From the Yellow Chair
From the Yellow Chair
Marketing that Clicks- and It’s Not Just Digital Ads
Throw away the notion that digital marketing alone can build your home service business. In this eye-opening conversation, Lemon Seed Marketing founders Emily and Crystal reveal why so many contractors struggle with marketing that actually works—and how to fix it.
The key lies in their signature three-bucket framework: be memorable (building your brand), be discoverable (generating leads through call-to-action marketing), and foster your existing customer database. This strategic approach creates balance and sustainable growth instead of the constant feast-or-famine cycle most contractors experience.
"You can't outspend a bad brand," Crystal explains, highlighting how many companies throw money at digital marketing while neglecting the foundation that would make those ads perform better. The discussion offers practical insights on diversifying marketing investments across brand-building activities (truck wraps, billboards, radio), lead generation tactics (Google Local Service Ads, direct mail), and customer retention strategies (segmented email marketing, genuine community involvement).
The hosts share real-world examples of marketing that clicks, like creating memorable community event experiences, developing strategic email nurture campaigns that don't annoy customers, and setting proper expectations for each marketing tactic. Their engaging, no-nonsense style cuts through industry jargon to deliver actionable advice for contractors ready to build legacy brands.
Whether you're struggling to generate consistent leads or looking to take your established company to the next level, this conversation provides the framework to transform your marketing approach. Ready to make marketing that clicks for your business? Visit lemonseedmarketing.com/contact to schedule a discovery call today.
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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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We'll see you next time, Lemon Heads!
All right, what's up, lemonheads? Welcome back to another episode of From the Yellow Chair, the podcast where we sip on bold ideas and serve up zesty marketing conversations. Today, we're doing something a little different. This episode is a special replay of a live webinar we hosted back in June called Marketing that Clicks, and it's not just digital ads. It was such a hit that we knew we had to make its way on this podcast, and you might notice there is a new voice on the yellow chair today. Hi there, I am Rachel Derez. I am a graphic designer here at Living Seed Marketing and I am thrilled to be joining the podcast today for the first time. It's an honor to hop behind the mic and bring this insightful conversation to you in podcast form. So grab your coffee or your lemonade and let's dive into some practical marketing strategies that go way beyond just running ads. Let's sip some lemonade.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello, welcome everyone. Thank you for joining us to Marketing that Clicks. And guess what? It's not just digital ads. So I'm Emily and this is my business partner, crystal. We are the owners of Lemon Seed Marketing and Lemon Seed is designed to be a strategic marketing agency and your branding agency for the home service industry. So Lemon Seed we work with HVAC contractors, plumbers, electricians, roofers, pest control all across the country. We help you develop out strategic marketing offers, develop your budget for what to spend on marketing and then look at it every single month.
Speaker 2:Here's what we're doing. How are we going to pivot? How are we going to change, ramp things up, come up with all the creative offers, and so we want to just dive into that a little bit today. Kind of give you our formula and our game plan of how to have a comprehensive marketing plan that just clicks and you know what. What we like to call that? We like to call that lemonade. When all that magic happens, that's when the lemonade happens. So, crystal, tell us a little bit about what we're going to be talking about today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. I think one of the biggest things we're going to be talking about today, emily, is this digital myth so the myth that, oh, my website company and my digital ads are my marketing plan and, guys, it is totally not true. They're definitely a key component of your marketing plan, but that cannot be your only marketing strategy. We really want to make sure that we talk today about how you can diversify your ad dollars to build a legacy brand, know what types of marketing you should be doing and how they all together make your digital piece perform so much better 100%.
Speaker 2:So let's dive in or sip some lemonade, as we like to say. So at Lemon Seed we said you know, to build a legacy brand is going to take three things consistency, clarity and connection. So those three C's If you like C's, you like acronyms, you like a common denominator, the C's are it? So consistency, clarity and connection. And then another way of how we kind of break that down and how each of those fall into a bucket is Lemon Seeds three bucket approach. We say you've got to be memorable, you've got to be discoverable and you've got to be fosterable. You've got to be fostering your existing customer database.
Speaker 2:So the first one in there is our memorable bucket. So that's where we're talking about building a brand. What can you do to be disruptive, to stand out, to be remembered? Because chances are, if someone doesn't need you right now like if I don't need a plumber right now, I just don't need one I'm not calling you for fun, okay, that's not fun money to spend. So I'm building my brand being out there, being present, so that people can remember me, so that I can be disrupted from all the noise of everything else out there. And so it takes great intentionality to be memorable and it takes a little risk taking too.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely, and you know we created this little signature framework so that you could set clear expectations for how things should work Right. So we know contractors you know I'm from the industry, emily's worked in this industry for a long time we know that contractors can be very overwhelmed with all the decisions like what should I do, how should I do it, who should I do it with how much money? All these different ideas. And so we're going to talk a lot about that brand bucket, because setting the expectations that branding takes time.
Speaker 3:Branding takes consistency, like Emily mentioned. It takes clarity on who you are as the brand and the connection. But I really think that understanding how am I going to, as the contractor, know what's working and what's not, and how you can't really outspend a bad brand, which is ugly. But when we do good brand building, what we're doing is we're setting ourself up for a long-term success and a consistent flow of new customers and we just are a good place to work, we're a good place to do business with and it's just an overall healthier way to go. But man, building that brand is so important. But, emily, I know that we talk about this a lot, but like what?
Speaker 2:are some of the things that contractors, what does it mean to build a brand in your mind? Well, I mean to me there has to be a story Like what story are we telling with our visual representation, with the advertisements that we're putting out into the world? Are we telling a story that, like, we are super experienced, we are top notch, we have the best service around? Are we putting out the story that, like, hey, we're a chuck in the truck, like we operate the old fashioned way? I'm probably going to hand you a paper invoice here at the end for you to sign off and tear off that carbon copy for you? Or like, hey, I have modern day technology, we're providing you the most energy efficient technology with the equipment that we're going to install and we're going to make.
