, please fill out our free lead generation assessment form.

Related posts:

1. Why Most Local Search Resellers Fail Their SMB Clients
2. 6 Reasons Why Internet Marketing Isn’t Working For Your Home Improvement Business
3. Nebulous Leads – Can Your Company Turn Them Into Sales?

Author’s note: I started writing this article in reaction to a recent study published, and I ended up writing so much that I needed to break it into two posts!  You are currently viewing part 1, and part 2 will be released first thing Monday morning.

The other day, a report came out from Borrell and Associates saying that most small businesses (SMB) that try local online search advertising almost universally give it up after 6 months.  More specifically:

• 50% give up within the first 90 days

• 90% quit within 6 months.

While these numbers are certainly staggering, the important thing to note here is that nearly all of these companies who do not find success with search advertising are entering into the search world with the help of resellers; companies that simply re-sell clicks on Google and other search engines, while adding little value to the advertising company beyond being another hand in the pot.  These resellers include local yellow page companies and other online advertising companies like Yodle and Reach Local.

The report wasn’t so much a critique of local search or paid search as a tactic, rather an expression of frustration with some of the service providers that have entered the space in the last 12-18 months.   Personally, I started to anticipate this over-saturation of the marketplace as soon as Sams Club started offering Google AdWords discounts alongside gallon drums of Nacho Cheese.

I had my inclinations that it would fail, because search advertising is still so nuanced and micro-targeted, that it can never be attacked with a “big box retailer” mentality.  This is why big box resellers have a 90% churn over a 6 month span.

While local and paid search might not be right for all SMBs, success can be had for the right companies in the right industries.  For example, we have a number of home improvement clients that are now driving up to 30% of their revenues from online advertising.  However they are not getting these results from yellowbook.com, or Reach Local or Yodle.  In fact, most of our clients tried the resellers, and dropped them before becoming a Three Deep client.

The truth is that online lead generation has been around for quite some time, and most of our current clients have been engaged in this form of lead generation for several years now, to varied degrees of success.   This concept is reaffirmed every day when we talk to potential clients who verbally display their battle scars, alongside stories of ineffective marketing campaigns, and a slight chip on the shoulder toward the concept of online lead generation.

This leads us to the point of our post:  Why do Local Search resellers fail their SMB clients? I’ll give you 3 big reasons:

1.) They focus their effort and measure their success on just generating clicks — not actual leads.

2.) They make little or no attempt to understand how their client’s business actually works.

3.) They fail to help their client understand whether their investment is actually producing for them.

I have a unique perspective in that prior to joining Three Deep, I was one of those SMBs.  As the marketing director for a medium sized home improvement company, I was responsible for all media buys for the company.  I managed an annual marketing budget of over $1mm, with about 11% of that going to online search — mostly through PPC on Google.  Even though I had engaged a very good search management consulting firm to run our PPC program for us, I still was called upon by at least 4-5 online companies a month.

What were all of these guys selling? One word: Clicks.  All the sales pitches I sat through from resellers were essentially the same; they boiled down to how many clicks per month were they going to guarantee me for $x per month.  If you are new to online advertising, those click numbers can be pretty intriguing.

700 clicks per month for $1500 — Where do I sign up????

In part 2, we will discuss the difference between clicks and conversions… and what it means to YOUR business

Related posts:

1. Local Search for Small Business – Part 2 – Clicks vs. Leads
2. 6 Reasons Why Internet Marketing Isn’t Working For Your Home Improvement Business
3. Three Deep is Google’s Favorite Place

Congratulations to our client Cardinal Builders for being mentioned in the upcoming issue of Replacement Contractor Magazine. Cardinal Builders will be featured in the article To Your Credit.  The story is about how contractors are quickly incorporating the new tax credits that are available to homeowners who make qualifying replacement window upgrades in 2009 or 2010 into their overall marketing strategies. View the article from Replacement Contractor Magazine featuring Cardinal Builders.

Two days after the 2009 Economic Stimulus Bill was signed into law in February, Cardinal Builders VP of Operations Mike Lelasher called Three Deep Marketing with an idea.  He wanted to put a red CNN style breaking news banner across the top the Cardinal website with the headline:

Breaking News: President Obama signs stimulus plan into law, includes up to $1500 tax credit only for windows with .30 u-value or lower. All windows Cardinal Builders offer meet or exceed requirements to earn tax credit. Click here for more information.

