In this week's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, host Scott Smith interviews Hayley Bridges.
Today's podcast with Scott Smith and Hayley Bridges covers the digital marketing strategies you can use to grow your contracting business.
Main Questions Asked:
- What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
- If you have a limited budget, should you improve SEO or spend money on paid ads?
- What type of budget should be allocated to online advertising?
- How often should a contractor contact their customer via email?
- Should you manage your social media yourself?
- Do you have any tips for using YouTube?
- What are the options when it comes to social media for paid advertising?
- How much does social media impact your SEO?
- Should a contractor manage their email marketing?
- What are some best practices for a website?
- What are some tips to convert traffic into leads?
Key Lessons Learned:
Digital Marketing
- The world of digital marketing is always changing so you always have to stay up to date to stay on top of the newest tech.
- SEO is a part of your overall SEM strategy. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing, and SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is just one of many tools in the SEM toolbox.
- There is no one tool that is the best for everyone, every tool works in specific ways depending on what your goals online are.
- Your long term goals should be to succeed in building up your SEO rankings. If you are in a very competitive market, a good short term goal would be to use PPC and other paid ads to get an edge over your competition.
- PPC and paid ads give you analytics that allow you to make even better decisions about your marketing. Analyze the main source of your traffic and focus on maximizing that source.
- The magic number for online marketing when it comes to budget is 36%. This includes nearly everything that you spend online. It may sound like a high number but it will be money well spent.
- Emailing your list once a month is a good rule of thumb, if you have a sale going on, once every two weeks works well too.
Social Media
- Social media generally works faster than email. Posting once a week is a good start. The content you post should be educational but can also be light and personal as well.
- The key to social media is to be consistent. If you can't commit the time you may want to work with an agency that can take care of it for you. If a customer looks at your Facebook page and doesn't see anything recent, they will probably think you've gone out of business.
- Contractors should be on YouTube because it's an asset you can use on other social media sites. People go to YouTube searching for content so it can be a bit more relaxed than other forms of content.
- Putting out value without asking for something in return is how you build good faith with your audience and turn them into customers down the road.
- Facebook has an exceptional ad manager that allows you to control exactly who you target and how much money you spend.
- Social media shares and likes impact your search engine rankings very positively.
Email Marketing
- Email marketing can be pretty complicated. Having an agency manage your list is usually your best choice.
- Analytics are one of the most important tools when it comes to communicating with your list via email.
Websites
- Your website is your hub for all your digital marketing. It should function in a way that takes some of the work off yourself.
- Using blog posts and content will make you an expert in your space and improve your SEO.
- Make sure your website is always up to date!
- Install analytics on your site so you can understand your traffic and how your site is performing.
- You need a good partner to manage your site, keep up with software updates, and making sure it's fulfilling your marketing goals.
- Create a lead magnet that gets your traffic onto your list. You can also ask for an email address in order to access a popular piece of content. Make sure the value of the lead magnet is worth it to the user so that they want to give you their email address.
- Your digital marketing and your offline marketing working together is what will give you immense success. It's not a question of one or the other. Integrate your marketing efforts.
Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!
Links to Resources Mentioned
www.hudsonink.com/scorecard