Speaker 2:This terrible situation of your AC is smoking and broken. I'm going to turn this terrible day into a good day. I can start to make those inferences by your visual representation, by what your truck looks like, by what your technician walks up, how they knock on the door. I can already start to make those inferences about the experience that I'm about to have by working with your company. And so what the hard part is, I think, for a lot of contractors is like it's not super measurable. Okay, it's not an exact way of. Okay, I got my brands or my vans wrapped completely. The color is very bold and dominant. I immediately installed 100 new systems and my ROI is X number increased.
Speaker 2:You can't really measure it that way. Or when we're just trying to make ourselves more known and out there and we're doing lots of mass media tactics. I'm going to own radio so that I'm on a very good flight schedule. I'm going to own billboards and I'm going to lay across my entire demographic. I'm not just kind of one and one crappy little area on the left-hand side. I'm going to own this, but that's the heart. That's not super measurable. But we have to understand that our expectations of that are not for a call to action, it's so that we can be remembered, be known. And when we have a clean visualization of that, a clean message, consistent colors, consistent typography, the fonts that you use, things like that, I'm able to further maximize that and build into it. But I think contractors have the hardest time with investing money into this memorable bucket, if you will, because it's not directly measurable all the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so one big thing that people forget about is when you go to spend money on marketing tactics, you can't sprinkle a little bit of money a lot of places. It just doesn't allow you to diversify it enough to make enough of a difference. So you're basically just throwing money in the wind and it's terrible. But especially on branding like Emily just made a really good point If you want to own radio, you really probably don't have a ton of money to go do a bunch of billboards and a bunch of radio. Like in a bunch of all these other things, you have to really say, okay, you know what I'm going to do here, I'm going to layer things on and you really have to be strong in understanding that most branding tactics are building just straight up brand awareness so that when people have a problem they think of you first and they don't just go out there to the wild wild west and say, hey, who's the AC repair guy near me, who's a plumber near me? But they actually go.
Speaker 3:Okay, I want the phone number to you. Know, aldon Heating and Cooling, I want that phone number, I mean. So it really can be tricky to convince yourself to keep writing those checks, but it's just knowing that that's where your dollars are. That's what your dollars are designed to do is continue to build that brand awareness and you should see growth on the organic side of people searching your name specifically. That is how you measure it, the best you can.
Speaker 2:Sure, you know. So as people get to know you more, as they've experienced your brand more they've seen your billboards, they've heard your radio ads, they've seen your disruptive truck driving around that's when that organic search, like you just said, should start to go up. So instead of people searching AC repair near me, ac repair Lufkin, texas, they are searching Parker and son heating and cooling. They're searching um Mackie park heating and cooling. You know, whatever that might, they start to do that direct search because they already know you, even if they haven't used you before, they have some type of expectation working with you. I see you guys everywhere. So, like you guys must be good. And then maybe they start to start to get some more layered pieces of you service their neighbor. And then you went and hung a door hanger on their doorknob. You know it's like hey, we were in the neighborhood, here's $50 off. Where you hang up a little sandwich sign. Those are all multiple touch points that we've got to be laying in there to be memorable, memorable, memorable, remembered. But it takes numerous touch points. It cannot be a one and done. Nothing in marketing is a one and done. I did that, check, set it and forget it. That'll never work. So it takes this consistency, that frequency, to make it happen.
Speaker 2:But I will say one point, like from just a pure design aspect, because when we start talking about branding, I think a lot of people do think about what their actual logo and what their truck looks like.
Speaker 2:Where we know the brand is so much more than that. But when you have something that is super polished, it looks professional, it has bold colors that no one else is using, that will start to compound upon itself. When you use it on billboards, direct mail, yard signs, whatever that might be. When you can compound that, it's already a unique enough look. That's where you really start to get some traction. If you're going to be doing anything audio, like traditional radio or digital radio, things like that, when you have a jingle that kind of complements the look of yours and is singing jingles are a fantastic way to kind of brand that space beyond just saying, hey, we've got a financing offer happening right now. So, again, building that memorable aspect is going to be super important because it's your foundation and when you have that then it makes all these other buckets that we're about to talk about perform so much better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. I want to look at one comment that Joe made. Joe built a fantastic company and I'm sure he's ready to build some more. But one of the things he said here is you have to track total calls, not just campaign time. So I have to say this I say Emily and I both have done presentations on two plus two equals five, and the reason that we say that is because really, it's the sum of all the things that you're doing that make it a fantastic and robust advertising marketing plan using advertising tactics. And so there is a difference between marketing and advertising. Marketing is the sum of all the things you're doing to build your company advertising tactics, community involvement, how you treat your employees. That's your marketing plan.
Speaker 3:Okay, so to Joe's point here tracking is so relative. So this is why I hope there's no PE groups on here and if there are, just close your ears for a minute. But this is why PE groups are in on the struggle bus, because everything is dollar for dollar, dollar for dollar, dollar for dollar, which I'm here for, and I really get it. But there has to be some semblance. You have to stop for a minute and go. Okay, I need to pack it to look at the whole package. Is my marketing budget overall generating new customer acquisition? Are my existing customers staying engaged? Am I growing in revenue month over month over month? Right, so that's very important. So, again, you want as much visibility as you can through things like Searchlight and through having good call tracking numbers set up, either through Call rail or service tight and things like that, but remembering that you have to look at your holistic marketing plan to put all those things together, because it's the sum of all of them, not them individually, that will definitely grow your company.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like losing weight. I started drinking more water and I lost a bunch of weight. But like when I drink more water plus get better sleep, plus exercise, plus eat clean, like the sum of all those parts is when, like, literally, pounds start falling off, not just piecemealing and picking and choosing. When I want to do some of these efforts and I think that's what a lot of people do with their marketing plans I would just say so yeah, when you look comprehensively at it, I've done all these seemingly like little things, but those little things add up into making a big snowball to really gain some traction there. And then I see Inc has a great question as well too, like where? What tools are there to determine what your demographic is and how are they concentrating? Where should you focus advertising dollars or focus your efforts? Great question, do you want to take that one, Crystal?
