Tens of hours (maybe hundreds) into talking, discovering, pitching, persuading, and pouring your heart and soul into bidding for the project of the year (or project that's good enough) and... you lost. Perhaps even to the new guy or a home contracting company that doesn't even normally do this kind of job.

Ever heard the expression that potential customers don't look for reason to buy from you - they look for reasons to not buy from you? Well, in today's buyer's world, this is exactly the case, almost 100% of the time.

Now you could've lost the bid because the world just sent you bad luck that day.

Looking to increase their digital presence, Harmony Hill engaged Halstead Media to design an integrated marketing plan that would bring their offline reputation to the online world. The construction marketing specialists at Halstead Media implemented their complete Contractor's Marketing System designed to increase website traffic, drive leads, increase close rates for new projects. 

If you ended with a possible yes from part one of our Home and Garden Show series,  Should Your Home Contracting Business Participate in the Next Home Show?, then you'll want to outline your budget details. A very important outcome of this will be determining your promotional budget - part three in the series. No one wants to build a beautiful and costly booth, and have no one see it. 
 

Today’s consumers have all the power. The sooner business owners realize that, the sooner they can begin to build lasting relationships with prospects and customers. The way to do that in today’s busy world is by providing useful content and helpful information to prospects throughout their journey. The buyer’s journey typically lasts over 100 days for large purchase like a custom home or remodel. That’s 100 days of online research, searching about potential companies to hire, how the process works, costs and budgets, and other related topics. And each year, that amount grows at a rate of almost 20%.  

Since the beginning of time, manufacturers in the hardscape and landscape industries have offered marketing support to their dealers and retailers via an advertising co-op program. Traditionally based on volume of sales, the hardscape dealer or product retailer receives funds—commonly around 50% of the cost—towards regionally-focused, co-branded advertising placements. 

From the beginning days of on-boarding to the years that proceed, inbound marketing isn't easy. Whether you've hired a marketing agency or writing your own content, it takes time, dedication, and patience. And it all pays off; the results it delivers don't compare to any other marketing approach. There is a lot that home service contractors can be thankful for with inbound marketing. So here is your list of things of the top ten reasons to say thank you to inbound marketing!

It’s no secret that across most segments of the home improvement industry—kitchen design, bathroom remodeling, and outdoor living design—it is the women who make the decisions and drive big purchases. The home construction market is no different. 

The most successful home builders today build homes with features that attract women buyers.Adapting the designs they build to include things like laundry rooms that are located next to the upstairs bathrooms and

Increase revenue, grow your business, more leads - are the three top goals we hear from landscape and general contractors all the time. Lets dig one step further. The reason is often to simply get more cash. But what if that means to just change your target client? It can be! Changing your customer base can mean improvement in sales close time, reduced overhead, and higher margins. It can result in more employees. Sometimes it results in increasing your average project size and less employees, less projects, higher margins, with a lot higher net profits. 

Changing your target customer isn't always the right answer; you can determine if it is for your business, in this related article, 5 Signs You Should Change Your Target Customer. If you meet the criteria, then we have your starting line. 

Good landscape contractors often find themselves in a situation where they are ready to grow their businesses and make the jump to a higher revenue level. These are not new companies. They are landscape construction companies that have earned enough project experience over the course of 3, 5, or even 10 years (depending on the revenue target sought) where they now know their level of quality is superb. Regular positive referrals, possibly an award or two, and increased project detail, size, and sale price. But how do you make the jump to selling and building high-end projects for most of the season? How do you cater to more affluent clientele who award these projects soring above the $100k mark?

Custom home builders, landscape contractors, its almost home and garden show season! In preparation for this annual chaotic time, we've lined up a series of topics to help you get the most out of your experience. After all, every marketing tactic must come with some kind of ROI! To get started in this series, lets make sure that your business should really participate in this year's show or two.

As you ask yourself the below questions, be honest with yourself - allow yourself to step outside of your comfort zone and really provide honest answers! 

If you end up with a yes or need more consideration, read part two in this series: How Much Does a Booth in a Home and Garden Show Really Cost? 

Most small businesses in the home services industry use Quickbooks to manage their accounting. The software is truly great at what it does, albeit slightly frustrating to use at times. Everything from creating estimates and invoices, finding a customer’s phone number, and finding out which customers to call for overdue payments, Quickbooks becomes the hub for many small businesses. In fact, we’d say second to email, construction business owners spend more time in Quickbooks than any other software application.

