Stacey Ivol – Page 18 – IFTS, Inc. Blog

Grow Your Painting Business By A Factor of 10 With These 5 Steps – Part 2 of 5

Are you looking to grow your painting company but aren’t sure where to start?

It’s difficult to know what steps to take or where to invest your time and money. However, we have created a proven roadmap for you to follow that will help you 10X your painting business.

In part 1 of this series, we discussed how to set up a follow-up system on multiple platforms. If you haven’t already read it, you’ll want to start here.

After the follow up systems are in place, your next step is to increase your number of leads.

Step 2 – 2X (At Least) Your Number of Leads

In order to grow your painting business, you will need to commit yourself to taking the steps to get bigger. By doubling your leads (at least), you will have more work coming in than ever before.

This is where it gets tricky. People will ask us, “How exactly do I double the leads for my painting business?”

The truthful answer is this – you need to test multiple avenues and see what works best for you. In order to know what is working and what’s not, lead tracking tactics will need to be in place.

Let’s talk about a few ways (or combinations of ways) to double your leads.

Marketing Tactics To Try To 2X Your House Painting Leads

Tactic 1 – Facebook Ads

As mentioned in Part 1 of this series, Facebook Ads can be an effective way of attracting new clients. Video tends to perform better than images, so make sure you take a bunch of little videos at your next work site.

You’ll want to make two sets of videos. Set 1 should have videos that do the following:

Answer a common house painting question
Talk about prepping a house for painting
Discuss when to paint certain areas and why
Discuss how weather affects painting

Video set 1 should be videos that people would watch if and only if they were thinking about painting their interior, exterior, cabinets etc.

Video Set 2 should showcase your company and why they should hire you. These videos should consist of:

Showing the quality of your work
Cool before and afters
How clean you leave the house
Anything else that makes you stand out

Set 2 videos should also close with a call to action of contacting you or scheduling an appointment.

Schedule Video Set 1 to show to people in your area. To get your targeting a little more specific, we generally recommend the following settings:

Age – 40+

Gender – Female (Women tend to make the decisions)

Radius – Within 20 miles of your business

Then, after Video Set 1 has been running for a few days, you’ll want to schedule Video Set 2. These videos should only be shown to people that have watched at least 25% of one of the videos from Set 1. This way, you know that you are targeting people that are at least thinking about painting their house.

You can also show Video Set 2 to people that have been on your website if you have the Facebook Pixel setup correctly.

Tactic 2 – Google Ads

Google Ads can be a highly effective way of getting leads online. In fact, we have seen leads come in for companies that we’ve worked with for under $50/lead. However, Google Ads can be a bit tricky when it comes to the settings.

Let’s discuss a few of the common Google Ad “gotchas”.

First, you need to decide what type of ad you want to run:

Search Ads are the text ads that you see at the top of the results page, before the map and the organic results
Display Ads are the image ads that you see across the web when browsing

Both types of ads have their merits, but you should never create a Search Ad that also targets the Display Network and vice versa.

Secondly, you need to make sure that you are using keywords in the manner that you intended.

Google has multiple types of keywords:

Broad match
Phrase match
Exact match

According to Google, a broad match keyword is one that “may show on searches that are related to your keyword, which can include searches that don’t contain the keyword terms”

For example, you may enter House Painters In My Area as one of your keywords. However, your ad may show for people looking for famous painters or automobile painters.

Rule #1 of not overpaying for Google Ads – DO NOT USE BROAD MATCH KEYWORDS.

Google defines a phrase match keyword as one where “ads may show on searches that include the meaning of your keyword”. To denote a phrase match keyword, you’ll need to put it in quotes.

To use the example above, you would define one of your keywords as “House Painters In My Area”. Now, your ad would show for someone that typed in that phrase. It also might show for someone that type in “Painters Near Me” or “House Painting In My Area”.

These are okay keywords to use (as long as you have a good negative keyword list, which we will discuss in a few moments).

The last type of keywords are exact match keywords. To denote these, you enter the phrase in square brackets. Google defines these as “Ads will show on searches that have the same meaning or same intent as the keyword.”

This type of keyword gives you the most control of when your ad is shown, but it also limits the audience. Using the previous example, you would enter one of your keywords as [House Painters In My Area]. Then, your ad would show to people who type in this phrase or something very similar, like with the same words in a different order.

After you enter your keywords, you will also want to create your list of negative keywords as well. This is a list of words and phrases that you give to Google that tells them – if this word is in a search phrase, do NOT show my ad. It allows you to weed out unqualified buyers.

