The General Contractor

We just added a new feature for our complete marketing program.
Through multiple partnerships, FootBridge Media can provide you with mailing lists each month of homeowners in your area. Our lists contain all information, including email address, address, property value and how long they have owned their home. Depending on your area, we can provide you up to 100 new contacts each month.

The Direct Marketing Association states that it takes an average of 9 impacts to close a sale. That’s 9 times your prospects have to receive a call, letter, appointment or other advertisement before they’re ready to do business with you.

Please contact your marketing consultant if you want to start receiving mailing lists. All lists are delivered via CSV. file and contain full name, address, phone, email, and property value.

I’ve decided, I’m going to do a question of the week, something small, but effective that you can think about during the weekend… No football this weekend, so we all should have plenty of time.

This week, we can start off by saying marketing is seduction. There are few things that cool the fires quicker than boredom, routine, predictability. Yet contractors are usually the most routine, boring and predictable.

Doing what someone expects is not surprise.

Doing what they expect, only a little better, does not send chills up the spine.

Doing something completely unexpected … meaningful … emotional … creates far more than buzz and talk … it generates a visceral, emotional reaction that your client associates with you and your business. So that brings me to the question of the weekend: “How can you build the element of surprise into everything your business offers?”

Think about it. And let me know!

I saw this on a post as a discussion on ContractorTalk.com, and I found it quite interesting how the contractors related this technology to their children, but did not see the benefit of actually doing one for their company.

Since Google (the most powerful search engine) bought a small company called Blogger, blogs have become a powerful internet tool. For contractors, blogging increases consumer awareness, of people that may be interested in your services, but it also helps out tremendously with the optimization of your site. So how would this benefit contrators?

Well let’s say you are a kitchen remodeling contractor and have your own blog on your company website. You can use it to describe the complete process of the job from beginning to end. You can even have the client, log in and make posts during the jobs. This would be great, for any local person in your area to get an idea on your workmanship, as well as see how the process goes.

Not only would you be benefiting your website with consumer awareness information, but the optimization for a contractor website in your area would be huge.

The negative aspects of having a blog, is that you will have to pay attention to it. You can’t just put a post up one day, and then ignore it for a year. This will have negative effects, from both a consumer awareness view, as well as the search engines.

There is a good article in Remodeling Magazine that you should check out.

So if you are FootBridge Media Client, and would like to begin blogging, then contact them today.

Check out the latest article on newspaper advertising.

The one important fact you should know is always advertise in the small papers, and if possible get a press release published along side your ad. An0ther factor is where you advertise.

If you are selling indoor air quality products, then the HEALTH section may be the best. Bathroom Remodeling, then the Lifestyle section. If you are selling replacement windows, vinyl siding or any energy efficient products, then place the ad in the MONEY section. Of course if you read the newspaper, you won’t see people doing this, but that is the point. If your the only HVAC contractor in the HEALTH section, which is usually dominated by doctors and health clinics, it will definitely make your ad stand out.

Starting this week, we will be launching a new client of FootBridge Media, Tri-State Remodeling, a Delaware Home Remodeling Contractor who services Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Since they recently joined FootBridge Media, I thought it would be good to see how a website starts from beginning, without any search results, and see how long it will take before it begins hitting the search engines.

I’ll keep you updated.

Are you ready to wrap it up for 2005 and gear up for the best year you’ve ever had in your business? First of all, check your belief level. Do you believe your time has come for a fantastic, record-busting year? That’s step one.

And if you are not pumped up yet, check out this little article about records in home remodeling if you are in that industry. In 2005 projects totaled over $275 billion dollars and they will continue to grow each year.

So regardless if you are a small replacement contractor, or a huge full design/build firm, 2006 has a strong possibility of being the best yet for you. So now you have to ask your self how does that get started.

First Thing You Need To Do Is: If you are not a client yet, you need to sign up for the Contractor Complete Marketing System This will help you get started in focusing more on generating new clients through previous clients, then talking to a bunch of strangers, and if you are a current FootBridge Media client, you need to be sending our your newsletter. Hell, if you are worried about costs, have someone call all of your previous clients in the past year or two and get their email address. Tell them they simply want to provide them with home tips that refer to their specific project.

Second Thing You Need To Do: Contact your marketing consultant and get them all of your past client’s email addresses. The online newsletter in the marketing system will help you talk directly to the needs, interests and stories of those most-favored, most preferred past clients on how they are doing and what you can offer. Let all of your newsletter subscribers read it and see how well you treat your best customers. The big message comes through, “You will enjoy the achievements and success that my clients do when you become my client.”

In 2006 you need to focus on the past client, in order to generate the new client. If you have any other ideas, please feel free to share.

RenovateYourMarketing.com is the leading authority on marketing, referral management and search engine optimization for contractors, plumbers, remodelers, landscapers, painting contractors, and HVAC contractors throughout North America. This site is full of free marketing tips, a free marketing newsletter, lots of great ideas on how to win more new clients, get more referrals and win more new business from existing clients.

I’m Aaron O’Hanlon, website manager and marketing consultant, of one of the fastest growing contractor marketing firms that integrates website marketing with offline marketing solutions.

This blog is a place where I’ll post current news and information related to marketing with contractors.

Please feel free to post any comments, as questions or download any of our free resources. This site is dedicated to the FootBridge Media client.