Speaker 3:Yeah, andrea gave a good answer there about using your ideal avatar. So you know Women's Seed. Right now we are building avatars for all of our clients, and those avatars are built as basically the ideal person for your specific company in your market, with your services and your brand in mind, and how you should be focusing on those particular people. I did a podcast episode this morning where I really focused on helping people understand that you cannot talk to everyone, because when you do that, you're really talking to no one, and so the importance of that. So the answer here that I think is the best is, you know, just like Andrea said, using research and data aggregators to find out your target demographic. And then, once you know that demographic, you then can say, okay, where which of these advertising tactics are reaching this particular audience.
Speaker 3:And so radio, for example. Traditional radio where I live, where Emily lives, still works fantastic, but if I was in the middle of Dallas and my radio, traditional radio might reach way too far for my service area. Or if I'm trying to buy sports radio, well, my listener is not. Even my ideal avatar doesn't listen to sports radio, she listens to country music or whatever country music or whatever. And so it's really understanding that person first, and then naturally those tactics will kind of rise to the top, yeah, so foundational piece.
Speaker 2:And why you have to have intentionality to being memorable is because it will help this next bucket, the kind of call to action bucket. How are you discoverable If people need when they have that time of need service for you? Like my AC is smoking and broken, I need someone now. How are people going to discover you? How are they going to find you to give you a call? What is that call to action piece? So that's kind of the next book that we have to give some intentionality to. So when we're saying that that's lots of things like digital paid ads, okay, that's a great call to action piece. You know it can be.
Speaker 2:Direct mail can sometimes be a discoverable tactic in some different manners, but you have to have things out there. You got to fill your well before it's dry. You got to have SEO tactics, you've got to have some of these things running and they've had some time to marinate and to gain some traction. Not like, oh my gosh, I need calls right now, let me, let me decide to launch a campaign right now. Too little, too late, ok, but yeah, when you have that solid, brandable, memorable foundation, it helps these call to action pieces perform so much better because they feel like they've already experienced you. It takes them a few times to kind of click around sometimes until they feel comfortable to actually make that phone call, to give them a call, to give a company a call when they search for heating and cooling near me. But if they've seen your bill before, they've seen a direct mail piece, they've seen a yard sign that helps speed up the process.
Speaker 3:They stop their search there if they've already experienced you. Yes, yes, so dig your well before you're thirsty is a great thought. There Again, I like to jump back to pretty much what Emily's saying here too. Just to reiterate it is expectations. So call to action, it's it's the riskiest. To me it's the riskiest. It's the most expensive place to be. Everybody has a silver bullet for you, Everybody has a solution for what you're peddling, and so it is to me. It is one of the most complicated places to be because people want it to be their silver bullet.
Speaker 3:And the call to action side is to me, if I see underperforming calls to action, so Google local service ads, PPC ads, geofencing, geotargeting, retargeting, direct mail, all those types of things that are asking for the business If I see that they're low, performing odds are, the brand is not great either. So really all roads lead back to a pretty sour brand if you will. But you have to again set those expectations. If I'm going to spend $6,000 a month on PPC or $15,000 or $50,000 a month on pay-per-click, I need to have expectations of what my return is. And then I need to dig deeper than just how many calls that I get. Team do what they were supposed to do, so did I book everything that I could book and then when I got out there was I hitting average tickets or above average ticket.
Speaker 3:So not always is it a tactic problem. Probably 50% of the time it could be an operational problem. I tell this story sometimes we had a client that was like this pay-per-click campaign is not working for me, and I was like man, pay-per-click is so like, it just is like a necessary evil in some markets. And so I'm like, well, let me go look. So you got like 13 leads Again, nothing to write home to mama about, but 13 leads and you only booked four of them.
Speaker 3:So was the problem? The leads? Were the leads not good, or your CSRs not good, and that just iterates itself over and over and over again. So, but you have to spend more money in that call to action bucket if your brand is not on par already. So I want people that are just looking for my phone number, right, the internet. I just want it to be like the new phone book Just be looking for my phone number. I don't want them to be researching all their options, Right? So I want to build a brand, but in that call to action bucket. Many of you have all of your eggs in a PPC bucket or you're fighting against Google local service ads when, to me, it is the cleanest call to action tactic that you could be running right now. Like I don't know why anyone does not have Google local services set up, it is, it's, it's mind blowing to me.
Speaker 2:Well, let's talk a little bit about what Google local service ads are. Because, you know, I was talking with a client yesterday and he's very new to the digital space and he's like, you know, I think I think we got something on that Google and kind of turns out that he was talking about his Google business profile and he's like, yeah, we got that. I was like, okay, but we're talking about Google local service ads, GLSA, and so those are guaranteed leads, like when they actually call you is when you get charged for that, for that lead. It's not PPC, where it's just click, click, click, clackety clack, as Crystal likes to say, because we all know no one's ever made payroll off of clicks and impressions. Okay, we need absolutely that we can do the jobs on. So GLSA is a different way of showing and displaying the ad. You give it a budget and then Google kind of sifts through the people that are there in their location, most closest to the searcher. That's doing that. But it's a great way to not have wasted spend and wasted money.
Speaker 2:Guaranteed leads, but and this can almost go a twofold you have to have ways that one, you can track your marketing efforts. So tracking is another key piece to this. But then two, communication to your team. So like how you were saying, crystal, like a lot of times it's an operational problem, like, hey, we had 13 phone calls come in here but you only booked four of them, like there was nine missed opportunities. So like, did you communicate to your team, but like, by goodness, you better book those calls when it comes through. On this tracking phone number that says from this direct mail piece or from this GLSA, like we paid money for that one, that one didn't just happen to fall in our lap. So like we best booked that call. It takes that communication, but then it also takes that effort of tracking it to know where it originated, from, where the source was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and point of acquisition, right, point of acquisition. So I know, as a marketer, really what my bosses want to know is where did the majority of our leads come from, and were they good leads, were they solid leads? And so heck, I want to look good, right, like marketers, we want to look good, we want our clients to be successful, we want our companies to be successful. So we have to look at this like. I want to know what is bringing in more leads and how can I, how can I give more to it? The funny thing is I still have a lot of clients who will say that, glsa, I want to ramp that up and I'm like we all do, sir, like we all do, and so I will say that a lot of times you would want to make sure. Like Google local service ads I'm going to answer Andrea's question. It's in the chat right there.
