HOW TO WORK WITH A MARKETING BROKER--PART

The term marketing broker seems to have caused a stir. In this post, I want to get more into the actual how-to--for BOTH buyers and sellers.

First there seems to be confusion from Part I, as I should have realized, on who does what and when in working with a marketing broker.

There is a whole lot of information on this new iteration of marketing brokering and how it is becoming a boon for local businesses.

Those of us who have been around the business world for two or more decades are not used to the term above the real estate broker, insurance broker and possibly the food broker designation.

Many minds focused on marketing your firm.

Does the Term Marketing Broker Actually Mean Sales Person?

A marketing organization does the marketing work for you, the business hiring them--at least in the street-level sense.

Remember, a marketing 'broker' is a match-maker of sorts--looking over what you want, your needs, and finding the best third-party match to fill those needs from their marketing professionals inventory.

What we are referring to here is a company who a) focuses on one industry; and b) collects several specific marketing organizations with differing marketing emphases; and, c) matches needs of the local client to solutions.

Let me swerve off on what I call an explanatory rabbit trail for a bit.

Let's go with marketing brokers for home improvement contractors as a live example that is actually a current, behind-the-scenes real business here in our Quad State region.

Now there are probably in excess of fifty (50) different retail niches--jobs that home owners call for by name--in the home contracting market.

Many contractors can handle several things as to home repair. But they usually have one lead skill set and then can add any other related items in working up a quote for the homeowner.

The Contractor Marketing Broker Finds the Best Marketer for the Contractor

They usually work either by niche or by contractor. The end result, however, is the same. The contractor marketing broker cannot afford to work with those  contractors who are less skilled in their work or have a checkered reputation.

So How Does a Contractor Marketing Broker Select a Contractor To Work with and Vice Versa?

First, whether they go by niche market or by contractor, they always seek to chat with a number of their peers to determine top tier contractors.

Next, the contractor marketing aggregator or triage firm will ask their contractors how they are currently receiving exclusive, just-for-them homeowner leads in their niche...among other things.

Included in their interview will be how the contractor's current website is giving them local leads as well, what their local footprint is, their current number of employees, goals with their company and so on.

Next the contractor marketing broker may go over the various lead generation agencies the contractor currently may use. These are agencies that gather the homeowner leads and sell them to a number of contractors.

What contractor marketing brokers (or marketing triage) are looking to do is connect the contractor with the contractor marketing organization that, after the interview, they feel best match's the contractor's business needs.

There should be no cost to the contractor for this service from the marketing broker.

The marketing broker's compensation comes from (or should come from) their marketing organization client from their work in finding a successful win-win-win match in the home contracting marketplace.

The contractor marketing broker (to continue with this industry) is faced with several criteria established by the marketing companies they work with.

One contractor marketing organization may want to ONLY work with contractors doing over $2 million a year.

Another contractor marketing organization may take on contractors doing less than $750,000 but have other hoops potential contractor clients must jump through.

In all cases, there should be no (or very limited) contracts required of the contractor from the contractor (or any industry) marketing organization.

A contractor marketing organization has a smorgasbord of solid marketing choices available to them so that they can be the best help to the local contractor.

This allows the contractor (or any business in an industry having a marketing broker) to 'try out' other marketing firms in their industry as there are (or should be)  because of the no-contracts policy.

However, once a good relational match is made, it is not unusual for a contractor and marketing organization to stay married for decades.

It's all about relationships and the goals and objectives of both parties.

Another contractor marketing organization, in finding a good match as to revenue standards, may require the contractor to refresh or rebuild their website, dedicate one in-office worker to handle homeowner leads or other criteria.

The world--from our local neighborhoods to the world-- is getting standardized via the Internet. And the sooner we adjust our businesses to this change in the landscape, the better.

If you need help in finding a marketing broker for your industry, let us know!

Let us (me personally) also know how you are working with marketing brokers at Steve @QSBJ.org and we will let the rest of the Quad State business audience know!

