From the Yellow Chair
From the Yellow Chair
Marketing Gut Check: Tracking, Strategy, and the Truth Behind the Data
Tired of guessing whether your marketing dollars are working? You're not alone. This eye-opening episode tackles the critical but often overlooked aspect of contractor marketing: proper tracking and measurement.
Most contractors struggle to connect their marketing efforts to actual results. Without reliable tracking systems, we're left making gut decisions that may feel right but lack the data to support them. I break down why tracking matters, how to implement it effectively, and why those fears about tracking numbers looking "non-local" are largely outdated in today's digital world.
Each marketing tactic serves a specific purpose in your customer's journey. Billboards build awareness rather than drive immediate calls. Direct mail performs differently in established markets versus new territories. Google search attribution reveals gaps in your retention strategy. Understanding these nuances helps set proper expectations for each marketing channel and allows you to measure true performance.
The episode explores common tracking pitfalls, including the infamous "I found you on Google" response that tells you nothing useful, overvaluing social media vanity metrics, abandoning tactics prematurely, and making reactive changes without considering seasonality. With practical advice on implementation and proper attribution, you'll gain clarity on which marketing efforts deliver real value for your contracting business.
Ready to transform marketing from a mysterious black box into a data-driven growth engine? Implement proper tracking today and start making decisions based on facts rather than feelings. Your marketing budget—and your bottom line—will thank you.
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From the Yellow Chair is powered by Lemon Seed, a marketing strategy and branding company for the trades. Lemon Seed specializes in rebrands, creating unique, comprehensive, organized marketing plans, social media, and graphic design. Learn more at www.LemonSeedMarketing.com
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What's up, lemonheads? Welcome to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I am Crystal and today we are talking about tracking. And listen, you guys aren't good at it, right? So we are not great at tracking our actual marketing to see what is working, how it's working, if it's good for new customer acquisition or for existing customer, we don't know. So we just keep making guesses, and this is a big challenge for contractors. This has become a really big issue where we want to lead by our gut and guts are great, right. So going by your gut is a lot of times, especially if you're a marketer, you're like Okay, I just feel like this will be good, which I'm here for. I'm here for that, like my gut's telling me. But you have to make data-driven decisions, and data-driven decisions you can always toss in a little emotional to it. But, guys, I just implore you, let's talk about tracking today, the importance of it and how the heck to do it. So grab your lemonade, settle down, let's sip some lemonade today, all right? So I have to kind of get into this.
Speaker 1:Like, why should I even track Crystal? Like, what if people don't like the tracking numbers? What if people start paying attention? So I need to tell you. So if you don't like your toes stepped on, you might want to scrunch them up. We are not that important now Used to in the phone book. People would be like, well, I'm not calling them, that's a long distance number. Or I'm not calling them, that's not a.
Speaker 1:I'll never forget when I was growing up we went from a 409 area code to a 936 area code and everybody was like, oh my gosh, well, they're not in a 409, they're a 936. And how are we that? You know, right. But growing up I knew what my grandparents phone number was, what my mom's phone number was, what my own. Listen, you want to call me at home? I got a phone in my room as a teenager 829-2070. 2070. That's my phone number when I was in high school. So I'm telling you we knew it, but now it's just not the same. We don't have to know phone numbers.
Speaker 1:So when you worry about tracking numbers showing up on your direct mail, on your website, people are not paying attention to that anymore. They're really not. There might be the outliers that are like, well, I didn't call you because you look like you weren't local. Maybe so, and I don't totally disagree with you, but I'm telling you that, in the grand scheme of things and overall, that is such an outlier that we don't have to necessarily think not do tracking because of the five people that might not call us, because our phone number doesn't look exactly local on a paid ads campaign, right, so you kind of see my dilemma there, right, so you can't get caught up in that.
Speaker 1:But also, like we can't fix what we don't measure. So if we're not measuring expectations, meaning so if I'm going to launch a billboard campaign, will a tracking number work on that? No, no, don't let people tell you that you need to put your phone number on there. No one is going 70 miles an hour around a loop or down a major interstate and like pulling out, veering over to the side of the road screeching their brakes to call your company. That is not what a billboard is intended to do. That should not be your expectation of the billboard. So, unless maybe I might would give you a hall pass if you had a vanity number, like you know, call 1-800-COOL-ME today. Okay, maybe, maybe I would at least listen to that, but I'm not listening to you wanting to put we take Visa, mastercard, american Express and your phone number on there.