Speaker 3:Google local service ads means that someone sitting in their home or at their office went to the Internet and to their search and said AC services near me. They didn't search your name, they didn't even barely search the company with a penguin. They literally said hey, everybody that has an eating and air conditioning company, come at me what y'all got? Come at me, thanks, conditioning company. Come at me what y'all got. Come at me, yeah, now, thankfully, google Local Services. You had money set up. It popped up and the company was like oh, I think I've heard those guys, let me click on them.
Speaker 3:So when you, when someone calls your company from Google Local Service Ads and they did business with you in 1996 and you gave them one pound of refrigerant, they are not your existing customer. If they haven't done business with you in the last 18 to 24 months would mean they're not on your membership program, they haven't done a tune-up. That would mean they were not your customer, they were a new client. You acquired them again, okay, but you had to reacquire them because you did not win them over, nor did you keep them engaged enough for them to only think of you. So that is why, again, I go back to diversification. So, hopefully, what happened is when they saw your name pop up, they were like, oh yeah, I've used them before, right, but remember they?
Speaker 3:you weren't memorable enough for them to remember your name, or they would have you, yes, and so to me, what should be a red flag is, if I'm constantly reclassifying GLSA leads as existing customer, that should be a red flag to marketers. Like, something's not right here with like, I can't keep claiming these people because really, what drove them back to me, what made them pick me, was Google Local Services, Because if I didn't have money in that tactic, someone else would have picked them up. So you really need to know, have good expectations on those types of ad spend. Now, PPC is wild wild west, Clickety-clack, like Emily said, that's just whoever wants to click around in there. I just feel like it's a gang fight. So the other call to action that I love is direct mail, and people are like I don't know when I should start direct mail. Well, again, there's no secret sauce that works for everyone.
Speaker 3:But I have two philosophies on direct mail. Number one if you don't have a solid brand, don't waste your time on direct mail. Okay. So, like, if you are the same red and blue and you've got, like you know, comfort no, I'm just kidding, Everybody has a comfort in their name. But, um, you know, if you've got like um crystals, heating and air conditioning and it's got a snowflake in a raindrop and I've not done any mass media and I'm going to send out one mail drop and be like direct mail sucks Right.
Speaker 3:So what shall happen is that direct mail will not perform for you because you did not set it up for success. It has to be like it has to marinate for a minute. So if you have a strong brand so when I talk to companies that are 15 years old and have had a solid brand and done a really good job of wrapping bands and doing social media, I'm like you have a low hanging fruit for direct mail OK. But those of you that have been in business two years, you had one logo. You changed it. You just now are wrapping trucks Don't do direct mail.
Speaker 3:Yet unless you are setting yourself up correctly to know that the expectations is that it will not perform strong up front, you have to let it marinate. So no, going into this. Normally you should get two to three calls for every thousand cards that you drop. Whatever you're dropping, two or three calls, think about it. For every thousand pieces of mail that you drop. I bet it's that number for every two or three thousand you drop with a terrible brand or with an unknown brand, and so direct mail can really be a cool thing to add on.
Speaker 3:But again, setting the expectations in your head so that you know you're not disappointed because it's not going to work up front and you need to do something that is very disruptive, so like, hey, we're here. So the roofing company that I work really closely with, we are moving into a new market and we've already done a lot of community support and lots of social media geared towards that area. But we are launching a straight up interrupter large envelope that's shaped like a roof, it's got a shape to it into a new market. But we're literally saying on there we're so glad to be here to serve the lumberjacks of Nacogdoches Right, and so our expectations are. We know this is a branded play, and so I just encourage you to think that way.
Speaker 2:You know, and I heard someone saying that, like direct mail we know this is a branded play and so I just encourage you to think that way. You know, and I heard someone saying that like direct mail is when you actually have their attention for like 10 to 15 seconds beyond just scrolling real quick on social media, things like that. Because, like, from the time they walk to their mailbox, from their mailbox to their front door, you have about 10 to 15 seconds where you're not on your phone, you're not talking on the phone, doing other things. Like you have them for that. So like, if you have a disruptor piece, like something that's very large and that has a catchy saying, I was like, oh, it makes me think twice. It has some type of like scratch off or something like that It'll catch their attention.
Speaker 2:But another point I want to make is direct mail, just like how other things. You got to have that consistency and that frequency. But you need to go into the same person. Like I remember talking to a contractor one time and he's like I have mail going out every single two weeks. It's like, okay, great, that sounds, that sounds great, like that's a super high frequency, but in reality he was mailing to brand new people every single two weeks. Okay, now, not that you need to blow up the same person every two weeks, but about every six, eight, 10 weeks we want them to get another piece of mail from us.
Speaker 2:So at some point you got to quit trying to reach everybody and let's start touching the same people with some frequency and stuff, because the odds are that I'm going to walk from my mailbox and I'm going to walk in my house and the AC is broken or a pipe has burst and it's flooding the day that that postcard dropped like chances are. That's not it. Okay, but if I've been having some problems, I've been limping along my system, something like that. I was like ah, you know, I'm going to put this up here. I might save this. I'm put on the fridge for a little bit, but I'm like another one comes around Like it starts to let them think about it a little bit longer and again you're playing into there. But you've got to have that intentionality to talk to the same people. Whoever your ideal avatar is, talk to them with multiple touch points and frequency. It's not necessarily how many times you have things going out in the post office, in the mail. Think about that intentionality to who is going to the same person each time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the engagement, the engagement. So you know I tell the story to all the time about braces. So, like really people that are really good at this is insurance companies, dental companies. They're good at always mailing because they know something's going to happen Eventually. You're going to have a problem and they put a postcard in your mailbox 10 times a year and it's cost them $20. And so any of you, let's say they'll call you for three years, any of you would do a $60 lead. The problem is, can you afford to wait three years, can you afford to wait 12 months for that direct mail? Again, I go back to. You're going to be sick of me saying this, but I go back to.