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Article first appeared in www.QuadStateBusinessJournal.com

THREE STEPS TO GOOD HOME CONTRACTOR MARKETING IN THE QUAD STATE REGION

[Publisher's Note:  We love a good marketing mastermind group when it comes together! When the Quad State Business Journal made the decision to start to select and bring together excellent LOCAL business experts as vendors in order to have LOCAL Quad State owners pick their brains, we didn't know where on the business services scale--or what niche or discipline--we should start.

As it is the key to revenue production for any type of business, we decided to start off gathering experts in the online marketing arena. We know there is a need for management, legal and accounting mastermind referral groups, too. However, as with all our mastermind groups, we desire all our business-facing members to collectively have many decades of street-level business experience. In this case in marketing.  Therefore, on behalf of Quad State owners, we believe we then have the depth of experience in order to tell the difference between a marketer who can talk a good game, and one who can actually deliver results. We love to see business battle scars!

This article is actually a report--and therefore requires additional thinking. All businesses nowadays need to know these basics for your business.

We still have the groups of business management, business legal and business accounting in our plans. But as marketing is such an immediate and ongoing need--dollars in the door and all--we are gathering the best marketing minds so that we can a) pick their brains for articles; and b) help as many local Quad State businesses as we can. Contact us at the Steve@QSBJ.org address below and we will look to triage your most specific and most profitable marketing insights immediately. --SL]

Marketing Home Improvement Services in Three Steps--Different or the Same Advice for Most Businesses?

What you are about to read has not only been directed at successfully marketing businesses in the contracting sector, but many other types as well. Hence, all businesses should be able to take away some business-building points from the article. All of us in the QSBJ business referral program have similar experiences with clients so this is not 'off the top of my head' stuff. Many, many clients have benefited from the following.

FIRST STEP:  Get a complete website audit of your website--now!

Your website is the centerpiece of your online marketing strategy. Most contractors, roofers to plumbers, treat their website as if it were a digital brochure. This is a big fat mistake.

Your website is NOT a brochure--it's a virtual sales rep and sales funnel (where a "sale" means a qualified lead is generated). Before you invest in any form of online marketing--pay per click (PPC) advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), social media, etc.--make sure your website is up to the job of getting you exclusive, just-for-you leads.

Our QSBJ Marketing Mastermind Referral group has advisers who will not even think about taking on a business client who doesn't have a website that is congruent with sound lead generation. You should want that, too.

What Does a Good Website Look Like?: Easily found on the first page of Google for relevant keyword searches, a good lead-gen website is built on something akin to WordPress so that content can be quickly added/changed/deleted--by you. Another criteria of a good website: A good website converts at least 5 percent of visitors into leads (most people aren't even tracking this!) (You mean my website is supposed to produce traffic, too?)

A good website audit (as opposed to a sales pitch) will be an investment of $250 to $500 or more--depending on the size (number of pages) of your site and the professional group doing the auditing and whether that audit includes only recommendations--or includes a deal where also fixing issues can be part of the package. This can be your most profitable marketing expenditure all year--in fact some contractors (and businesses) are allowing for complete audits to take place every year. Again, this can be a 'gimme' service included with your ongoing marketing work.

Now you know that contractors, just as with many mature businesses, should look to spend around 8% of their revenue on marketing activities, yes? (Start ups should be looking to spend at least 15% to 20% until revenues can be managed effectively.) As with most things, you get what you pay for.

SECOND STEP: Measure and monitor everything--be metrics minded.

Track everything and know your numbers well. Remember the 24th chapter of Proverbs here: "Know well the condition of your flocks and pay attention to your herds..."

Almost everything online can (and should) be measured and tracked. Today's most successful marketers are numbers guys (and gals). By combining business metrics with data that's available from the web, savvy contractors are able to determine--with extreme precision and accuracy--exactly what they can afford to pay to acquire a new website visitor, an exclusive lead, and, ultimately, what it costs them to make a sale.