Good negative keywords to use for your painting company:

Any painting or store brand, like “Home Depot” or “Behr”
“How To” or “How Much” (People searching these phrases are typically in the education phase of their searching and aren’t looking to purchase
Automobile, car, auto etc.
Boat
Paint and Sip
Etc.

If you think of words or phrases that are associated with painting, but not house painting, put them on the list.

Finally, you want to make sure that your keywords match what you say in your ads AND that your landing pages that you send people to match your ads. This is called “Ad Congruity”. If you call yourself a “house painter” in your keywords and your ads, make sure that the page that you send them to highlights the fact that you are a “house painter”.

NEVER SEND YOUR ADS TO YOUR HOME PAGE! This is a huge, costly mistake that we see painting businesses make all of the time.

Some Other Marketing Tactics

We wanted to review a few tactics in depth. However, there are tons of other tactics to try, like:

Door hangers
YouTube ads
Radio ads
Appear on Podcasts
Networking
Find non-competing partners
SEO
TV
Get featured on the local news
And more!

Important to Remember – Measure Your Results

In order to know what tactic or tactics worked the best, you have to measure your results. One way you can do this is through call tracking. Use a different phone number for each tactic type and see what number brings in the most leads. CallRail is one vendor that offers this service and makes it simple to set up.

You could try one tactic per month, although seasonality may affect these results a bit.

You could send each ad to a separate landing page. Then, your site analytics would allow you to know which ad had been the most successful.

However you choose to do this, you just want to be sure that everything is measured.

Let’s Return To Our Example Company With Double The Leads For Our Painting Business

Again, let’s see how powerful doubling the number of leads that we bring in actually is.

Remember, ABC Painting started with $40,000 monthly gross revenue. Then, we implemented a follow-up system, which will increase the leads by about 60%. This took the gross monthly revenue to $64,000.

How to double the leads for your painting business

Now, through the tactics discussed in this article, we have doubled our leads from 80 to 160 per month.

If that 20% close rate remains, this will result in 32 new clients and a monthly gross income of $128,000! We have already more than tripled the revenue using just 2 steps of the system!

Next week? Step 3: Work On Increasing The Closing Rate For Your Painting Business!

Grow Your Painting Business By A Factor of 10 With These 5 Steps – Part 1 of 5

Are you looking to grow your painting company but aren’t sure where to start?

It’s difficult to know what steps to take or where to invest your time and money. However, we have created a proven roadmap for you to follow that will help you 10X your painting business.

Step 1 – Implement A Follow-Up System So Your Potential Clients See You Over and Over

Did you know that at any given time, only 3% of your market is ready to buy from you?

This means that 97% of the people that see your advertising are going to need a little more time. In fact, your average customer is exposed to about 10,000 marketing messages every day.

What are the chances that your marketing message is going to be the one that stands out among the 10,000 that your client is seeing (especially if they had never heard of you before)?

Typically, your potential clients need to see and hear from you multiple times in order to make an informed buying decision. This is why you must FOLLOW UP. In fact, a 2011 study from Google found that a buyer needs 7 hours of interaction across 11 touch points in 4 locations.

Let’s break that down quickly. You (or your marketing) needs to interact (or be in front of) your potential client 11 times. These interactions can be snail mail, videos, ads, phone calls, emails or anything that gets you in front of them.

Then, these 11 interactions need to be across 4 locations. This means that you can’t just always call or email. You need to expand the number of places that people see you. You need to be “everywhere” your clients may be. So, adding to phone or email, text, Facebook Ads, YouTube, the Google Display Network, LinkedIn etc. To accomplish this task correctly, think about where your clients commonly are.

Finally, these touches need to result in about 7 hours of interaction. In other words, you want a prospect to spend about 7 hours thinking about you. This is when it helps to have video. For a house painting business, customer testimonials are great ads to use. It allows other people to “toot your horn”, so you don’t have to.

Another great interaction piece is a downloadable pdf that contains information about your company, examples of your past work, testimonials and more. You can make this available on your website or social media.

How To Implement A Great Customer Follow-Up System – Set Up A 3×3 Contact Matrix

First things first – automation is your friend. Don’t shy away from technology because it seems complicated. In the long run, it will be worth it.

So, what is the first thing to set up?

Start using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, like GoHighLevel, CorkCRM or Keap. It will more than pay for itself in the long run.

In your CRM, you will want to set up what we call a 3×3 contact matrix. You want a potential client that requested a quote to receive a call, text and email from you. If they don’t respond, do it again 3 days later. If they don’t respond, do it 5 days later. This automatically gives you 9 interactions on 3 different channels.

A common fear that we hear from painters is “What if they get annoyed or tell us it’s too much?”