Speaker 3:That's why you have to have things that are meant to go fast, things that are meant to go slow, things that are meant to build, things that are meant to just immediately ask for the call to action, intentional, with an overall strategy, and stop throwing just dollars against the wall. But just, you know, with those things, especially call to action, you have to track it and you have to stay on top of it. You know Lemon Seed manages this. You know tons of contractors right now, or we manage their entire, all of their vendors, right. So we're making sure that vendors are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing. That's what women's whole job is to do, and I still see us not us as in our clients, because we're all one big happy family. But we we as partners here we don't always move quick enough or hold that vendor accountable for performance. And so I got this call or actually I'm at a show now and I walked in to get set up at my booth and I was like hey, love your podcast. He was on the podcast and he's like I have a contractor, but they're so leery of marketing companies because they feel like nothing ever works, and so a lot of times when I dig to the bottom of what that means, it's not clear expectations up front, right.
Speaker 3:So my biggest piece if contractors don't walk away with anything else today, I want them to walk away with this. It is your, our responsibility as marketers for contractors and the contractor themselves, to understand how things are supposed to work and how you measure success for each tactic, and then trusting the process. Marketing is a true example of I've got to trust the process, but not being a whole fool and being taken advantage of on and call to action is where I see it happen the most is some guru waves a social media post in these contractors' face and they just jump on it and I'm like, dude, this is going to be a disaster for us to just hop around. We have clients even to this day that want to. It is a red flag to me, like I wish I could just have a red flag that you've had four digital providers in the last three years.
Speaker 3:I want to look around like um, it's you, I know. I know and I hate to be that way, but I'm like um and you know, as we're talking to new people all the time that want to work with Lemon Seed and we're talking through things, they'll say, well, now I'll change my digital vendor and I'm like listen, my goal is to. I'm like, I'm like CPS up in this thing. Like, my goal is unification. Right, I don't want to bust up families, my goal is unification.
Speaker 3:But odds are, when people find out that Lemon Seed is on your team and we're helping those vendors get like, I mean, they get their feathers ruffled and it's mainly because they know we're about to ask questions. They know we're going to ask for clarification. And if you don't have someone like Lemon Seed that's like advocating for you and your liaison with these vendor partners then you should be asking questions, and no questions are off limits, right, no questions are off limits, and so it's your money and it's them performing. Just make sure that your expectations are fair of what should be working and you give things time to work.
Speaker 2:For sure. But it takes that in trusting the process. Hey, you're a part of the process, you know, you're engaged with your digital vendor, you're asking these questions, you're showing up to your reporting calls, you're engaged in this process. And then I would also say, like this piggybacks a little bit off of communicating to your team. So, like, beyond just telling them like hey, we're running GLSA ads or we're running direct mail, things like that, but like, what are these ads actually saying? Like, what does your direct mail piece actually say? Does it say a thousand dollars off in rebates or zero percent financing for 12 months? Or, you know, is it a low barrier of entry, like a tune-up? Does your team know what that actually says? So, when they call, it's like, hey, I'm calling for the free cruise, that's the gift with purchase on our top system, or I'm calling for the zero percent, your team better not go. Huh, or we're doing that or we dropped, you got it from us. That's where we, as, let me say, we'll lose our whole mind.
Speaker 2:But again, part of your process has to be communicating to your team. Um, not only are we doing these tactics, but like what does it actually say? How, how can they be prepared, because, at the end of the day, what they're doing is they're providing assurance to the customer that is calling in. Okay, so you want to talk about brand building? Do they sound uneasy? Do they sound like they don't know what they're talking about? Do they sound like, uh, we might do that, we might not. That's not building trust with that customer, and so that starts at that very first phone call, before we ever actually drive the truck to their house. Show up, look at the actual problem. All of that is building into your brand, and so make sure that you're making that part of the process so that you can maximize it and win that customer over from step one to the very final end.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, and let me tell you something else. That will like, maybe kick a computer screen. People have to say so. You have an active client and they're talking to your CSR and your CSR has zero power. They can't make any decisions. So they got to call them back. Forget it. Forget it.
Speaker 3:In today's times, people want quickness. So even me and Emily, if I have to call you and get on the phone and explain to four people what I need, odds are I've done hung up. I was already probably supposed to be somewhere else. Sir, I am running late, or Emily's got a car full of kids, or I'm in the middle of a golf tournament trying to work. You know, um, and so it is. It is we need quickness, and so if you haven't empowered your CSRs, definitely do that. Toy. Let me answer Toy's question here.
Speaker 3:Any suggestion on how to keep your customers from using PPC as a phone book, or is that even possible so you can work with your PPC vendor and a lot of times they can actually block I'm going to use the word block, they don't, but that's my little layman's term for it your existing customers from actually having access to your PPC campaigns Now, depending on what they did okay.
Speaker 3:So let's use a little like someone like my grandmother Odds are she got she called one time and then she wrote that number down in her address book and so she's going to call that number every time. So two things that I would do is number one, make sure my digital vendor knows hey, I'm having this issue and I don't want them to keep calling. Can we set up some parameters to keep them from being able to do that? And then also just a gentle reminder like hey, miss Miller, we're so glad you called again. Hey, let me give you a more direct line to the office. This way you make sure your calls get answered. You and I know that she would get answered on PPC as well, whatever number that is. But it makes her go like hey, go ahead, take this number down right, just get her off of that phone number for sure. But no, great question, great question.
