Content marketing

Ep.95: Being Honest Online with Taylor Rennick

January 15, 2020 Marketing, Public Relations, Sales 00:21:38

Honesty is truly the best policy when it comes to your website and social media presence. In a sharing economy, your prospects want to know everything about your company before they even pick up the phone. 

We’re breaking down why transparency online is important, and how it can lead to more jobs.

In this episode, Taylor Rennick discusses the importance of being honest and transparent online with Victoria and Mark, and tells you how it can create more leads, and eventually more revenue. 

Taylor is an inbound marketing strategist at Builder Funnel — one of our partners here at Remodelers Advantage.

As part of her job, Taylor spends hours every day looking at remodeling company websites. Some are good, some not so much. And some seem a little shady, using project photos that aren’t theirs or lying about project pricing. Remodeling is intensely personal, and has to be sold as a service, not a product, Taylor says. Being transparent is the key. Taylor talks about the information prospects want to know, and how they want to find it, and why you’ll get more prospects, including:

  • Developing content to educate your audience
  • Explaining your process
  • Talk about cost on your website
  • What you should offer on your blog
  • What audience data can tell you
  • Positioning your company as a thought leader
  • Updating information to stay accurate
  • Reaching people where they are in their buying process
  • And more …

Taylor says you can find free resources to help you in all your online marketing on Builder Funnel’s site.

Ep.65: How to Turn Your Travel into an Epic Marketing Opportunity

May 22, 2019 Business Management, Marketing 00:14:55

There’s an overlooked opportunity for you to shine in your marketing. For some of you, this opportunity only comes once a year. For others (like many of our Roundtables members) it comes nine or 10 times a year. Regardless of how often the opportunity presents itself, odds are you’re squandering it.

It’s your “out of office” email message.

In this episode, Mark’s flying solo. Victoria’s taking a well-earned vacation and it prompted him to think about this often under-used touchpoint with clients, trade partners, and prospects.

Take some time to make your message memorable in your rush to get out the door. Be human. Be creative. Be thorough so that if it’s a time-critical email, the person who contacted you has a means of getting through to someone else. Think of all the boring and canned out-of-office messages you accumulate in your in-box — and don’t do that. Mark’s tips for an awesome outgoing message include:

  • How to write a great subject line
  • Why you should pad your return date
  • Setting up a custom email for urgent matters
  • Giving a gift in the reply
  • And more …

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to make a connection — a human one — while you’re kicking back and out of the daily grind.

Ep.57: How to Capture Cost-Effective, Exclusive Leads by Blogging with Mike Foti

March 27, 2019 Business Management, Marketing, Public Relations 0:35:24

We’re big believers in the power of blogging to generate interest and business. Today we’re talking to someone in the trenches who’s also a believer, because it’s helped him in growing his business, gaining credibility, elevating customer loyalty, and  — most importantly — generating cost-effective, exclusive leads.

In this episode, Mike Foti discusses his business case for blogging with Victoria and Mark, and tells you how you can do the same.

Mike is president of Innovate Building Solutions of Cleveland, OH, a regional remodeling and nationwide wholesaler of grout-free shower and tub wall panels, wet room systems and glass floors, and also of Innovate Home Org, a designer and installer of custom home organization systems. In the eight years he’s been blogging on his News from the Block blog, it’s grown to 85,000 visitors per month and 19,000 email subscribers — and he has two other blogs. Mike is a self-described DMG (Digital Marketing Geek) and loves learning how to increase traffic and leads without forking over big bucks to “Mr. Google.” He’s also a crazy one-hour-a-day runner – even after suffering two heart attacks over the last two years. Finally, Mike is a reinvigorated Cleveland Browns fan and says (just like Baker Mayfield) he’s feeling a little dangerous today.

Mike started blogging after a digital marketing consultant told him how it would help his business, and he admits his first attempts weren’t so good. Mike shares his five reasons to blog, tips for finding the time to do it, and the benefits, including:

  • Avoiding pay-per-click costs
  • Why he doesn’t do Facebook ads
  • Becoming known as an expert and building a following
  • Why it works for project-based businesses
  • The importance of being consistent
  • Attracting tire-kickers and turning them into leads
  • The power of information, influence, and education
  • If you can’t write, finding someone who can
  • Giving yourself permission to not be very good at first
  • How to generate ideas — taking questions from your sales calls and answering them
  • Why the weirdest jobs make the best stories
  • Writing awesome headlines
  • Sharing who you are for a personal connection
  • How to entertain while educating
  • And more …

Including Mike and Mark talking the Odell Beckham trade, while Victoria stares at the ceiling. Also, for all those wondering, capers are flower buds that are pickled in brine. It’s a wide-ranging and high-energy conversation that will convince you to start blogging if you’re not doing it already — or make you better at it if you are.

Ep.55: Why and How to Start Your Own Podcast

March 13, 2019 Business Management, Marketing, Public Relations 0:23:55

In an extremely meta podcast today, we talk about podcasting — and the top reasons you should start your own. We were prompted by an email from a Roundtables member asking why and how to do it.

Podcasting is growing by leaps and bounds — 51% of the population has listened to a podcast. Of those listening, 45% are likely to have an income of $250,000 or more — the kind of affluent demographic you want.

In this episode, Victoria and Mark kick around the reasons you should start your own podcast, with some tips on how to get started.

First thing, don’t get swayed by the idea that a podcast is too global to target your own local area. You don’t even have to cover remodeling in your podcast, as long as it’s sponsored by your company. Other things to consider include:

  • Making the time commitment
  • Being consistent
  • Deciding on a format
  • Writing a script
  • Equipment, set-up, and the costs
  • Content creation and what to cover
  • How to target the right market for you
  • The value of an internal podcast for your employees
  • The launch and initial push
  • How prepare your guests and make them comfortable
  • And much more …

Including Mark springing the lightning round on Victoria (completely ignoring what he just said about preparing guests, but whatever). If you start a podcast, or are already doing one, let us know in the comments below!

