For over four years, our company has connected dealers to homeowners searching the Internet for solutions to their home improvement challenges. We’ve loved every minute of it, as we have enjoyed the opportunity to work with many of you.
As both the Internet and the home improvement market evolve, so will our company. After a three-year debate inside our company, we’re changing our name to Keyword Connects.
At the Yoho Home Improvement Economic Summit last week, I was asked an interesting question by a home improvement dealer: “When should I hire a full time person to handle my social media?”
A year ago, no one would have even thought of “social media” as a job type. But we’ve come a long way since then.
So what is “social media”? I borrowed this definition from Joseph Thornley : “Social media are online communications in which individuals shift fluidly and flexibly between the role of audience and author. To do this, they use social software that enables anyone without knowledge of coding, to post, comment on, share or mash up content and to form communities around shared interests.”
Keyword was recently quoted in the latest issue of Replacement Contractor magazine. Jim Cory, the erstwhile editor of Replacement Contractor wrote a good article, Get Me On Page One, for home improvement companies on pay per click marketing and search engine optimization and spoke with my partner Paul Baudisch, and myself.
The article raises some differing viewpoints on whether organic or paid search alone are enough. Our view at Keyword is that the more listings you can have on the page, the better your results will ultimately be. While others champion a different strategy, Search Page Domination is where we’ve seen the best results.
I’m at the Yoho Home Improvement Economic Summit that’s paired with the Remodeling Show out in Indianapolis. For those of you who haven’t heard Dave Yoho speak, you’re really missing out on the home improvement industry’s force of nature. While Dave knows every aspect of the home improvement business inside and out, he also has an unmatched passion for the industry.
At the Economic Summit, Dave is taking dozens of companies across the country through two days of hardcore, nuts and bolts, nose to the grindstone home improvement operations. For those of you who haven’t heard Dave present in the past, I recommend checking out the Yoho YouTube channel to see the man in action. Lots of great material on closing, sales language and appointment setting.
I will be at the Hanley Wood Remodeling Show in Indianapolis for the next couple of days and will be blogging about the event from start to finish. I am on the Internet Marketing panel at Dave Yoho’s Home Improvement Economic Summit and will be wandering the show floor over the next couple of days. Look for several updates over the next couple of days as I hear from several of the biggest names in the home improvement industry.
I’ve written a lot about how home improvement dealers can produce more value from their Internet leads. Now I’m turning the tables, to suggest how the online lead companies can serve them better.
Here goes:
Limit the number of times they sell each lead. Home improvement companies really don’t want their leads shared with anyone, let alone their competitors. Yet most lead generation companies sell their leads as many times as they can (2X? 3X? 5X? I’ve even heard as many as 12X).But every time they sell a lead more than once, that lead loses value. A lead sold 6X has a significantly smaller chance of closing than a lead sold only twice. To make their customers happiest, they should deliver leads that have the best possible chance of closing. And that means limiting the number of times they sell their leads.
When I ask home improvement companies about Internet leads, I hear a range of opinions. Many are good…and many are bad.
Why the difference?
It may well be their lead sources. But after listening to hundreds of phone calls over the years driven by Internet campaigns, I realize the difference often has to do with how these inquiries are handled by the home improvement dealers receiving them.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve introduced you to your new competition: non-branded home improvement lead generation companies.
These are search engine marketers who drive visitors to their non-branded Web sites to generate sales leads that they in turn sell to home improvement companies. These professionals consistently secure the top spots in the Google’s search results for home improvement keywords—squeezing out home improvement companies such as yours.
But in an interesting twist, Google recently threw a wrinkle into the way Google calculates its search results. It’s called The Vince Update, and it’s important to local home improvement companies. Let me explain what this means to you.
Let’s face it. The cost to generate a fresh, qualified lead these days is high, and getting higher. That leaves more and more home improvement dealers looking to stretch their lead generation investments. And that means they’re looking to work leads they already own: that is, previous customers and past prospects.
The math works. As a home improvement dealer, your cost for these leads is zero: you’ve already got these leads. In fact, you’ve already had contact with them, and (hopefully) turned a bunch of them into sales. If you can cross-sell or up-sell your past customers, and re-hash your old prospects—bingo, you’ll hedge yourself against the ever-rising costs of new, qualified sales leads.
When it comes to Twitter, call me a grumpy old man. If you see Twitter as a bunch of self-involved, hyper-self aware youngsters publicly broadcasting every meaningless thought that crosses their minds…then we have something in common.
But what you and I think isn’t the point here. The real question is: Can Twitter help you grow your home improvement business?
The answer is ‘perhaps’. And while it seems that I’m balancing delicately on the fence, let me explain.
Every week, Todd Bairstow—our online expert—shares his wisdom on an aspect of Internet marketing for home improvement companies. You can read his thoughts here on his blog or you can subscribe, and we'll send you his latest posts each week.
Every week, Todd Bairstow—our online expert—shares his wisdom on an aspect of Internet marketing for home improvement companies. You can read his thoughts here on his blog or you can subscribe, and we'll send you his latest posts each week.