Speaker 2:All right. So we've talked a lot about our memorable bucket. What are we doing to be remembered, to stay top of mind for them? We talked about, okay, when they do have that actual time of need, our call to action pieces. What we should be doing and considering there, and then kind of the last bucket to our three bucket approach here at Lemon Seed, is cultivating or fostering your existing customer database. Okay, so, like once we've done all these things to be remembered, to stand out, to get the lead whenever they do have that time of need, we've actually won them. We've done the service, we've done a good job.
Speaker 2:How do we stay their guy? How do we stay to where they remember us? They're not popping up again like being reminded on a Google local service ad. How do we stay their guy so they become a raving fan where they recommend and they're an advocate for us. They're going to recommend them to our friends. And then also, when things are slow, because we've done such a good job up until this point, we've stayed top of mind to them A lot of times when the phone isn't ringing, we need something to happen.
Speaker 2:Going to our existing customer database is the quickest way to kind of drum up some business because they've already done business with us, they already trust us, they already know us. We've done such a good job of them to this point. That's when we can really start to cultivate that and get over into the shoulder season, get through the shoulder season in some different ways, but we've got to also be laying that framework before shoulder season again, just to keep that authority, keep that their guy aspect with it. So, crystal, what are some ways that we can constantly be cultivating our existing customer database?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we have a lady, a girl women, on our lemon seed team that writes content for us and she's fantastic at it. Her name's Rachel and I was reading through her email copy that was about to go out just another set of us, and she's fantastic at it. Her name's Rachel and I was reading through her email copy that was about to go out just another set of eyes. And when I did, she was like, hey, you want to nurture, not nag? And I was like, oh, that is so good, so we want to nurture that database without nagging them. So I'll never forget, we had only been lemon seed for like a few months and I got this client and I was like, oh, we're so excited.
Speaker 3:And I started looking through there and I'm like, do you email your clients like every week? And literally, like it was just like they were calling them, texting them, emailing them like so much. He was like, yeah, but my unsubscribe rate is really high and and I'm just not getting any revenue. And I'm like, because you're annoying as heck, like no one cares about their heating and air conditioning company that much. Like you just have to know it, right, like you, just I mean I'm sorry that we're not the cool dudes on campus, right? So, like both mine and Emily's husbands love cigars and love whiskey, and so like they would probably love a weekly email from whiskey and cigar people. It's much more interesting, but like, hey, y'all, I hate to break it to us, but like people don't want to spend money with us much more interesting, but like, hey, y'all, I hate to break it to us, but like people don't want to spend money with us, it's not their idea of a good time.
Speaker 3:So I definitely think one of the easiest and least scariest things that you could be doing to keep your database engaged is an email newsletter. It's not rocket science. I would literally use it to build up my authority. So, like, look at all that I know, look at all that we can offer. And then even tying in some community support like hey, here's how you can support, like, did you know that the spring fest is this weekend? Did you know that it's the crawfish festival or whatever? Um, and then also giving free content.
Speaker 3:So, three things that you should never put down the garbage disposal. Or you know four ways that you need to be keep making sure the outside of your house is helping airflow, like all these cool things that you could do. And a customer of the month, a review of the month, a recipe all of those things are just a little a very genuine and authentic email that doesn't bother anybody, but it's got just enough to keep people engaged. You could do something cool like hide something in there, so every month. So hey, did you see where we hid the red apple? Reply to this email and tell us where you saw it. And three lucky winners are going to win a gift card to this local restaurant and all you're doing is getting them to engage and stay engaged and you post the winner on social media and it just continues this process where next month you say congratulations, emily. Emily was the winner of our find the apple right.
Speaker 3:It's so easy to make branded content for things like that and set that sucker up to roll out, set up the automation. Every single person that's ever done business with you should get your email newsletter. That's a simple one. Another one is setting up lookalike audiences using that data for lookalike audiences on things like social media ads and things like that, but flipping that a little bit and, in your email content to your existing database or your text messages, really creating multiple audiences. So like who you know, who has a system, because, remember, y'all have done a good job as operators and your CSRs are getting age of equipment. So, in the perfect world, we've got age of equipment in our CRM.
Speaker 3:So like, how fun is it? It's not fun, but it's quirky to get a. We're celebrating five years, happy birthday to your water heater. But we also show that it's out of warranty. So party's over, like how can we help, kind of thing. But when you start talking to them specifically, like hey, we were out at your home last summer. Hey, you had heating problems this winter. Hey, you live in Hurricane Alley, when you start talking to them directly, you really can build up engagement and so it just keeps that audience knowing that you're there.
Speaker 3:You're nurturing, not nagging. You're just kind of chipping away like oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, because again, I may not need you, but once every like eight to 10 years, imagine if I get a new system, if I get a brand new system from you as my contractor, unless I get on your maintenance program, which there's schools of thoughts around that all the way around. You need all that, but ideally they're probably not going to need you unless they're doing, unless you offer another service right, like plumbing or electrical, unless you're going to do some type of indoor air quality. So there's lots of options there, but odds are they may not be making another connection for five to eight years, and so you need to. It's a lot of work, but it's definitely worth it. Again, you just have to start building, building, building, so that eventually all those things are pumping in the same space.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and like a couple of things you know you were talking about a newsletter and like how that can go to everyone and that's a great opportunity to be social and not be salesy, like sometimes you might could throw an offer but put it like way down there at the bottom. Feature your team, the employee of the month. Feature like hey, we were so happy to sponsor the Goodwill Bank and here was our team when they attended it. Like those are those feel good human interest pieces that people like. They like to know that. Like hey, these people live and work where I work where we live, they're at the park as well too. It's a great way to stay top of mind to them. But then when you can get down into those more segmented audiences, like Crystal was saying, when you can curate that content of like hey, we were out there last summer and installed some more Freon. Hey, we serviced your plumbing but we haven't done your HVAC, that's where that content gets super relevant.
