It all raises more questions than it answers: should you continue the print advertising you’ve been doing all along? Does digital marketing pay off? Should you make time for social media networking?

You already have the answers. If something works, go with it – and it doesn’t take as long to find out what works and what doesn’t. The return from any marketing channel is a usually a good indicator of whether you should use it or not.

However, it’s important to stay ahead of the game. In your search for new ways to generate business, it doesn’t hurt to develop marketing channels before you actually need them. That way you can take advantage of them when you’re ready, instead of playing catch-up at a time when you need to be at full speed.

This doesn’t mean you have to start spending lots of time writing a blog post or thinking of things to tweet. Take a look around, scan information on the web, check out anything that looks interesting. And there’s nothing wrong with some old fashioned networking – find out what your customers, colleagues and suppliers are doing online. In other words, don’t continue to put things off, because you never know when you’ll need to really promote your business online.

Remember Your Brand

Whatever you do, whether you decide to tweet, blog or do it all, support your brand. The familiarity of your brand will help you as you use new marketing channels and it helps to give you direction for anything you put on the new channels.

Your brand is everything you do – in everything you do, every tweet, connection or link, remember your brand.

So why are some many woodworkers, plumbers and roofers not taking advantage of the opportunity?  A surf around the web makes it look like most contractors think of their web site the same way they do concrete – set it and forget it.

With so many potential customers hungry for the information you have, it makes sense that if you feed them what they want, they will be more attracted to your site.  More info, more attraction.

But so what? Why would any building trades company give away valuable information that might actually cost them business?

To get more business.  By providing the sort of information customers seek, on an ongoing basis, you turn your web site into a destination.  When you do, you can enjoy many benefits, including saving money on digital marketing, higher search engine results, more web traffic, qualified customers and, ultimately, more business.

Activate your web site, keep it up-to-date with information your customers want and start reaping the rewards.

Season's Greetings!

But it is not easy to blog regularly – even for a company that promotes blogging.  We spend so much time helping our clients’ digital marketing efforts, we neglect our own.  It’s a classic case of “the cobbler’s children have no shoes”.

We have the same issues with blogging that our clients have:

1. Time – We are too busy to blog.
2. Content –  We can’t think of anything to blog about.
3. What’s the use? – Suppose you make a time commitment, and magically come up with blogging topics, is it really worth all the effort?

The Real Roadblock to Blogging

The points listed above are not actually what’s stopping us from blogging; they are excuses.  What really stops us from blogging is how easy it is to find excuses to avoid it.  Once we stop the excuses, blogging becomes less daunting, more doable.

For example, this blog post.  A half an hour ago we decided to take the time and just start writing.

Content came from the largest source of information ever: the web. (That big boy sort of eliminates the “can’t find anything to blog about” excuse doesn’t it?)  ”Blogging” popped up a few times in quick internet searches, so we decided on a blog post about blogging.

Now for “what’s the use?”.  Hopefully after you read this you will be at least a little more enlightened and at best motivated to start or return to blogging.  If any of that happens, it’s reason enough to write this post.

We know business won’t stampede to our door after posting this entry.  But blogging is an integral part of our digital marketing plan and, combined with other parts of the plan, it will raise our profile as social media specialists.

Need another reason to just start writing your next post?  It feels great when you’re done.

Social Media – The Gamechanger – Is an intense hour and a half of trends and ideas that underline the fact that social media is not a trend, but a new way of doing business.

We are fortunate to live near Churrasco Portugril; in our opinion the best churrasco Portuguese barbecue chicken restaurant in Toronto.

Churrasco Portugril

On a recent visit, Portugril’s owner, “Chicken” Joe Lopes, greeted me and I remarked about recently reading a newspaper article that mentioned Portugril.

Joe’s response caught me a little off guard.  It went something like: “yeah, it was OK, … but I only got 25 extra hits on the web site from the article.  When I used a “deal-of-the-day” site, I got 300 hits.”

Joe didn’t know that I’m involved in web development and marketing.  While it may not be the topic of every bit of small talk between Joe and his customers, digital marketing is becoming part of everyday conversations between customers, businesses and just about everyone else.

It is so pervasive that, as digital marketers, we no longer need to always start the conversation – our customers are bringing it to us.

The other revelation from my chat with Joe? Not very long ago, small companies would do anything to get an article mention in the weekend edition of a major market daily newspaper.  The exposure was invaluable to the success of the business.