Ep.40: Website Best Practices with Mark Harari

November 14, 2018 Marketing, Sales 0:33:05

Your website could be the first time a prospective client encounters your remodeling business. What they find there may get you the job or send them off into the ether, never to be seen again.

In this episode, Victoria grills our own Mark Harari on how to make a remodeler’s website into a lead-generating machine. Mark’s fresh off his engagement at CoCon‘18 in San Diego, where he presented his popular seminar “Website Punchlist: A Live Blue-Tape Experience.” 

Mark’s the chief marketing officer and vice-president of Remodelers Advantage, and the president of our sister company R/A Marketing. He’s an award-winning marketer with 20 years’ experience (18 years in construction), and specializes in translating strategic vision to tactical execution. He’s also the facilitator of the R/A Marketing Roundtables groups, which bring together top marketing pros from across the US and Canada.

To design an effective website, you have to determine its purpose. Some remodelers only want their sites to act as an online brochures — they send prospects to it. Mark makes the case that all remodelers, though, should have a lead-generating website — one that searchers find themselves. Then, you have to get actionable information out of them. Mark explains what works in marketing, especially digital marketing, including:

  • Why an email address is the most important information to get, and the easiest to get
  • How to integrate offline marketing and advertising with your online efforts
  • What a call to action is
  • Why growing your email list adds value to your company
  • How capturing leads future-proofs your business
  • The top technical mistakes in website design
  • Why you should make your photos searchable
  • Where not to put your social media icons
  • And a whole lot more…

Including just what a lead magnet is, and how to use it. Want to learn more about lead magnets? Get The Remodeler’s Guide to Lead Generation, which is not only a fantastic resource for getting more business, it’s a great example of a lead magnet, its landing page and the kind of information-gathering form that will convert. It’s all so incredibly meta, as the kids say.

Want Mark to look at your website?

If you’d like to submit your own website for a live blue-tape walkthrough, Mark will be presenting his popular seminar at KBIS on Wednesday, February 20, 2019 in Las Vegas!

 

Tanya Bamford

Ep.36: How to Make Your Photo Gallery a Lead-Generating Powerhouse with Tanya Bamford

October 10, 2018 Marketing, Sales 00:24:41

One of the most powerful sales tools your remodeling company has often lies fallow on your website — your project photo galleries. With a little creativity, those photos can be transformed into compelling client success stories. This will boost your organic search rankings, super-charge lead generation, and result in more sales.

The power of storytelling, and a few tricks, can make all the difference.

In this episode, Tanya Bamford shares her insights about connecting all the dots to make the most of your online marketing efforts.

Tanya is the managing director of R/A Marketing Inc., our new sister company serving the needs of the remodeling industry. Tanya has been helping remodeling companies prosper for the better part of the last decade as the owner of a boutique marketing firm in southeastern Pennsylvania. Her work for two Remodelers Advantage members first brought Tanya to our attention.

Your galleries are fallow — to borrow a farming term — because they’re not particularly productive, but hold immense potential. They are the basis for telling a story from your clients’ perspectives, which are more compelling to prospects than technical details. You need to find the “why,” says Tanya. “You removed a wall and added a load-bearing beam, but you need to tell why that mattered to the client,” she says. Other ways to make your galleries work for you include:

  • Using the photos to tell a story on your blog and social channels
  • How to tag photos for better search engine rankings
  • Why the size of the photo also matters
  • What photos to take
  • And more…

Online marketing is getting more complicated all the time. Using the photo content you already have — in the right ways — can turn your website into a lead-generating machine.

The R/A Marketing website is under construction, but will be up and running soon — bookmark it and check back in!

You can also reach Tanya at Tanya@GetRAMarketing.com

Ep.34: The Evolution of SEO with Spencer Powell

September 19, 2018 Marketing, Sales 00:31:31

Marketing is getting more complicated, and search engine optimization can seem like voodoo or black magic. The SEO landscape is always changing, as Google adjusts its algorithms every day.

The goal remains the same, though — growing your organic traffic online to rank higher in the search listings, so you get found by the people who will become your clients.

Spencer Powell joins Victoria and Mark to explain how to maximize your SEO, and share the recipe for a successful SEO strategy. 

Spencer is the founder and president of Builder Funnel, a digital marketing agency that helps remodelers improve their marketing and sales systems. They help you generate more leads and sales by putting the right technology in place to measure what’s working and what’s not so you can improve over time.

SEO matches up with the way people shop and buy. Users ask questions and do research, and you want your site to be there with the answers. But a successful SEO program is more than just choosing keywords and topics. You have to know what else comes into play. Learn more about:

  • Good content vs. junk content
  • Understanding what questions to answer
  • How to drive traffic using social channels and email
  • The keys to A/B testing, and how to do it
  • Calls to Action and where to put them
  • The importance of fresh content
  • And more…

Including this link to the 200 SEO ranking factors Spencer talked about. If you’ve got questions for Spencer, shoot him an email at spowell@builderfunnel.com. There are more resources for you at Builder Funnel’s website.

Meet Spencer at Summit
If you want to ask Spencer questions and meet him in person, no better way than see him at the 2018 Remodelers Summit in New Orleans on September 25-27! Spencer and Builder Funnel will be one of our sponsors, so make sure you stop by their booth to meet his team.

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MASTER NAVIGATION

This website is part of the Remodelers Advantage Network.

Visit our other properties: