Marketing Archives - Page 4 of 4 - PowerTips Unscripted

Ep.47: How Social Proof Can Ignite Massive Growth with Josh Kelly

January 16, 2019 0:26:15

Reviews are the lifeblood of any remodeling company. But are you getting the best social proof of your company’s performance from your clients?

Social proof is simply getting credit for what you’re already doing, says Josh Kelly. But it can spur your company to massive growth when done right.

In this episode, Josh talks to Victoria and Mark about social proof, how to use it in your business, and how it can help you weather some big changes coming to the remodeling industry.

Josh is a principal of RevuKangaroo.com, a review collection and distribution company. Before starting RevuKangaroo, Josh used the power of social proof, reviews, and referrals to grow his residential services business, Parker & Sons Inc., Phoenix, AZ, from $6.5 million to over $100 million in just 13 years.

The best way to grow your business is to keep and make more money with the customers you have — and have them tell others about their great experiences. But big changes are coming — Amazon and Google continue to make inroads into the remodeling space. If you’re not prepared to play with them, and not against them, you could lose out. And one of the ways to work with them is to show your social proof. Josh breaks down the three components of social proof, and has great tips on:

Making it easy for the customer to give you a review
Why you want an employee reviewed, not your company
How to ask for referrals in a personal way
Why “referral” is a dirty word, and what to use instead
How to screen reviews
Why identical reviews on multiple sites are bad
Why he spells Revu that way
And more…

If you’d like to learn more about RevuKangaroo or pick Josh’s brain, you can drop him an email at josh@revukangaroo.com.

Improve Your Remodeling Business in 2019 & Beyond

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Ep.43: The Power of Public Relations with Jim Zack

December 5, 2018 00:29:20

As remodelers, public relations is often an overlooked part of your marketing mix. We spend so much time and money on online marketing, PR is an afterthought. But with the web’s insatiable need for content, placing projects to get publicity should be a part of your strategy.

In this episode, Roundtables member Jim Zack tells Victoria and Mark how and why his firm gets up to 30 articles about projects published per year, creating an overall brand awareness in his market and beyond. His projects have appeared in such print and digital outlets as the Wall Street Journal, Dwell, and archdaily.com.

Jim’s president of Zack | de Vito Architecture + Construction, an Architect-led design/build company in San Francisco. His goal is to be the No. 1 design-focused design/build company in the Bay Area. The company’s work focuses on high-value residences, renovations, and new construction with a consciously modern focus.

The push to get published comes from his Architectural background, where getting published is always a primary goal. It translates well into driving the PR side of his design/build business, with PR as part of the overall marketing strategy. Jim shares his proven method for getting great PR coverage, including:

Capitalizing on awards
How to submit work to print and digital outlets
Finding your project niche and the outlets to use
Industry vs. consumer outlets
Why to pay for professional photography
Making your projects newsworthy
Choosing the right project to promote
Getting your clients on-board
Putting the right to publicize in your contract
And more…

To get an idea of just how much Jim’s work has been published —and publicized — check out this list, which only shows a part of his PR footprint.

Ep.40: Website Best Practices with Mark Harari

November 14, 2018 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!

Ep.38: Learning from the Trucking Industry To Solve Your Labor Shortage with Natalie Putnam

October 31, 2018 00:30:11

So many remodelers can’t reach their production potential because of the labor shortage. With the unemployment rate at a 20-year low, the struggle to find and retain good people is curbing business growth for small-business owners, across industries.

In this episode, Natalie Putnam tells Victoria and Mark about the hiring and retention strategies that have worked for her company in the trucking space, another industry struggling to find great people.

Natalie’s the chief commercial officer at Verst Logistics in Walton, KY. She’s a an industry expert, with 35 years of experience in supply chain, logistics, and trucking. Verst is growing at 24% a year, so Natalie regularly recruits employees and drivers for warehousing, fulfillment, and truck driving — in an area dominated by Amazon, FedEx, and DHL.

While wages play a significant role in recruiting and retention, it’s not the only lever you have, Natalie says. Your company culture can be a bigger factor in making employees accept your job offer. She shares other tactics that have worked for her in hiring and retaining good employees in a highly competitive market, including:

Expanding your target market — especially toward women
Using marketing for recruiting
The power of listening
Relaxing your requirements — how and why
Creating a Mentorship program
Why respect goes farther than cash
Job-site recruiting
The rise of robots
And much more…

Finding good people to work for you is a struggle. But taking some tips from another industry can help you prosper.

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

October 10, 2018 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 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.

Ep.26: How the Media Business Can Transform Your Remodeling Company with James Carey

July 25, 2018 00:35:14

With so many new media and communication outlets, it’s hard to know what channels to use for your own marketing. But that also means there are opportunities — and getting your message out to an audience is easier than ever. Taking the plunge into media can change your business.