Changing your target customer isn't the first thing that usually comes to mind when setting your next year's goals. Rightfully so, after all there is revenue to grow, efficiencies to improve, and many more endless and lucrative ideas to spent time on. The reality is if you're attracting the wrong target customer, you won't reach any, or at least most of your objectives.

What exactly does changing your target customer mean? Perhaps it's changing to a lower income client or the opposite, much higher. It could mean going from targeting couples with small children to no children. Read more about targeting here. Whatever the end result is, here are the top five signs that you should sit down and re-target a new type of customer now. 

You built it...and no one came. Your beautiful website, that you paid for or completed yourself, is up and running. You've poured hours and hours into developing the right colors, font, messaging, everything! Perhaps you've even redesigned your logo. Everything about your site seems perfect - but why isn't anyone calling? 

Don't fret. We've got some ideas for boosting your traffic

With all the marketing options out there - from content, inbound, outbound, print, radio, tv, its hard not to depend on the tried and true advertising options that have existed for what seems like forever. Its probably easier to choose an approach that you know has been around and is familar to you.

Still, no matter how familiar, with all the industry changes as well as marketing changes, now might be the perfect time for you to evaluate print advertising. To help with your decision, you should do print advertising if:

One in five page views occurs on Facebook (source: Zephoria). That's right, a whopping 20% of page views. Lets put this in perspective to your home services business. Say your website visitor looks at three pages on your website and then Googles something - visits one page of your competitor's, that fifth page will be a Facebook page. What if its yours? Is your Facebook page up to snuff? Are you communicating credibility and a consistent branding image? 

Media Coverage of landscaping or design work is a top need for many marketing executives or business owners in this industry. Of course there are other key marketing essentials (like inbound marketing - which includes blogging and social media). There is however something special about building your reputation in quality work using previously completed projects.

Sure, professional photography is non-negotiable. Whether it costs several hundred dollars or a thousands, its a must. But what happens after the photos and what can you do with them to make sure you're promoting your best work and increasing your chances of media coverage? It starts with getting the right story. A story behind the photos. Something that connects readers and viewers to the work. Words that bring it all to life. 

First impressions are meaningless  - said no one ever! Your first impression of basically anything is the foundation to your relationship with that entity - whether it be a person, a business, a place, or thing. Sure, first impressions are sometimes (almost never) editable - with serious hard work. Or you can just make it right (or do everything you can to make it right!).

How does your website do with landing the best first impression with visitors? Does it push people away or make them stay? And those that stick around, are they the right people to be enticing? Or are they the ones that waste yours and their time because they misunderstood your approach and design and/or build services offered? 

Most websites average a 30-60% bounce rate (read more about how Google defines bounce rate here). That's the percentage of people who leave your website right after viewing the only page that brought them to your site. So imagine that - all that hard work on improving your search ranking results

Inbound marketing using marketing automation software like HubSpot or SharpSpring isn't cheap. Because of this, many home services companies that we speak with form the conclusion that HubSpot is only for large businesses with bigger budgets, not small business with revenues below $2.5M/year. This is an incorrect assumption due mainly to the fact that digital marketing using great content and inbound tactics is different than any other type of marketing. You see, marketing that is tracked directly to leads and revenue, with a clearly defined and transparent ROI, can never be too expensive. 

It's hard for many folks to switch over from display advertising (magazine, billboards, etc.) to inbound marketing (content king). The new can be scary. Here is the secret: it doesn't have to be a switchover. There are reasons to maintaining both approaches without sacrificing efficacy of either. The trick is to make sure that each approach is designed to complement the other. 

You've successfully made it through to this second full chat with your prospect about their home improvement plans - whether its about landscaping, general contracting, a remodel, or anything in between. If you've asked the right questions to help you understand your prospects real needs (a must read before you continue further in this post: 10 Questions to Ask Your Prospect on The First Call) then you know that this next chat, which is most likely in-person, is worth the trip. You've qualified them in terms of budget and service and you know when they'd like it all completed. The second chat isn't your proposal conversation because you haven't yet filled in all of the details in between. So here are the questions you absolutely must get to in this meeting to make sure your proposal is a winner.