As a contractor, you most likely get sales calls daily from marketing companies trying to sell you online marketing services. Yelp, Angieslist, HomeAdvisor and 100’s of SEO companies are the ones we hear about the most. And if you are like most paving contractors you have taken one if not many for a test drive to attempt to grow your business, but the results have been lack luster at best.
From my 7 years of internet marketing experience I have seen and heard just about everything, but below are the common mistakes I hear about.
Companies, such as Yellow Pages, Yelp, Angie’s List etc provide users with a list of service providers in a set geographic area. These companies make their money by selling companies, such as yours, enhanced listings. Enhanced listings can include the ability to add your website URL, photos or showing up at the top of related searches.
While I’m not saying these directories don’t work at all, but the cost per lead is substantially higher then other online marketing channels. $400 a month might not seem like a lot to pay, but if you are only getting 1-2 leads per month your cost per lead is $200. A good Google AdWords campaign can yield $30-$50 leads.
There is no silver bullet in internet marketing. Contractors that jump from one marketing idea to the next typically do not have positive results. A good Google Adwords campaign can take 90 days before its running efficiently. SEO campaigns can take 90-180 days before you start to see results. Canceling 30 days into a campaign is just wasting money and more importantly your time.
There are a lot of “cheap” internet marketing companies out there, which will promise you the world but will only return disappointment. This is no different than the cheap paving company that paves right over alligator cracks without first fixing the base. It looks good for a little while but give it a little time and those cracks will show back up.
A well-run marketing campaign takes time and resources. Depending on the goals of the campaign the prices can range wildly. A one-size fits all pricing structure is a clear indication that your headed in the wrong direction.
For the most part internet marketing is measurable and if you are running multiple campaigns at once you want to track the performance of each campaign. Measuring each campaign, you can calculate the cost per lead. From there you can cut the underperforming campaign and use the additional revenue to scale the higher performing campaigns.