Speaker 1:I can't do it because it's just not a best practice, but a PPC campaign, google local service campaigns, your website, direct mail there's lots of other places that we can put tracking numbers to actually be seen, along with other tracking things that you can attach to there. So utilizing your digital provider to say, hey, I want some unique tracking metrics put on here so I can see what's going on when. Listen guys, listen, you want to know where leads come from in as particular and as granular as possible. So used to, back in the day, we were excited just to know that they called us from the phone book. Right Now, you actually can say this, especially utilizing lots of these customer journey tools like Searchlight. Let me see loves a good partnership. With Searchlight, you can actually connect ways all the way around to see the point of acquisition of the customer and then where else they travel to, down to what number they actually called, and so you can't track things and you can't fix things that you can't measure. So I just implore you to start implementing tracking numbers to really help you know where things are.
Speaker 1:And then what should be tracked, like not everything. We mentioned that not everything should be tracked. Some things need to be tracked in a different way, and so when I say tracked, I mean one-to-one correspondence, meaning I spent $5, I made $500, right. So you have to get your mind around expectations of each individual tactic. That's why Limit Seed has this three-brand, these three-bucket framework that we utilize to actually categorize your marketing spend for you, so that you understand, like why did I do an SEO package? What is the intended result? Why am I doing direct mail? What is the intended result? And direct mail is a really good example of this.
Speaker 1:You might be using a direct mail campaign to specifically call for the service $89 tune-up. Or you might be doing it to infiltrate into a new market. So, hey, columbus, ohio, now serving your area, we'd love to call you. So your expectations on performance are different. So if you're using direct mail it's the first time they've ever heard of you but you're going into the market, your expectation has to be you are using that to build brand awareness, not that you are using direct mail it's the first time they've ever heard of you, but you're going into the market. Your expectation has to be you are using that to build brand awareness, not that you are using it for a direct call to action. So, yes, we want people to be like oh my gosh, I'm so glad you're here, let me utilize this coupon, but I personally think that that's going to have a lower performance than if you'd send a direct mail campaign out to people that already know you. Direct mail performs much better with a well-branded market, so if your market's already known you so pro tip those of you that have been in business like 15, 20 years as the same name company.
Speaker 1:If you're not doing direct mail, you're missing the boat. You've been working too long to not be doing direct mail, so I just want to remind you of those little things. Seo is another one. You want to know what search brought them there and then how you showed up and then what they actually called. So people get real bent out of shape. They'll say well, I know that this client called from Google Local Service Ads, but I serviced them last summer and so I don't want to give Google Local Service Ads the credit. And I'm like, why not? Why not? So not only.
Speaker 1:First of all, you have two red flags there. Number one they went out like free agent, okay into the land of Google and said who's an AC repairman near me? And you just happened to show up and they happened to remember you. You want it the opposite way, right, we want to be doing such good branding that they don't go out and say, ac repair near me. You want them to search your name specifically. Or now ask Siri, google, whoever, alexa, whoever's owning their home, hey, call Burnside Heating and Air Conditioning, call Innovative Air. Right, you want them to start speaking your name, not call more generic, because you're going to get lost in the shuffle sometimes, and so if that person calls you from Google Local Service ads, it's a blessing, right, it's not.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm reclaiming that. I don't know what you're reclaiming. They didn't know you, they didn't remember you. For some reason. They went free agent out there searching for the service, and so Google Local Service ads don't populate when people put in a particular company, so it isn't like they put your name in and Google local service said you know what I'm going to do? Let me throw an ad at them. It's not what happens. So you have to kind of get your brain wrapped around how things work so that you can actually know what's working and what happened. So you had a hole there, right, you had something was going on that they still chose your company, but it was from a random search, not necessarily from a branded search, right? So don't reuse your tracking numbers across multiple platforms either.