Speaker 2:Like they are talking specifically to me I know that this was just for me, it wasn't a blanket to everyone Battery can really start to like kind of peak their interest and be like oh, you know what, I have been needing that and that's where you can set up those automations and like it rolls for you. Set it up. That's one of those things that you can do a little bit more. Set it and forget it and let that thing work for you, um, but some easy automations are welcome. Emails, thank you emails those are kind of like more one time, but an open estimates email is one of those things that can totally just make more money for you later, um, but then also the, the um, the who's, who, um, who has and who has not? Who has done HVAC with us? Who has not actually for sure the system? Who has not actually done plumbing with us? So those are when you can really start to segment out those different audiences and build some really intriguing ways to kind of cultivate and foster your existing customer database.
Speaker 3:Well, and you know, like you know, I, my sister and brother-in-law, you know, we're running this pest control company and when we got ready to go I was like, okay, what are we doing? And my sister goes we only have like 250 people in the database. And I'm like I don't care, those 250 people are going to get our email newsletter. And then now it's like it's clicked with my sister. Of course I mean she has no choice because I talk to her about it all the time.
Speaker 3:But I'm always like, ok, who has the mosquito package but not the ongoing services? And so now I have talked it so much to them that they're like, hey, I want to tag this lady. She said next year she wants mosquitoes. So I'm like, perfect. Or hey, I tagged this lady because we shall sign the termites. We tried to treat them, but we know this is going to come back. And so eventually, when your team understands the why, the importance of good, good information into your CRM so that your marketing people can cultivate that to move outside of the CRM, you will really see them grasp it. And all of a sudden, like tags get better, content gets better.
Speaker 2:And it's a little bit of digging. Like, once you figure it out, you're like, oh, I could do this, I could do this, I could do this, and like, really, that's where marketing it does kind of have endless opportunities. So when you kind of understand, you know the reasoning why. When it kind of clicks for you, you start getting a little bit more creative in some ways to do this, and so that's where the magic happens. Crystal, I'd love if we could talk, because I know it's one of our favorite topics and one thing that we really love to help contractors out with at Lemon Seed is the community support piece. It's another way of how you can be memorable, be brand building, but then there's also some ways of how we can use it as some lead generation. Sometimes, if we have the right intentions and follow up tactics with it, there's some great ways of how we can maximize community support.
Speaker 3:Okay, y'all, I was on, Emily and I were on this Facebook Live with Sarah Giorardo and her sweet friend. I'm going to forget her name right now. What's her name? Lexi, lexi, lexi Thayer. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I remember now but they were dropping bombs for me and I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.
Speaker 3:So used to, you would go out to community events. So back in my day, when I had to walk uphill in the snow to do community events for my family's company, I was literally old school in that thing like pieces of paper, give me your name and your email and that I would go enter all of those into MailChimp or Constant Contact and send them an email. Then, when they responded and all this stuff, well, now you can bulk upload all of those addresses, email addresses and things that you get into the CRM. So, killer, killer. For those of you that are on Service Titan and possibly others, just Service Titan is the one that pops up right now that I know for sure we can do that with. So community involvement, community support Again, when we lost the pest control company, when I've been helping this roofing company, people are like y'all just started off gangbusters. I'm like we started off because we worth getting a new brand. It is worth getting a mascot. If mascots are your thing, it's worth getting a mascot right. It is worth emailing. People still will look at us and be like you know, crystal, I mean, I don't know how y'all built that $35 million company. It probably wasn't that, you know. Or, hey, emily, I know you've done this for 150,000 other companies, but not this one. We're different, you know.
Speaker 3:But I just say this community involvement is about being where your ideal target market is. So if your ideal target market is a 40 year old white female with two and a half children that go to dance and soccer, odds are you don't have to sponsor the biker around them, right, like you don't have to be out there, but you might want to be at the opening day of baseball season. You might want to be at baseball, like Little League's Little League season. You might want to be in the children's area of a local fair or festival. You might want to have your mascot be in mascot parades and things like that. So you know, identifying areas and things that are happening in your community that your ideal avatar is going to be at is where the money is, because all you're doing and I've said this again like five times today shaking hands and kissing babies is what you do, because you're trying to build engagement. You want them to literally fall in love with you as a contractor and your brand and who you are and what you stand for, and then, when that problem presents itself to that homeowner, they're gonna go oh my gosh, let me call that dang Armadillo company. My roof just blew off. I need to call the Armadillo company. Or, oh my gosh, there's a cockroach. I need to call the ladybug company. Right, I need to call spot on.
Speaker 3:But it takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of intentionality. And listen, I mean just shooting you straight. It's hot, you got to lug stuff in, you have to buy a tent, you need a tablecloth, you need a mascot, you need a lot of those things. You don't have to have them. There are other cool ways to just be present. Make a coloring sheet and do a coloring contest. Right, hand out ice creams If you're a heating and air conditioning company. Hand out ice creams If you're a plumbing company. Like bring an old toilet, now let's please make sure that it's not dirty. That's disgusting, but you know, and painted a wild color and let kids toss stuff into the toilet, like tons of things that you can do that don't cost an arm and a leg, but slowly but surely be ticking away at what your community of support pieces look like, and it's definitely gonna be a game changer for you because you're slowly but surely building a foundational brand that will help everything else perform better.
Speaker 2:Sure look for those ways of how you can be where the people are, like where your target market is, like at the baseball field, at the Christmas parade. Could you sponsor the photo booths where, like it's opening day, of course I wanna get a picture of my kids and their uniforms. Like, I'm going to go to this photo booth and it prints out and it has the template of your company logo on there. Can I provide a comfort to people even when they don't need me right now? So, like, can I provide seat cushions for the uncomfortable metal bleachers? Can I provide cold water for the plumbing company? You know, whatever it's giving people a need, we're providing comfort even when you don't need us. Those are those memorable aspects that, again, it's hard to say. I handed out water, I handed out ice cream and it generated X number of dollars, but what it did do is it met people where they're at. It kind of it was memorable to them, it, it touched their heart in a way like they're just panning out this stuff for the good of it. You know, um, that's how you can maximize your community support. And then, if you have a plan of a way to gather those email address, maybe they scan this qr code, like, hey, we're giving away a free yeti cooler, scan this qr code to give us your name, phone number and email and we're going to do a drawing at the end of it. Well, you know what you just got. You got a 50, 100, however many names and emails and phone numbers that you can then remarket to Okay.