In Episode 26, Victoria and Mark tackle the new media and marketing landscape with James Carey, who transformed the remodeling business he owns with his brother Morris when they pitched a radio show about home improvement in the 1980s. That led to a national syndication deal, a TV show, and book publishing.

James is the president of Carey Bros. Remodeling in Brentwood, CA, and is the co-host of the nationally syndicated radio program On the House with the Carey Brothers and of their pro podcast CareyBrosPros.

While James made his splash in old media, he continues to take advantage of the new opportunities provided by just a wifi connection. From podcasting (which we love) to social media, James leads you through ways to get your message out, including:

Finding your unique outreach
Harnessing the power of the media
What you can learn from Mommy-bloggers
Helping homeowners make informed decisions
Access vs. competition per channel
And a whole lot more…

It’s a fascinating episode, and will inspire you to think about your marketing — and your business — differently. For more about James (and Morris), check out CareyBros.com to learn about the remodeling company. Their radio program site for homeowner advice is OnTheHouse.Com, and their site for professional remodelers is CareyBrosPros.com.

We love the feedback we have received so far!

As always, if you have a topic that you would like us to cover or know of an industry contact, author or thought-leader that you think others would like to hear from, let us know.

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Ep.09: Seven Steps to Earning Positive Online Reviews with Bryan Sebring

March 21, 2018 0:28:34

Online reviews can be the “Lifeblood” of any remodeling company’s business and marketing strategy and in Episode 9, Victoria and Mark speak with Bryan Sebring a very successful remodeler who has mastered the art of collecting online reviews from his satisfied clients.

Bryan is the Owner of Sebring Design Build in Naperville, IL and has quickly become a valuable resource and thought-leader for R/A and our Roundtables members.

According to Bryan he is a self-taught marketer who jumped in with both feet following a website re-design project that went sideways.

Bryan’s 7 Step process for driving positive reviews is more than just a marketing strategy. As Bryan describes, his firm’s process of asking for reviews and earning them with hard work, great design and a client-first attitude has become more of a company culture.

As Bryan, Victoria and Mark discuss the 7-step process, we learn more about:

Strategies around specific websites such as Houzz, Angie’s List and Yelp.
Infusing the review process into your sales/lead intake process
Dealing with bad reviews
How to encourage and educate your clients to read and provide reviews
Setting expectations with clients at project kickoff
How to work with client on project completion and walk-through

Free Resource

As Bryan describes his sales and lead intake process, he mentions that he provides his clients and prospects with information to educate them about online reviews: what to look for, good signs, red flags, etc. Here’s the blog post he share’s with them, which also includes his free Remodeling 101 ebook.

…And Speaking of Asking for Reviews

We are receiving great feedback from our listeners and we have more great episodes like this one coming. If you’re enjoying our PowerTips Unscripted podcast, please spread the word by rating our show and commenting on iTunes, Stitcher, or whichever platform you use!

Ep.06: Behind the Scenes of an HGTV Pilot with John Huffman

February 28, 2018 00:28:41

Lights, Camera, Action! Getting the brand exposure of a TV pilot, aired on a national media channel like HGTV, can seem like every remodeler’s dream… But is it? What’s involved? Is it disruptive to your business? Do you get leads from it? Is it as exciting as it sounds?

In Episode 6, Victoria and Mark talk to John Huffman, CEO & Co-Owner of Black Door Renovation in Southlake TX. John runs Black Door with his wife, Elizabeth, and Rick Baker, a long time RA member, and together they focus on large-scale, high-end additions and whole house remodels.

John and Elizabeth, were approached by a production company in 2016 about pitching a show called “Lone Star Flip” to HGTV and their story of the ups and downs of that process is amazing and great insight to other remodelers considering a similar endeavor.

Often in business, timing is everything… and John talks more about how this opportunity occurred at about the same time as their merger with Rick Baker’s Stately Design & Renovation company.

John walks us through their experience and along the way Victoria and Mark cover:

How disruptive was it to your business?
How did this experience effect your brand and messaging for Black Door?
Did you see leads from it and were they qualified?
How did you handle the influx of leads?
How did you handle the pricing expectations we see mentioned on these types of shows on TV?
Knowing what you do now, would you do it again?

A great episode, not to be missed! Enjoy!

If you would like to know more about Black Door Renovation visit their website and they did an amazing job of documenting their HGTV experience on Instagram and Facebook.

Do you have a similar experience with any other media efforts? Cable shows? Radio broadcasts? We would love to hear about any of your experiences, positive or negative, in the comments section below.

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