A functional website is basically a requirement for being relevant in online marketing. A Social presence by itself won’t give you the tools that you need to succeed online. It doesn’t have to be the world’s most expensive site to be effective, but it does have to exist.

Regular activity on your site is critical for gaining strong SEO. If you pre-program upgrades, updates, changes on a regular basis (weekly, monthly, no less frequent), then your SEO relevance stays strong. Make sure your metadata is keyword-rich and that your pages are all appropriately tagged when you add them.

People like stuff. They especially like stuff that helps them, relative to the reason they searched for – and found – you in the first place. And IF it is of value, they WILL sign up for it. This is how people amass lists.

Social Media allows a more fluid method of this (Like, Follow), but getting opt-ins for active outbound marketing is crucial. This should be done with every customer you have (segmented by type), plus vendors and others so you can ‘aim’ messages according to target type.

True marketers and highly successful businesses realize that the strength of a business and the strength of the list are the same. Grow yours accordingly.

Search engines are “looking” for keyword-rich information on your site, plus, prospects are looking for information relative to the keywords! A perfect match is for you to regularly add ‘Advisor Articles’ to your site, seasonally adjusted. Each article should have a link to email you or a ‘click to call’ feature as a means of instant contact. Article marketing is one of the simplest – and most powerful – methods to drive traffic.

Having a great website that receives no traffic, either organically or through paid advertising, is like building a beautiful new home and not having a driveway, street access or even a front door. If nobody can find your site, it is useless.

This is push marketing, and if you put it on a schedule, it makes it easier to automate your marketing. Otherwise, you just don’t do it. If your emails aren’t pre-done and targeted to specific lists, you’re wasting time and resources. Plus, as “unsubscribes” climb from non-strategic, erratic emails, your credibility and leads suffer. (Worse, you could be reported as a Spammer, making it difficult to get any emails delivered.) Far better to have a pre-determined set of emails, aimed at pre-determined targets, ready to send on schedule. Your marketing is a strategy, not a guess.

Auto responders keep your prospect or customer engaged in the buying process. It makes it hard for them to just disappear. These soft-sell follow-ups “advance” the sale and gently nudge toward response without pressuring (a failure of many online attempts). Plus, when you stay in contact, you instantly differentiate yourself. Contractors are more known for “give a quote or service and never hear from them again” than customer service efforts. Use auto responders to grow your list and boost your sales closes.

Ok, this sounds crazy. After all, who would be crazy enough to let you send your emails to their list? Well, it’s crazy enough that your competitors don’t do it, but perfectly sensible when you think it through.

Find a contractor in a non-competitive trade – if you’re in HVAC that could be a plumber, electrician or even someone like a florist – and offer to send his emails to your list if he’ll do the same for you.

Not only does this instantly widen your pool of prospects, the tacit ‘endorsement’ of you by that contractor is implied. And since his customers presumably trust him, the door is much more easily opened for your sales. This is like being introduced to hundreds or thousands of pre-approved buyers. How much would you pay to get an audience with that crowd? See, not crazy, just smart.

Social Media is a little harder to quantify. It’s like TOMA for the digital world – not designed to generate sales, but to increase your image and credibility. ROI for this should be measured in terms of time. Are you spending 3 hours a day on Social Media and only generating minimal followers or comments? Time to tweak your posts. We recommend no more than 30 minutes a day – otherwise you risk being sucked into the endless vortex of tweets, Facebook links and YouTube sensations.

Having a system greatly reduces your stress, and more importantly, the risk that you’ll make a digital misstep that can ruin your online reputation. Why?

Because one disgruntled customer now becomes the un-appointed spokesperson for your company, and it ain’t good. Do a Google search, and you’ll find contractors absolutely trashed and piled upon for minor offenses that got out of hand. Advice? Like a fire, stop it before it starts. If it does start, have a plan.

You must ask customers before leaving their home, “Was my service today good enough to give a positive review?” Additionally, have a form that invites them to call YOU first to correct any problem that exists. Make sure your CSR makes this same offer. The point is, once they say the service was good, or they choose not to contact you for a grievance, they’d have a hard time justifying going online to rip your reputation apart.