Marketing is a fundamental part of any successful contractor’s business, but all too often potential customers are getting lost at the last yard. This means that thousands of dollars are left on the table, when there are simple fixes that could bring that customer to the finish line.
On average, contractors are spending 10 percent of their monthly revenue on marketing — that can translate to $100,000 per year at an average of 2.8 percent profit margin — and those are not dollars you want wasted. Search engines and directories such as Yelp and HomeAdvisor dominate the budget, but many contractors are losing customers during the shopping-around phase and wasting thousands of dollars a month committing to these services. Does this sound familiar? Here’s how you can change this.
The Customer Experience
Let’s start by walking through the full customer experience: Your potential new customer has decided they need a contractor, and unless they have a referral, their next logical step is to use a search engine to research potential contractors. Once they’ve narrowed down several credible contractors, they’ll start contacting you and your competitors for a quote, which is still done primarily by phone.
Why by phone? Mobile search and click-to-calls are booming, and the already staggering number of calls to businesses is expected to skyrocket in coming years. According to Invoca, there will be an estimated 140 billion calls from mobile click-to-call alone in 2019. That’s about 20 billion more than 2018 and 30 billion less than what is projected for 2020. You have spent thousands of dollars to get potential new customers to this point — they want the work done, and they want a quote quickly. But when the customer finally reaches out after all those dollars spent they get…a phone tree or voicemail.
What Are Your Options?
A handful of contractors can afford a full-time receptionist. This is a great fix for the issue if you have the budget. A welcoming in-house receptionist to greet your inbound callers is absolutely a solution, but that only captures leads when the receptionist is at his or her desk. It doesn’t include when he or she is at lunch, gone home after hours, on vacation, or out sick.
With 74 percent of callers saying they are likely to choose another business after they have a bad phone experience (Invoca), this is a massive leak in your marketing budget when one call could be your next lucrative job.
Real, Meaningful Connections
Don’t underestimate the power of the human connection. Inbound phone calls are 10 to 15 times more likely to convert than inbound website leads. Ensuring that there is a real human on the other end of the line helps to close the inbound marketing loop and maximize the dollars you’ve spent to gain new customers.
About the Author:
Dylan Munn is a serial entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of MunnCo, a business co-op that helps lower business expenses by combining the buying power of thousands of companies. For more information, contact: MunnCo, www.munnco.com, info@munnco.com