What should a good--exclusive--lead cost you? (Don't rely on lead providers who also sell leads to a half-dozen of your competitors, too.)

This is important data to have because it can be used to avoid marketing strategies that are being over-bought by (stupid) competitors (ads on yellow pages websites, for example) and to test or "go all in" with marketing tactics that are (often grossly) overvalued and still over-priced.

Key metrics being used by smart marketers include:

Revenue today  vs. goal for the job: This includes average revenue per job (perhaps by job type) measured against this time last year.

Gross margin (perhaps by job type)--What caused overhead to be greater here and not there and so forth. Where is the low-hanging fruit?

Close rate (of lead to sale) Visit-to-lead conversion rate.  This metric doesn't matter if you are the only one writing the estimates and arranging for the crew or have a couple of in-home sales people. You need to know why you got this piece of business just as much as why you didn't get the job.

The minimum you need to accurately track your website is Google Analytics (which is free) and a good call tracking platform that allows for dynamic number replacement. Install both of these onto your website (or have someone do it for you), and be sure that you customize each to the specific needs of YOUR specific business within your business footprint covered.

THIRD STEP:  Your website is your web real estate presence--maximize it starting with your search engine results and outward.

If time and money are no object, put your audited business website everywhere online a potential prospect might see you. This means listing your business on every single website known to man. There are also a lot of ad agencies that would be pleased to take your money!

The trouble is, we're all running small businesses. None of us have gobs of extra time or money. So, the first place you should work to maximize your real estate is on the search engine results pages. Why? Because this is where people have interest and intent. Not everyone on Facebook needs a new roof or wiring or plumbing job--even if they do own a house and live within your service area. I get that.

However, someone searching, "[name of specialty here] contractor in city, state" almost certainly needs you... RIGHT NOW.

How Do You Maximize Your Web Presence?

First, invest in SEO or PPC. If you want even more growth or need faster results, always add PPC advertising too.

QSBJ will have one of our experts write separate posts about the right vs. wrong way to do SEO and PPC, but here's the absolute minimum you need to know. When done correctly, no marketing strategy produces the return possible through an ongoing SEO campaign (and, in most markets, PPC isn't far behind).

Assuming you've followed the steps above, all you have to do to "invest" in SEO is to create a list of keyword phrases for which you'd like your website to rank and start creating content that is directly and indirectly related to those keywords (whatever you do, please don't skip steps and then tell me that you don't understand SEO). (I didn't say the they were easy steps!)

The content you create can include everything from services pages, testimonials/project spotlights, blog posts (and in today's Google ALL businesses MUST have at least one blog expression on your site to get Google love--or love from any search engine for that matter) and more. 

Here's the deal. Google doesn't rank websites per se. Google ranks webpages--those divisions in your website usually with names such as About, Our clients, Blog, FAQ and Contact Us. By creating well-written, informational web pages that target specific keywords, you can get ranked and be seen by Google as an authority on almost any subject.

If you don't have the time and/or hate writing, you can always hire a professional copywriter to assist you (when you run a small business, you're always dealing with the tradeoff between available time, ability, and money, right?).

The world of marketing has changed and tech savvy contractors have used the shifting landscape as an opportunity to gain an enormous advantage on their competitors. Companies short on web expertise, and/or reluctant to engage someone to help, are struggling to keep up. Regardless of which category you fall into, you can use (some or all of) the steps above to measurably improve the leads and sales you're getting from the web.

It's easy to have your online business presence questions answered--SEO to PPC, Adwords, Business App generation and many more strategies...

Even if you are not ready to have the top marketing minds in our Quad State region help you build your business, the Quad State Business Journal has arranged for you to pick their brains, FREE. And get free, non-government-related business marketing insight immediately. Just write to Steve at Steve@QSBJ.org and give him your question and we will triage your profitable response within our growing marketing mastermind group!

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 Article first published in www.QuadStateBusinessJournal.com