- Welcome to the first episode of Marketing Panes – the show where I explain digital marketing tactics, interview company owners and providers to learn what strategies they’re using, and talk about marketing trends and tools that will help your window treatment or awning company get more leads and grow your revenue.
- This is episode number 1 – The Introduction
- My name is Will Hanke, I own a digital marketing agency based in Saint Louis, Missouri, and this is my 23rd year in the industry. Yes, I was building websites back in the days of web directories, before Google and search engines as we know them even existed.
- My business is called Window Treatment Marketing Pros, and I’m going to explain a bit more about that in just a minute.
- So let’s get started. First, who am I?
Well, my name is Will Hanke, my official title is Chief Marketing Strategist, and I am the owner of two companies, Red Canoe Media and Window Treatment Marketing Pros. I built my first website in 1997 for my church, while working full time for a government agency that provided the logistics software for the Army. We could tell you where any tank, rotor blade, tire or bolt was on the planet.
Prior to that I was in the Air Force, working as a radar technician. I was in Columbia during the time of Pablo Escobar, helping run drug interdiction and plenty of other things I’m not going to mention today.
In 2004 I was featured in newspapers around the world for a website I had built. When my 15 minutes of fame died down, I realized I hadn’t made a dime from that, and my career as a marketer was officially born. From there I started learning how to not just build websites, but build websites that produce revenue. By the end of that year I was teaching local classes to business owners on ways to get to the top of Google, Yahoo!, and Bing (which wasn’t called Bing back then).
For over 20 years I’ve helped thousands of businesses around the world with their online footprint, including divorce lawyers, mattress stores, and woodworkers.
In 2018 I realized that there was a big need for education and help in the window treatment and awning industries, and my company Window Treatment Marketing Pros was born. This business specifically focuses on educating and servicing these two industries, helping owners around the country get their websites more traffic, more leads, and ultimately more revenue.
We hold monthly online training sessions, I blog a lot on our website about trends and opportunities, and we have clients around the country that are ranking high in Google searches for industry terms, their phones are ringing and everyone’s businsses are growing.
Personally I’m a father of 4, husband of one for almost 30 years, and Peepaw of 2. I’m lucky to get to work with my daughter Amber every day, and a fan of our St Louis Cardinals and Blues (who just won the Stanley Cup, btw).
So alright, enough about me.
- What is the Marketing Panes podcast?
Well, the idea behind the podcast is pretty simple – I want to provide an easy to understand and easy to listen to publication where window treatment and awning business owners can get information that will help their business grow. It’s really that simple. I want to provide value to an industry that I know, I understand, and could use this knowledge to make more money. - What is the format of the upcoming episodes? I’m going to do one of two things – talk by myself, or interview someone.
- Talk by myself – On these episodes, like this one, I’ll have a format that typically centers around a specific topic, like getting more reviews or social media. Most of the topics will be marketing-based, although I may also bring in some general running-your-business topics, since I”ve been doing it for such a long time.
- Interview someone – this will take on 1 of 2 forms, either I’ll interview another business owner about their business, their marketing successes (and failures), or I’ll interview a service provider to the window treatment and/or awning industries. Their questions will still be marketing based, but obviously we’ll also get into a bit about their product, what it does, how it solves a problem, etc.
- How often will I publish new episodes?
So this one is going to be a little tricky. For now, as of February 2020, I’m planning on releasing one a month. I’d really like to do one every two weeks, but until the word gets out about the podcast, I have enough content to do it monthly. - How you can be a part of the podcast (interviewee or sponsor).
This is where you can help – if, after listening to a few episodes, think you know a business owner, service provider, or YOU want to be a guest on the show, let them know! They can visit WTMarketingPros.com/podcasts to sign up.
Secondly, if you are a vendor or service provider that wants to sponsor an upcoming episode of the podcast, I’d love to hear from you as well. There are a lot of amazing people and companies that service our industry, and I’d be happy to be the catalyst that helps both sides learn more about each other. - Featured resource On my talk by myself episodes, I’ll have a featured resource that usually goes along with the topic. And quite honestly, I’ll probably have several in many cases. There are a lot of great tools available in the digital marketing world, and many are free to use, which is great!
- Upcoming learning opportunities – Alright, the last part of the podcast will be where I tell you about any upcoming learning opportunities that I’m offering. This is February 2020, and this month our free training is called Take Control of Your Online Reputation. It’s no secret that your online reputation (namely, reviews) can make or break your business. This is particularly true for window treatment and awning companies. When you are working around people’s homes, you need to be seen as trustworthy. On this webinar we will share some of our best strategies & tactics enhancing your online reputation so you can convert more leads & drive more sales.
- This training is Feb 20 at 11AM central. Sign up here: https://wtmarketingpros.com/next-training/
- Ok that’s it for today’s podcast.
- I encourage you to visit WTMarketingPros.com/podcasts to subscribe and get notified about future episodes.
- Of course, if the information you learn here helps your business, I’d very much appreciate a review as that is what helps me get the word out to more people.
- All the notes, links, videos, and anything else we talked about today are available on our site at WTMarketingPros.com/podcasts – This is episode number 1
- Thanks for listening – I’ll see you in the next episode of Marketing Panes!