In Joe’s case, using hits on his web site as a gauge, he got a 1200% better response from his deal-of-the-day web promotion than from the newspaper article.

It took a while for that to sink in.

Being busy meant we were fortunate enough to launch a few web sites for building trades and trades-related companies:

RT Plastics: RT Plastics have been recycling plastics and wood since before it became fashionable.  Specializing in designing, engineering and manufacturing office furniture components from recycled materials, RT Plastics wants to use their considerable in-house resources to broaden their customer base.

• Why is RT Plastics of interest to building trades contractors?: Instead of paying to get rid of recyclables, RT Plastics might pay you and take it off your hands.

GPS Tracking Canada: There are two ways to improve your business: increase revenue or decrease costs.  GPS Tracking Canada will help you do both.  Any business that manages company vehicles, from a single car to a full fleet of vehicles, will benefit from the information that GPS Tracking Canada’s systems generate.

• Why is GPS Tracking Canada of interest to building trades contractors?: From reducing gas usage to improving delivery times, there’s lots of ways GPS Tracking Canada will help.

Please give Leads4Pros a call at 905-475-3675 and we’ll be happy to help you with your web development and digital marketing.

The challenge is that small businesses change so fast it’s hard to create set plans

The reason most of us don’t plan well is because it’s not in our nature.   Business owners prefer action to planning.   We also hate when plans have to change and feel that it is a waste of time.  This is only true with long term planning.   Short term planning is like measuring twice and cutting once.

Leverage the power of planning by focusing on the short term

If you only plan 90 days ahead, then your plans are less likely to change.  With a 90-day plan, you are benefiting from all of the positive aspects of business planning without any of the hassle.  The challenge is you have to find the time to do it.   Barricading yourself in your office is the worst place to plan.  Phone calls and emails are still accessible and you can never truly focus.  You have to get out of your environment and spend a couple hours immersed in planning.

Planning with training wheels

Most of us are not good at planning because we don’t have a lot of practice.  This causes planning to take longer than needed.  The best thing that I did in my business for planning was learn from a professional coach.  A coach can help you create and implement your plan.

Special offer with Action Coach

This Friday Paul Thornhill from Action Coach is running his 90-day Business Road Map session.  The businesses that sit in these planning sessions actually achieve their 90-day goals.  And we all know that businesses that achieve their goals earn more money.

Lunch is included and there’s lots of free parking. If you’re interested in taking part, follow the link below.

Mention WSI’s name to Paul when you register and the early bird special lasts until Wednesday.

90 Day Planning Session

We hope you enjoyed this month’s edition of The Inside Edge.

If so – feel free to forward this message to others who may benefit from reading it.

Have a question, we will happily respond.  Just send us an email or give us a call

Sincerely,

Max Kalles

Leads 4 Pros
905-475-3675 ext 25

www.leads4pros.com

It also doesn’t hurt if you achieve an A+ Rating from the BBB and have the ability to work on projects that range from neighbourhood bungalows to city hospitals and international airports.

In business for over 10 years, The Crack Doctor specializes in repairing just about any building foundation problem or the issues that can result.

• Flooded basements
• Basement Leaks
• Wet crawlspaces
• Mouldy basements
• Underground garages
• Residential and commercial foundation cracks and damage

The Crack Doctor makes it easy to find out if you have a foundation problem with a free 50 point foundation assessment.  Their financing plan makes it easy to pay for repairs their lifetime transferable warranty makes it easy to know you got good service.

You are welcome to visit The Crack Doctor’s web site at www.thecrackdoctor.ca to learn more.

But, no matter how full your order book is now, at some point the business generated by the HRTC will trail off.  All business is cyclical and after every boom is a bust, or at least a downturn.  Getting through slow times is never easy and the problem is worse for those who wait until business slows down to start thinking about generating new business.

Even though you may be very busy, it is important to take some time now to make sure your marketing and advertising are strong and generating new business – before things slow down.

Why now? Companies that prepare for downturns when times are good do far better than those who wait for the downturn before doing anything about it.  In other words, it’s better for business to be proactive rather than reactive.

More and more companies use internet marketing to generate new business, but it can take many months for your digital marketing efforts to have any effect. If you wait for a downturn to happen before starting or improving your web marketing, prepare yourself for a long wait to see any results.

Start now and, when you need it the most, your digital marketing will be firing on all cylinders to keep your business engine humming.