They won’t. Remember, they originally contacted you. The more information that you give them that allows them to make a good decision when choosing a house painter will be appreciated.

Another common question that we get is “What should I say in these emails, texts and calls?”

CALLS: The calls can just be follow ups to the original contact for quote, which most painting businesses are used to doing.
TEXTS: The texts should be quick messages asking them for a reply, so you get them engaged. This is also a great time to offer an exclusive discount that they can only get by replying. Keep these short, sweet and to the point.
EMAILS: The emails are where you can shine and really highlight your company. Send them more information about what it’s like working with your company. Have a testimonial video? This is a perfect opportunity to share it with them. Do you offer something completely unique in your area, like a guarantee or a special technique? Share it here.

People buy with emotions and justify it with logic. Use these 9 points of contact to get them emotionally invested. Then, provide the facts so they can justify their decision.

How To Implement A Great Customer Follow-Up System – Play The Follow Game

Have you ever looked at a toaster on Amazon and suddenly, that toaster is everywhere? You need to apply the same principles to your painting business.

The way to accomplish this is through the use of the Facebook pixel and the Google cookie.

Install these on your website (don’t forget to mention them in your terms and conditions) and they will start tracking your website visitors. You can now show people ads on Facebook that have been on certain pages of your website. You can use the Google cookie in a similar way.

Another way to interact with people multiple times based on their past browsing behavior is making use of Video Ads. Create a set of 3 videos where you answer questions that people commonly have when hiring house painters. Use the questions that you get from potential clients all the time. These videos do not have to be formal or cost a ton of money. A video shot on site with an iPhone will work for this.

Use these 3 videos to advertise to a broad audience. You want to use them to weed out people. Then, advertise your services in a follow up specifically to people that have watched at least 25% of one of your videos.

Why 25% of a video?

Because no one is going to watch a video on commonly asked questions about house painting unless they are in the market for house painting. This is a great way to narrow down your audience.

You can apply this tactic on YouTube and Facebook.

How To Implement A Great Customer Follow-Up System – Advertise on Multiple Platforms

To be “everywhere”, you need to advertise on multiple platforms.

Google Ads are a great resource that lets you advertise on Google, YouTube, Gmail and the Google Display Network (GDN). The GDN allows your ads to show up on websites that Google leases space on. You can decide what type of website “lease” you want to rent from Google. So, as a painting business, Home Improvement sites or Home Decorating sites may be good places to start.

Facebook Ads are another great place to target specific audiences with all types of advertising. Videos perform better than static ads, so start filming!

Depending upon the type of work you do, LinkedIn advertising could help you reach certain professionals.

How To Implement A Great Customer Follow-Up System – Let’s Look At An Example

To really illustrate how powerful just this one step is, let’s look at an example painting business, ABC Painting.

Let’s say that ABC Painting gets 50 leads per month, their close rate is 20% and the average painting project in their area is $4000. This means that they will get 10 clients and the company will gross $40,000 per month.

If you implement the follow up systems discussed above, you will increase your leads by about 60%.

To use the numbers above, this means that instead of 50 leads, ABC Painting will now have 80 leads per month. They will close on 20% of them, which is 16 clients and the company will now gross $64,000.

How To Implement A Great Customer Follow-Up System

See, the CRM really will pay for itself…

Stay tuned for next week when we discuss how to double your leads!

How To Create and Optimize Your Company’s YouTube Video (With A Secret Step That Not Many People Know About)

Did you know that every day YouTube has over ONE BILLION hours of video watched, which results in billions of views?

Is your business taking advantage of having videos on YouTube? If not, today is a great day to start!

Most people think that creating a video for their business is really time consuming or that you need expensive equipment to start – Not true! All you need is your smartphone and a location that is relatively quiet with good lighting.

Choose Your Video Location Carefully

Find a room where there is a window in front of you so the natural light illuminates your face. Make sure that there is no distracting clutter in the background.

Prop up your phone so that it is pointed at you and you are centered in the frame. Another option for this is to purchase an inexpensive stand that holds your phone. Most of these stands also come with a remote control so that you can press “record” more easily.

Choose An Outfit To Film In

When choosing an outfit to film in, pick something that represents your brand. If you’re in a professional field, you can never go wrong with a suit and tie. If you’re in a service business, a polo or T-shirt with your logo makes sense.

Make sure that there aren’t any distracting patterns on what you are wearing. Patterns can appear fuzzy or out of focus on camera. Noisy jewelry is also a negative. You want your microphone to pick up what you are saying rather than your bracelet clanging off of your watch.

