New and returning customers are the lifeblood of your business. Making sure you’re getting good, qualified leads into your sales process can make or break your month. Where do you even start? Here are some things to keep in mind when putting together your lead generation strategy.
Understand your business
This feels like a “duh!” piece of advice. But, to understand how to make yourself stand out in a sea of other contractors, you need to know what makes your business special. Everyone says they have great customer service, but what makes your business unique? Is it the products you offer? Is it the quality of your service? Do you have special guarantees? Is your attention to detail better than others?
Claim your business on multiple sites
Consumers can do hours of research before they fill out a form or pick up the phone. You need to make sure that your online profiles are updated on sites like Google, Yelp!, or HomeAdvisor.* These sites are indexed by search engines and used by consumers to learn as much as they can about local businesses they would like to work with. Update these profiles with your contact information, website, and pictures.
Create a blog and optimize for SEO
Creating a blog and packing it with information that people will search for related to your business is a great way to create some search engine optimization. Your posts don’t all have to be promotional. Some of these can walk through common issues like how to know if your roof needs to be replaced or how to replenish an HVAC system’s coolant.
Get customer reviews
Customer reviews make the world go ‘round. The easiest way to generate reviews for your business is to ask satisfied customers to leave a review on your preferred website. Some ratings sites will generate links for you to send your customers so they can easily leave reviews for your business. Send these links via text or email after the job is done and they are happy with the work.
Create an active social media presence
Share finished projects, new services, or stories from the field to engage social media users or people doing research. An active social media page shows prospective customers that you are currently out doing the work they want you to do for them. Sharing progress images and videos shows them that you mean business and that you can get the job done.
Use your referral network
It’s who you know, right? Tapping into your network for referral work can generate extra jobs quickly. Don’t have a deep roster? Check out our article on how to network for your business.
Use email marketing
Do you have a list of emails but don’t know what to do with them? Email them updates about your business, new services, and products. Keep your existing and future customers in the loop. You never know when a photo or update may inspire a client!
Deals on your website
Everyone loves a deal! Treat your website visitors to a free estimate or percentage off a product or service. Some website services will help you create pop-ups that catch your visitors’ attention and deliver a deal that is too good to pass up.
Leverage data
Many platform websites offer analytics on your web traffic. Information on how many visitors, how much time they spend on your pages, bounce rate, and where traffic is coming from gives you a tool to learn about your customers and how they’re behaving on your site. Knowing what content they are connecting with the most on your site helps you understand what to leverage in your marketing and maybe where to add elements on your website that can generate leads.
Testimonials
Sharing testimonials on social media and your website can give your future customers a peek into what it’s like to work with your company. An easy way to get testimonials is to send a satisfaction survey with a prompt for your customers to share their experience, via text, or through a recorded phone call you can later transcribe. Make sure you get their permission to share their thoughts on your website or social media.
Make it as easy as possible
Making appointments with your business should be as easy as possible. Update your contact information on your website or include a contact form on your website that sends customer contact information to you directly. Some businesses have invested in appointment-setting services that they can embed in their websites with a simple bit of code. These appointment-setting services can integrate with your company calendars and generate meetings for your staff to follow up on. It’s a simple way to automate appointment-setting.
Generating leads can be a hassle, but we hope some of these tips will get more customers into your sales process and more jobs on the books.
*The service providers mentioned in this post are not affiliated with Hearth nor have they compensated Hearth for this blog post.