Three Deep executed the tactic within a matter of hours, and it is believed they were the first home improvement company in the United States to specifically mention this valuable tax credit program on their company website.  Replacement Contractor Magazine noticed, opening the article using Cardinal Builders as an example.

Three Deep has since upgraded the Cardinal Builders site to more prominently feature the tax credit information, by making it the lead offer on the home page.  A visitor clicking the offer button will be taken to a page with official information about what specific windows qualify for the program, how to claim the tax credits, and a form to request more information from Cardinal Builders.

Three Deep completely reworked the Cardinal Builders website in October 2008.  When we started working with Cardinal, Mr. Lelasher was very frustrated by their poor organic search rankings.  At the time the highest position they had in organic search on Google was a page five ranking.

After a complete web site redesign/refresh for organic search and conversion optimization, Three Deep was able to increase organic search traffic to the site by 500% over the previous year, and the page is converting over 5% of visitors into prospects!

Three Deep’s services included a new page design structured for conversions, updated site navigation, page by page site local search engine optimization, the addition of streaming video, and several new product pages — the site now enjoys a first page search engine position for each of their major product categories; siding, replacement windows, roofing, sunrooms and acrylic bath liners.  Cardinal Builders is currently getting 3-4 inquiries per day specifically from its new enhanced website.  That number is only expected to grow as we get into the busy remodeling season!

Over the next couple months, Three Deep is planning several additional site upgrades to keep Cardinal Builders on the cutting edge of using the Internet to drive more and more qualified prospects to their company.  Stay Tuned!

Related posts:

1. Three Deep Marketing Featured In Replacement Contractor Magazine
2. Home Improvement SEO: Three Deep in Remodeling Magazine
3. 6 Reasons Why Internet Marketing Isn’t Working For Your Home Improvement Business

I have heard a lot of discussion over the last year about nebulous leads, especially in the home improvement industry. What do I mean by “nebulous?”  By definition, nebulous means indefinite.  A nebulous lead is prospective buyer for your product that happens to be early in the educational buying spectrum.  While they might not be at the stage of soliciting estimates yet, (and therefore won’t respond to traditional advertising), these prospects certainly have product needs on their mind and are gathering information preparing to do the project.  Putting systems in place that identify these potential customers presents a tremendous tactical opportunity for savvy companies to make contact with these prospects before their competitors.  These companies are then able to introduce their company and their products to these potential customers; building goodwill that can ultimately be translated into a sale when they are ready to buy.

Marketers typically identify this type of prospect by offering free information such as a whitepaper, or a free sample or through sweepstakes marketing efforts — the thought being that if an individual is interested enough to request a free window brochure, or sign up to win a house full of windows they will become a window buyer sometime in the foreseeable future.  Conventional wisdom suggests that 85% of respondents to these types of offers are prospects for the product.

Recently, I attended the Dave Yoho business management seminar during the National Remodeling Show in Baltimore.  At this seminar, Mr. Yoho — the most respected sales and management consultant serving the home improvement industry did a whole session on nebulous leads — what are they, how they are generated, how can they effectively be set into appointments and of course ultimately closed.  According to Mr. Yoho, in order to systematically and consistently convert nebulous leads into appointments, a level of finesse is required that goes far beyond targeting a prospect that says “come out to give us a quote.”  Many of our clients have long used a nebulous lead generation and nurturing strategy in their online marketing to supplement their lead generation efforts.  Our experience has shown that a company employing a nebulous lead generation strategy will generate far more inquiries than one simply offering a “Free Estimate” or some type discount offer.  The first rule of marketing is to differentiate yourself.  If every one of your competitors are offering Free Estimates, and if you are the only company in your market offering an “Insider’s Guide to Replacement Windows” it stands to reason that you’ll get noticed.

If your first response to this idea is to say “But I need leads for people looking to buy right now” — you need to adjust your approach.  You are employing an old school take market strategy; viewing the market as a finite pie and battling everyone else to get your share of “now buyers.” In a challenging economy, this line of thinking will lead you into an ever increasing battle for a shrinking number of prospects.

Because the Internet is now the first place people go to gather information (studies show that 85% of all product and service requests now begin online), advertising online is your most effective place to gather nebulous leads. Our research shows that it is still an untapped source for many contractors.