Following these guidelines will ensure the professionalism of your video, and it will make you look good.

Choose Your Video Topic

A lot of businesses have videos all over their website about themselves…and this is where they go wrong.

Your clients don’t really care about you, they just want to know that you are the best company to solve their problems. So, prove it!

Choose 5-10 questions that you are asked regularly, then answer them on video. Don’t use industry jargon, and speak as if you are talking to a potential client.

On an aside – A lot of people wonder if they should write scripts when filming videos like this. It really depends on you. Write a script, create an outline or conduct a practice run; do whatever makes you feel most comfortable. You want to do your best to sound natural and relaxed, so your expertise shines through.

Stumped for ideas? Go to https://answerthepublic.com/ and enter your business type or a problem that you solve. This website will give you frequently asked questions about the topic.

Edit Your Video For YouTube

This is the part of the process that most people find difficult. There are multiple ways to edit your video easily that don’t require expensive video software, like Adobe Premier Pro. If you have a Mac, you can use iMovie. There are also many apps on your phone that will allow you to edit a video you have created.

Whatever software you decide to use, make sure your sound is clear. If it allows you to add background music, choose something that is unobtrusive and appropriate for your business.

Secret Step That Most People Don’t Know About – Do Keyword Research For Your Video

Once you have your video completed, you’ll want to do a little research on keywords that go with it. Keyword research helps tell you:

Most googled phrases about your topic
How many times per month something is searched
How difficult it is to rank for that keyword or phrase
And more!

Use a tool like SEMrush or Ubersuggest for your research. Both options have free account versions.

In this example, we will use SEMrush.

Let’s say that you are a painting company, and you created a video on how to prep a house to paint.

Go to SEMrush and type in “how to prep a house for painting” to see the search statistics that go with that phrase:

As you can see, this keyword phrase is googled 320 times per month. That means it’s a great phrase to use in the title of my video. The keyword difficulty is 42%, so it tells me that we will need well-structured and unique content to rank, which is exactly what my video is for.

The keyword research also shows me:

Variations on the keyword that I could use in my video description
Common questions that are googled about my keywords
Related keywords that can act as secondary keywords that can be used in my video description on YouTube (more about this later)

When choosing a title for your video, be sure to choose a keyword phrase that is googled at least 100 times per month (rule of thumb). Be sure to also choose 1-3 other keywords or phrases that go with your video that are searched over 20 times per month.

Upload Your Video To YouTube

You’ve created your video and have your research, so you are ready to upload your video to YouTube and have clients find you!

Before you upload your video, change the name of your video file to be the title of your video, separated by hyphens.

So, in this example, I would name my video “How-to-prep-a-house-for-painting.mp4”

Then, go to your YouTube channel and hit the “Create” button. Once you upload your video, YouTube has multiple fields that you can fill in. The most important field is the “Title” field. This is where we would put “How To Prep A House For Painting In 2021”. If possible, it’s a great idea to add the year in the title to let YouTube know that this is the most up to date information available on your subject.

The next most important field is the description, which can be 5000 characters. This is where you will tell people about the video, and why they should watch it. Remember the secondary keywords that you chose? This is the place to use them.

You can’t use the same keyword phrase over and over again. This is called “Keyword Stuffing” and YouTube/Google don’t like to see it. So, you use keywords and phrases that are similar to your primary keyword (your title).

Another good rule of thumb is to place a link to a page on your website within the description. It helps you build backlinks and send people to your website if they are interested in your product or service.

YouTube will also ask if the video is made for kids (to create an age restriction if needed) as well as a few other questions that you should be able to answer easily.

Once the video has processed, the last thing that you will want to do is set the thumbnail. This is the image that YouTube will use to represent your video before it is played. Typically, we recommend creating an image that is 1280x720px and following the YouTube tips on creating an effective thumbnail: https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/lesson/thumbnails

BONUS – What To Do After Your Optimized Video Is Live On YouTube

Once you have your optimized video live on YouTube, don’t stop there. You took the time to create it, now promote it!

There are multiple ways to get your video out there:

Post a link to the video on your social media
Share the video on LinkedIn
Send the video to your clients
Send the video to your prospects
Share the video with partner companies that you have

In addition to promoting your video, you can also use the content again! Upload your video to a tool like otter.ai to create a transcript of it. Use this transcript to create a blog entry on your website and link to the video. This allows you to give information about your business topics to multiple audiences, and it helps with your SEO (search engine optimization).

Start creating your content on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to see your traffic increase and your videos start to rank.

If all of this seems overwhelming and you’d like some help getting started, call IFTS today and ask about our “Beginner’s Video Package” at 412.715.6266.