One of the biggest mistakes we see restoration companies make is making it unnecessarily difficult for a prospect to contact them. It’s increasingly difficult to generate leads online these days.
The last thing you want to do is not have your website set up so that a prospect has to try to find your phone # or email like they are going on a scavenger hunt. You want the user experience set up so that at the very least you have your phone #, contact form and live chat.
What’s up everybody? Welcome to the Ironclad Marketing Minute. My name is Ben with Ironclad Restoration Marketing, and I help restoration business owners get more sales just by getting their internet marketing right.
Now, as we wrap up 2023, yeah, I can’t believe it. The year is almost over already, and we’re getting ready to kick off a 2024. I wanted to talk a little bit about leads. Now, yeah, we talk about leads all the time. We talk about how to get them.
We use SEO, Google business profile, pay per click, LSA, social media, and all these different channels. But There’s a few things that a lot of people miss out on when it comes to getting those leads.
Now you can have as much visibility as you want, but if you don’t have a proper system in place to be able to pull those leads into your business, channel them to the right pertinent individuals to be able to follow up on those leads and close the business, then all of that stuff gets thrown out the window.
So today I’m going to walk you through a couple of really simple ways that you can help capture more leads that may seem pretty straightforward, but a lot of people are missing out on.
First of all, when it comes to digital marketing, your website is the window to that marketplace, most people when they need a home service are going to go on a search engine, Google, and look for a business that’s relative to the type of service they need.
And in your instance, property damage, a lot of times it’s an emergency situation. So in the buyer’s journey, they’re going to “Google” it and they’ll end up on your website. If you have your proper channels in place, as far as visibility goes, with your pay per click, your search engine optimization, your Google business profile, and they’re going to end up on your website.
Now what you want to do is make sure that you have as many easy ways as possible for them. to get in touch with you so they don’t have to do any work.
Now in 2024, we’re going to go a little deep dive into website conversion fundamentals. And part of that is having a phone number on your website. Yeah, that’s right. Putting a phone number on your website is pretty important, but a lot of people miss out on it.
But you need to take that a step further and make that phone number clickable, not only for your desktop version of your website, but the mobile version is where it’s more important. Most people are visiting your website from a mobile device.
So not only does that website need to be device responsive for that to be user friendly on a mobile device, but you want to make it really easy for them to get in touch with you. And one of the easiest ways is making sure your phone number is clickable with a nice call to action that says, call us now for 24 seven emergency services. If that’s something that you offer.
Now the next thing that you can do is make sure you have a contact form on your website. Sometimes the type of property damage somebody has, or if it’s commercial property damage that. Peters. We’re looking for services for, they are not going to be in a situation where they can just pick up the phone and call right off the bat.
So having another way for them to get in touch with you via an online contact form is very important. But if you are going to go that route, whether it’s a contact form or a live chat plugin, perhaps you want to make sure that you have systems and the infrastructure in place to be able to properly get those leads and channel them into your business to be able to give them out to who needs to get them to make sure.
They’re closing those leads that are coming in. So a clickable phone number and online contact form or live chat are three really nice ways that you can really simply and most times for free allow yourself to capture those leads coming in. But I can’t stress enough that you have the infrastructure in place to pick those up.
If somebody fills out a contact form and you get it into your inbox on a Friday night and you don’t respond till Monday, well there’s a good chance that person or people are not going to use you. for services because they already have a problem and you’re not following up. That’s just 101 Marketing.
Another thing that you can look at is making sure those contact forms are actually being delivered. It’s one thing just to not respond to leads when they’re coming in or, or anything like that when it comes to these contact forms.
But sometimes the website just won’t send them to your inbox. So I recommend testing those contact forms on your website as much as you can possibly test them, fill it out yourself as a test, make sure it’s going into the right inboxes.
A lot of times there can be. update that needs to be done on your website that will prevent those emails from being delivered properly. Live chat is the same thing.
Make sure you’re testing it out quite often to make sure that these things work. It’s no different than making sure your phones work inside your office or your cell phone works. If your cell phone was dead, you would charge it and you probably tend to look at your battery life a little bit more than you look at your website.
All right, so make sure that you have a clickable phone number on your website, especially of the mobile version. You have an online contact form and, or a live chat feature.
Now, one last thing that you can look into on your Google business profile is making sure that you have messaging or quotes enabled inside your Google business profile. So to manage that you manage your Google business profile through the maps app on Google, go in there and there’s a toggle button for turning on messaging.
Now this is a really cool free feature that you can use where customers can message you directly right from your Google business profile. Check it out. So you’re even saving them another step from visiting your website and you’re allowing them to message you directly through your Google business profile.
Now remember, it’s not enough to capture the leads. You need to make sure that you’re following up on them. So try to build systems in place to make sure that you’re following up on these leads within 15 minutes.
All right. And so as we close out 2023, reflect on some of the things that we’ve spoke about, making sure you’re utilizing digital marketing channels that work for your business, including SEO, Google business profile and pay per click.
But make sure that you have systems in place in your business to be able to facilitate and capture those leads to be able to follow up and close more deals. Until next time. We’ll see you next year, everybody! Thanks for tuning in.
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Benjamin Ricciardi is the founder of Ironclad Restoration Marketing, A digital marketing agency that specializes in the Restoration and Cleaning industry based in South Florida. Benjamin is the author of The No Bulls**t Guide to Internet Marketing for Restoration Contractors and hosts The Restoration Rundown Podcast, a podcast that is focused on everything related to marketing and owning a Restoration and Cleaning Business. Connect with Benjamin and Ironclad Restoration Marketing on social media for the latest tips and tricks on how to grow your Restoration Business.