Speaker 1:So I say I won't talk out of both sides of my mouth, but those of you that know me know that's pretty traditional um. So, for example, I'm a big fan like we run a maintenance tune-up postcard all year long, constantly, and at the end of the day we want to know did this direct mail perform all year long? So if I want to see did it perform during a particular month, I'll just change my time that I'm looking at it to be that time. But overall that is my campaign all year long. So I just use the same tracking number. So I know that that was our 4 by six postcard for $89 tune-up. So I run that. It works fine. And then I look at it overall every year, basically, or monthly, quarterly, but I don't have to give it a different one. Now if I go launch a large direct mail piece it's got a bunch of coupons on it I'll give it its own tracking number. But if I'm running a four by six postcard all year long, I'm just mailing it out at different times and different, I will use the same tracking number. That's just me. My emails, my newsletter has its own tracking number inside of emails, but if I'm sending one off emails, I might would use my own tracking number or its own tracking number, for sure. And then again tracking number, or its own tracking number, for sure.
Speaker 1:And then again, like make sure that your CSRs understand the importance of true tracking, that they're not getting down in the weeds so much that they're moving that point of acquisition. So do not mess with how customers are calling your business. That needs to remain in. That needs to remain true and intact. You want to give yourself a whole little space to write down that. They said they saw your vans. Please do it. But at the end of the day they called off of the postcard. So you can't sit back and monday morning quarterback well, they saw all these things. So I don't want to just give credit to the postcard. We'll start the postcards. What made them call? But we want to understand the full journey because, again I'm on this, two plus two equals five kick.
Speaker 1:Individually things may not appear to be working, but as a complete customer journey with your company, I think a lot of things work that don't get the recognition they deserve. So we can't. Here's the common pitfalls. I'm going to jump through this pretty quick. There's four common pitfalls. Right, assuming that all your leads come from Google, because you ask and they said I saw you on Google. They probably did, but they went and searched you or did something with you. So you know, we just want to make sure that we are paying attention to you. Know, google is so broad that doesn't help us make any decisions. We need a much more dedicated understanding of where the lead came from.
Speaker 1:And then overvaluing vanity metrics and undervaluing conversions. So, oh my gosh, look especially on like social media. Look at all these likes and things. That's great. Lurking is a big thing on social media, right. So lurkers, social media is really hard to track one-to-one unless someone says hey, I saw this video about your water quality treatment, I want that. Right, that's great. That's one to one correspondence Book. That thing is Facebook. Right. But just don't get overly proud of yourself when you're not seeing a lot coming from social media unless you have a different intent. So Facebook ad with a coupon offer off of water filtration should have one-to-one correspondence, right? This ad was shown this many times, this many people reached out, but basic like chocolate donut day, chocolate donut eating contest, that's not gonna, you're not gonna be able to be like dang I sold a system off of that very easily. Every once in a while you'll get a lot of information, but not very easily.
Speaker 1:And then failing to give tactics. Number three failing to give tactics time to work and actually measuring them from the get-go. Please don't commit to anything that you're not willing to give at least six weeks to at least At least three to four drops on direct mail. At least a couple of months on Facebook ads. Right with with the right amount of money. Some of y'all are so quick to jump ship that you can't even you're not even in the same ship. You keep your ship keeps capsizing. So I encourage you to do that.
Speaker 1:And then not looking at seasonality and volume and lead quality and just changing everything quickly because you feel like it right. So using data to make decisions is where it's at. So when you're in there, you need to be saying, okay, am I getting 10 times the return on ad spend? Am I getting five times the return on ad spend? Where am I getting my return on ad spend? What tactic is generating new customer acquisition. What tactic are my existing customers responding to? How are people converting from my emails? Are they clicking over and making any contact with the company? What is working?
Speaker 1:Get deep in the weeds on what is working, why it's working, and just want to check on all the different.
Speaker 1:You want to check on all the different ways that people can do business with you, and so marketing doesn't have to feel like a mystery. Actually, when you have the right tools and the right expectations in place, you actually can make data-driven decisions that are healthy. They don't overwhelm you. And so, if you've been guessing whether or not your marketing is working, if you're a limited client, work with your marketing coordinator to really make sure that all those done, that you've told us all the things and that we have connected all the things. But also, if you're trying to do this on your own, make sure that you are putting some tracking, something, the bare minimum of asking people where they heard from you on your pieces, so that you can pivot and grow and juice up things that you need to. So, all right, guys. Well, thanks for listening for this little short episode today about tracking. I hope you dig in, learn a lot about your company and I will catch you next time.