Speaker 2:So, again, when you have that intentionality sometimes it is just for the good and the fun of it of giving something away, but then you can also have some intentionality of what is going to be our follow-up plan before. But you have to know also beforehand how am I going to gather these things? Am I going to have people write on a little piece of paper? Okay, that. How am I going to gather these things? Am I going to have people write on a little piece of paper? Okay, that might be like better than nothing. But then you got to read handwriting and all that stuff. But is it? You know? I know Chirp can set up a quick page where, like it's perfect for community events, you have this one QR code. They give you their name and email. You can upload that into your CRM system. So, again, it just what you're going to do to maximize your efforts and to make it all make sense, to make it tie together and click for you.
Speaker 3:There's a lot. There's definitely true. There's just so much opportunity there and it builds and builds and builds over time and it humanizes you too as a person. People are like, oh my gosh, we love you guys. I mean, I went somewhere the other day and they were like, who was in that Johnny costume dancing like that? And I'm like, well, that was actually my nephew, you know, dancing in the Johnny costume. And they were like we love to watch him. And I'm like the 17 year old that's irritated that I made him get in the ladybug contest or costume, you know.
Speaker 2:And so it's. It's pretty funny, yes. So the main point of this conversation is you know how, how do we make it all click and tie together, and why you have to have a real strategy to your marketing, or otherwise you will constantly be frustrated. If you're putting all your eggs into one basket, into one bucket one of the three buckets that we just talked about if you're putting everything into one, you will be frustrated and disappointed. You won't have the right expectations. But when you can layer it all on, have a diversified approach, that's where you can really start to see the sum of all these pieces add up to more than they would individually. And so some key takeaways that we want to give you is kind of like our rule of three, so like why your ads need a strategy. So when you're marketing and you're advertising feels like a well-oiled machine, it is giving clarity. Clarity is going to save you cash. Okay, so we're not just throwing money at the wall and hoping that something sticks. Now we have intentionality, we have strategy behind it. Every dollar needs a plan, and so your strategy and your expectations kind of help keep you accountable. It helps keep your spend accountable, helps keep your expectations accountable, and then the right message to the right audience.
Speaker 2:So we talked a lot about understanding who your ideal demographic is, who your ideal avatar is, and then where are they at? Ok, targeting and messaging that, speaking to them with super things that are relevant to them, that would resonate with them, that's what's going to catch their eye and pique their interest, versus just blanket salesy call me today. That's not. It's not resonating with anybody. So the right message, the right audience, and then momentum over mayhem.
Speaker 2:So stop this feast or famine cycle. Stop this like just throw more money at the PPC campaign. I just I need more leads right now. Get out of that rat race of the constant lead generation. Build your brand, cultivate your existing customer database. That's where you can start to feel more balanced and not this mayhem, constant rat race, fight over it all. So those are kind of our rule of three Clarity saves cash, the right message to the right audience, constant rat race, fight over it all. So those are kind of our rule of three Clarity saves cash, the right message to the right audience and momentum over mayhem. When you can recognize that, have a balanced approach in these three different buckets, you will start to see that happen and make some magic, some lemonade for you.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and you know just again, I know I've harped on this a couple of times but make sure that you have actual expectations that are true. So not unrealistic expectations. Have realistic plans for every single tactic that you deploy for your brand. Make sure that you're realistically looking at your brand. So, yes, branding is expensive. So it's expensive for time, it's expensive for you know what all you would need to redo. But expensive is all relative, right. So really like expensive for what you know what I think is expensive Waiting, building a brand that you know you're going to change.
Speaker 3:So there's a bunch of ways to look at that. But setting expectations, setting plans, making plans and then also like upholding your end of the bargain. So, as an operation person in operations, like, if you're not managing and having high expectations for average tickets and booking rates and close rates and how they treat the customer, protecting the customer journey overall, so that every step of interactions with your company is professional and upbeat and on brand, then shame on you, because we need to all be working together as marketers and operators on how we will win the game. So by doing so, you know when to pivot, you know when to push and you know when to pause. So today I paused billboards because I'm about to push out some Facebook ads and just give myself a break, but I'm not stopping it.
Speaker 3:My billboards actually were performing well for the pest control company, but I needed to change their scenery because that board had gotten really full. I actually live in that market, so it's gotten really full. So I was like, let me pause and I'm going to push over here and then when I know that that's gotten saturated, I'll unpause. So just knowing when to do that is also very important. Today my biggest goal and I know this was Emily's too is that you stop thinking that digital is the answer to all of your problems, that paid ads will solve every problem you had. If I could just get more leads, if I could just spend more money on those things and it's not true. It's just you need a plan, you need a strategy 100%.
Speaker 2:So hopefully you found some value and some takeaways of what you can do to really ramp up your marketing, diversify your tactics and your ad spend. And if this seemed like hey, great, but like I don't have time to do this or I don't want to do this, this is what Lemonsy was designed to do. So we would love to talk to you. You all are here, friends and family, and we like to say friends and family, talk free. So we will gladly talk to you on the discovery call, just to get to know a little bit more about you and your company and see if Lemonsay could be a right fit for you. How can we develop a custom marketing strategy and then help you on the implementation of that?
Speaker 2:So Andrea dropped a link there lemonsaymarketingcom contact. You can give us a little bit of information and be directly linked to a calendar link to schedule a time that works just for you. So this is what we do every single day. We are passionate about it. We have seen it transform lives, transform companies, transform the success to impact for an owner and their employees and their community. And the good that we're doing. We're passionate about it. We do it every single day. We would love to help you and your company.