1.) A Marketing Focused Corporate Culture — These companies typically are extremely aggressive with their marketing efforts.  They consider all their marketing efforts as an opportunity to add names of potential prospects to their database for future marketing purposes as much as it is to find those customers looking to “buy now”.  They aren’t afraid to try new sources of leads — rather than rely on the same things that they’ve always done.

2.) A Well Run, Scripted Appointment Setting System – You most likely don’t need to have a 20 seat telemarketing department, but you do need to have a couple of people who call prospects during the evening hours.  These calls should follow a scripted methodology that efficiently sets appointments for the sales department.

3.) An Automated Contact Management System — If you talk to a prospect and he tells you to call back in 6 months — do you have a system in place to guarantee that that prospect gets a call?  (Or does the name get filed and forgotten?)  Efficient contractors now employ customer relationship management (CRM) systems to manage each prospect they develop over time.

4.) A Well Trained Sales Department — The System Reigns Supreme. 10 Steps To The Sale. 6 Sales To The Sale.  If you know what I’m talking about, you likely have been exposed to some type of professional sales training and understand the psychological aspects of the sales process.  If you don’t — or if you believe asking someone to buy from you after you’ve done your presentation is somehow offensive or coercive– you probably aren’t equipped to handle nebulous leads.

5.) Experience In An Organization That Employs All Of The Above — It’s no secret that in this industry success breeds success.  Many successful sales organizations are built by entrepreneurs who “learned the ropes” at a similarly well run sales and marketing organization.  They build their company on the best practices they have learned from others.  If this describes you, consider yourself blessed for the experience you have under your belt.  The cream rises to the top.

Three Deep Marketing is always looking for home improvement partners who share our vision.  We are a digital technology company laser focused on driving demand for our contractor clients.  We specialize in deploying pay per click lead generation campaigns, search engine optimization and website development, and email marketing on behalf of our clients to create steady streams of leads for our clients.  If you would like to learn more about our company and our process you can request a Free Consultation by clicking here.

Related posts:

1. Local Search for Small Business – Part 2 – Clicks vs. Leads
2. Home Improvement Close Rates: Which is Better, 50% or 35%?
3. 6 Reasons Why Internet Marketing Isn’t Working For Your Home Improvement Business

November / December 2008 issue of Replacement Contractor.

Tom Audette, National Sales Manager for Home Improvements was the featured writer of the Trade Secrets column Search Friendly. This column which included contributions by Jeff Sauer and Dan Derosier, highlighted the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for a home improvement contractor’s website.

Among the highlights of the article:

“A flashy site doesn’t guarantee that the people out there looking for a home improvement company or product will be steered in your direction. Make no mistake, they’re there. A recent study showed that 73% of offline buyers did research online before making a buying decision. So if your excellent site gets little or no response, somehow consumers are bypassing you…. It isn’t magic that’s going to point consumers in your direction. It’s the search engine Google… You can get your site on Google in two ways. The first is by optimizing, that is, by providing content targeted toward specific keyword phrases as well as links containing those phrases. (Example: “Minneapolis siding.”) The more search-friendly your site, the higher it will appear in “organic” search results. Done right, you could get in the top 10 listings of organic searches, at least in smaller markets. That dramatically increases your chance of being called or contacted.”

Read the full text of the article here:

Audette also was a featured contributor to the article Optimum Results in the same issue.

This article also talked about the critical importance of SEO strategies for home improvement contractors, and emphasized that SEO is an ongoing process not a one time event.

Read the full article here:

Three Deep Marketing is one of the leading internet marketing agencies serving the home improvement industry today. We help contractors, dealers and manufacturers increase their online presence and internet lead generation through search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, website and landing page development and email marketing. By combining industry best practices with emerging technologies, our clients experience measurable improvements along their entire marketing and sales demand chain. These sustainable technology enabled processes result in accelerated lead acquisition, enhanced lead quality, increased sales productivity and improved business results. Our clients often find the Internet quickly becomes one of their most cost effective lead sources.

Related posts:

1. Three Deep Marketing Client Cardinal Builders Featured In Replacement Contractor Magazine.
2. Home Improvement SEO: Three Deep in Remodeling Magazine
3. Integrating Phone Calls with Google Analytics Data