Matt Michel
Writing press releases to promote your business
Getting your company mentioned in the local paper or on local news websites is one of the best ways to promote your business. Before you can submit a newsworthy item, you need to know how to write a press release....
Marketing techniques for finding the best employees
Even in a down economy, it seems plumbers continue to be plagued by a shortage of labor. This isn’t a labor problem. It’s a marketing problem. The proper application of marketing to the recruiting and hiring process will dramatically improve your results. Below is a list of marketing techniques you should apply to your recruiting process in order to find the best of the best employees. ...
Using Internet videos for marketing – Pt. 2
This is the second of two articles on using video to market your company. The first article published in the September issue of CONTRACTOR addressed video production. This article focuses on strategies to maximize your online viewership and use your videos to drive traffic to your website....
Using Internet videos for marketing
We live in a video world. People like to be presented information in a video format. Since search engine algorithms favor video, Internet videos draw eyeballs. Ultimately, this leads to more clicks, more top of mind awareness and more calls. ...
Plumbing marketing myths – Part 2
Last month, I reviewed 10 marketing myths that plumbers often fall victim to. Since you know what these myths are now, hopefully you will stay clear of them. My column this month reviews 10 more false beliefs that can cost your business. ...
Do you believe in plumbing marketing myths?
Below are some of the marketing myths that seem to infect our industry. Are you guilty of believing in any of the following?...
Generate a flood of add-on sales
A plumber’s greatest cost on a service call is showing up. The expense is marketing to attract the customer and positioning a fully stocked vehicle with a trade professional at the customer’s door. Thus, anything you can do to generate higher revenue on a service call dramatically boosts profitability. Boosting add-on sales should be a focus of every plumbing company....
Magnetic marketing: make your magnet stand out
It is one of the most fundamental marketing tools for plumbing contractors and nearly all plumbers use them, yet few plumbers use them well. It is the refrigerator magnet....
Simple ideas to jump start your marketing
Could your marketing use a boost? Here's a few quick ideas to jump start your marketing....
Customer retention starts in the field
Most contractors are surprised how often field service employees destroy relationships. Most field service employees are surprised how easy it is to damage the service company/consumer relationship....
Marketing plan musts for 2011
Everyone wants 2011 to be better than last year, but only a few plumbers will take active steps to ensure improvement and prepare a marketing plan. If you haven't already created a marketing plan for 2011, here's what you can do now to ensure improvement this year. ...
Utilize a marketing mix to recruit employees
The best talent is not found among those looking for work, but those already gainfully employed. The challenge for the business owner is to recruit them. This is a marketing problem....
The millionaire plumber next door
While the recession has been hard on many small business owners, plumbers should fare better than most. No consumer can live with a broken pipe and most can’t fix it themselves. While service and repair work might suffer in a downturn, it never disappears. Thus, plumbers, by and large, should sleep better than the average investor....
Google Places is changing the game
It can be hard to keep up with all the Internet has to offer, especially when using the Internet as a business and marketing tool, which is why I decided to make this month's marketing column about Google Places...
How to hold an Oldest Water Heater contest
In the early 1990s, I created an Oldest Furnace contest as a home show promotion, generating more than 400 leads the first time it was run. The contest has since been applied to water heaters and other appliances, and has even been run as a standalone contest, not part of a home show. You can run an Oldest Water Heater contest for your business too. ...
'Gentlemen, this is a pipe wrench'
At the start of each season, legendary football coach Vince Lombardi would call a team meeting, hold up a football and declare, "Gentlemen, this is a football." Lombardi focused on the fundamentals, on blocking and tackling. So should you....
Expanding your circle of influence
If you lived in Lewisville, Texas, a Dallas suburb of 100,000 people, and I could show you how an hour a week could help you get to know the mayor, police chief, county commissioner, the presidents of four local banks, a candidate for U.S. Senate, the owner of the town’s leading property management company, one of the area’s top developers, general managers from two auto dealerships and a host of other business and community leaders would you invest an hour?...
Ten simple steps to becoming greener
It's amazing how many articles fill the trade press about "green" plumbing. Most plumbers are aware of the growing consumer awareness about the environmental impact of the choices they make in lifestyle and purchases. Yet, many are uncertain exactly what being "green" really means....
Business card marketing
One of the simplest and lowest cost forms of marketing can be surprisingly effective. It’s the business card. It’s amazing how many companies underutilize business cards. ...
Tips to improve your direct mail results
With a gazillion cable channels and the ability to record and fast forward through the ads, satellite radio and personal music players, the increasing...
Keep customers out of the Yellow Pages
Whatever your opinion is on the Yellow Pages as a way to get new customers, you probably want to keep existing customers away from the Yellow Pages and all of your competitors' ads. Here's eight simple ways to keep them out of the Yellow Pages. ...
How to improve your mobile marketing
In cities across the nation, companies are putting trucks on the road to advertise. Mobile advertising, a new form of advertising, is actually a tried...
Put power in your direct mail campaigns
Face it. Most contractors need help in the marketing arena. At one extreme, do-it-yourself direct marketers make amateurish attempts that cause homeowners...
How to embrace an advertising media mix
A few years ago, a big Yellow Pages ad was sufficient to generate a base level of call volume large enough to support a plumbing company my how the world...
Observations about the art of service
It is sometimes easy to forget how important service is to the customer especially since businesses are so consumed with the bottom line and what they...
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