Your marketing strategy for 2015 — Part 2

Part 1 of my post focused on website optimization for mobile, SEO and conversion, content marketing, reputation management and Google maps optimization. Now we are going to tackle implementing a strategic Pay-Per-Click marketing campaign on Google AdWords and Bing Search Network.

Assuming you have a strong website with great content that is ranking and converting well, it’s important to implement a strategic Pay-Per-Click marketing strategy.  Running a pay-per-click marketing campaign in conjunction with a proactive SEO strategy gives you a few key benefits:

1. An opportunity to show up twice as customers are searching for what you do. With the right strategy you can show up both in the paid listings and organic non-paid listings. Studies have shown that this actually has a synergistic effect, meaning that rather than simply doubling your chances of getting clicks to your site it actually more than doubles the chance.
2. You can show up for words that you would not be able to rank for organically. Even with the best SEO strategy you won’t be able to rank for a keyword like “plumber” or “AC repair” because those searches don’t contain a geo modifier. With pay-per-click advertising you can set up your campaign to ensure that you rank for those broad searches to those who search from your service area (based on their IP address).

The key is to implement a “strategic” pay-per-click marketing campaign. There is a right way and a wrong way to run pay-per-click. The right way taps into the power of the Quality Score (relevance, click-through rate and landing page). If you set up your campaign correctly you will have a better Quality Score and as result be able to pay less per click while still maintaining top placement in the paid listings. 

To do this, simply spend a little more time breaking your campaign into Ad Groups. Rather than picking all of your keywords, writing one text ad and driving all of your traffic to your home page, you will want to group your keywords into logical groups and have a specific text ad and landing page for each.

For example: Emergency Plumbing, Drain Cleaning, and Water Heater Installation would all have their own Ad Group with a unique text ad and landing page.

Social media marketing

More and more your customers are using social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. As I talk with Plumbing & HVAC business owners many of them don’t see value in social media nor do they understand how to tap into social media to help grow their business.

To help explain the value of social media I like to ask a question. “What is your primary source of revenue today?” The obvious answer is “repeat and referral business.” I have found that social media has a tremendous ability to help you drive even more repeat and referral business.

• The average Facebook user has 135 friends.
• They check Facebook six to nine times per day.

If you can get your real customers to “Like” you on Facebook then you can gain access to their circle of 135 friends (their “Like” shows on their friends’ News Feed) and permission to remain top of mind with them. If you post consistent updates to your Facebook Page they will see your updates as they check in throughout the day.

The key is to make sure that you have set up the necessary social media profiles for your business (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube) and that you are posting updates on a consistent basis (ideally, at least once per day).

Email marketing

The lowest cost way to remain in contact with your customers is via email. You must start collecting your customers’ email addresses and using a system like Constant Contact or MailChimp to touch base with them at least once per month. I highly encourage you to leverage email marketing to send a monthly newsletter, in addition to much more:

• Send an email after every service call to request reviews. Earlier we talked about the importance of having online reviews from your real customers in your true service area.  What better way to get those reviews than to make sure an email goes out after every service call requesting a review and making it easy?
• Leverage email as a tool to get your customers to engage with you on social media. There is no reason you can't send an email a week after service, or two weeks after service that reads, "Hey, we're really active on social media. We've got a great following and we'd love to have you join our online community."  That's a great way to get your real customers to press the “Like” button and build your social media community.

If you implement the plan outlined in this article you will be well on your way to more calls, more leads and more profits from the Internet in 2015! If you would like to learn even more about how to market your Plumbing or HVAC business online via SEO, Google Maps, Social Media and other Internet marketing strategies, register for our upcoming webinar on how to Triple Your Sales By Getting Your Internet Marketing Right at www.plumberseo.net/webinar.

Josh Nelson is the author of the groundbreaking book Internet Marketing for Plumbing & HVAC Contractors – How to Triple Your Sales By Getting Your Internet Marketing Right. He is also the CEO of Plumber & HVAC SEO, which specializes in helping contractors across the United States increase their sales and revenue via effective online marketing. Learn more at www.plumberseo.net. Contact Josh Nelson at 866/493-9910 or [email protected].