Is Your Painting Business Using Call Only Ads On Google To Drive Immediate Leads?

What are call only ads on Google?

While the answer to this question seems self explanatory, there are key distinctions between call only ads on Google and text ads with call extensions.

Checkout this picture of the Google search results for a mobile search on an iPhone for the keywords: Baltimore Commercial Painting Contractor

The “red ad” is a standard text ad with a call extension. A click on the blue text will direct users to the advertisers landing page or website for this specific ad. The phone number, which appears the bottom of the ad in gray is a call extension. Clicking on the phone number will launch a call to advertiser.

The “green ad” is a call only ad. A click on this ad launches a phone call right to the advertisers business and does not redirect to a landing page.

Why should painters use call only ads on Google?

Call only ads on Google can eliminate two of the major challenges of a traditional PPC campaign. First, call only ads eliminate the need for a great landing page or website. Painters with below average websites can still take advantage of all the leads that flow to local contractors through Google search.

Second, call only ads on Google can generate more affordable leads than traditional PPC. Assume it costs $10 per click for the keywords “local house painter” on Google. For $100 you get 10 visits to your website. A 20% conversion rate (which is off the charts good) would mean 2 leads for $50 each. Assume a call only ad click costs $25 for the same keywords. Now your $100 results in 4 leads for $25 each.

How can my painting business set up call only ads on Google?

The process for setting up call only ads on Google can be challenging. It requires an active Google AdWords account with a linked and verified phone number. Additionally, the nuances of writing call only ads are different from text ads because they are trying to generate direct phone calls, not website clicks. Before launching your campaign, consider these 5 strategies for effective call only ads on Google.

There is also a Google help tutorial on the topic or the team at AltaVista Strategic Partners is available to help. They can be reached by phone at 443-960-4004 or by sending them an email to set up a no cost initial consultation.

Have a question or comment?
Post it in the comments below and we will be sure to follow up with you!

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Aaron

Vice President of Digital Marketing at AltaVista Strategic Partners

Aaron Hockel is a partner and the vice president of digital marketing at AltaVista Strategic Partners, a full service marketing agency working exclusively with commercial and residential contractors. AltaVista specializes in marketing campaigns designed to generate top of funnel sales leads. Their services include email marketing, direct marketing, search engine marketing, and social media marketing. As a proud PDCA member, Aaron and the team at AltaVista currently work with more than 40 painting contractors around the country.

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Growing your business

Running a successful painting business is not limited to simply working harder and giving the best output; it involves a lot more than that. Creating strong relations with your clients, spending on advertising and marketing, managing your costs and expenses as well as finding ways to make your way into the mainstream business community are some of the key factors that help in making a business successful – and your painting business is no different.

Whether a solo painter or an established paint contracting business, if you want to expand your business and get noticed by a larger clientele, you will have to make some changes to your business plan and strategy.

Here are some useful tips to help you get started in the right direction:

Use different advertising and marketing methods

If you don’t create awareness, you won’t get noticed. This is the only way to grow your clientele. Advertising and marketing can be done in a number of ways. Ask your friends and family to spread the word about your business. Ask a satisfied customer to recommend you to their circle or help you land more projects.

Hire a photographer to take professional pictures of your work. Make a portfolio which can be shown to prospective clients at consultation meetings to give them an idea about the quality of your work and the services you offer. Use these pictures to place ads in local newspapers, TV (local advertisements), hand out flyers etc.

The best opportunity to showcase your work to a huge circle of clients is by partaking in public events. For examples, an event organized by builders. Offer discounts or complimentary services to customers who book consultation appointments or services at the event.

Hire the right people

Hire people who are good at painting, so you can concentrate on other aspects, such as marketing and lead generation, that are important for increasing sales.  Some key points to remember while hiring are:

• Quality of the person matters more than quality of his work; the latter can be improved.
• Avoid hiring someone out of obligation. Get someone who has experience in the field and will be a good fit for a position.
• Let them know of your expectations regarding work and train them if they have the perseverance but lack the skills.

Of course, this will require you to learn management skills. And, you will have to target a bigger monthly profit margin that will leave you with some extra cash after paying off the salaries.

Use technology for innovation

Social media is perhaps the most powerful media today and has maximum customer reach. Use social media to painting acumen, variety and styles. You can also use social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to advertise and attract potential clients. Your clients can also give feedback on your page that will benefit you in two ways;

1. It will help you improve your business.
2. Your business will get noticed by their social circles.

There are a number of apps and online software options that can give clients an idea about how the color scheme or wall décor you suggest will turn out. This helps clients make the right decisions. It also saves you from the hassle of post-paint complaints from their end.

Some examples of such apps are Paint my place and House painter pro.

Never stop learning

The key to consistent growth is constant learning. As time changes, there are advances in every field and this requires learning new things. Even if you are an expert in your field, you will soon be outdated if you stop learning.

Learning is not limited to books or taking formal training. Keep experimenting with your skills to learn, keep learning from your failures and be a keen observer to learn.

Combine these tips with your expertise and skill set to run a successful paint contracting business. 

Audrey Throne is a mother and a professional blogger by choice. She has completed her masters in English literature from university of Birmingham. As a blogger she wrote quite a few posts on health, technology as well as management. She loves to discover new places and share experiences in words. Find her on Twitter: @audrey_throne.

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Employee Classification – The 1099 Debate

With the “sharing economy” and “gig economy” continuing to grow, the debate around employment classification rages on. Companies like Uber and Lyft are at the forefront with lawsuits being filed around the country. According to the Wall Street Journal, Uber recently agreed to pay $100 million dollars to resolve disputes in California and Massachusetts.

We frequently get calls from clients who are classified as independent contractors when they are actually employees. This can make all the difference between qualifying for workers’ compensation benefits or receiving nothing at all.

Employee misclassification is a big problem around the United States.  The IRS has even written about it. Some businesses intentionally pay wages as non-employee compensation (Form 1099) to avoid purchasing required workers’ comp insurance. This has a real human cost when employees get hurt and cannot pay medical bills or support their families.

Who is considered an employee for workers’ compensation purposes in Michigan?

Amendments to Michigan’s Workers’ Disability Compensation Act (WDCA) in 2011 changed who is considered an employee. On and after January 1, 2013, services are employment if performed by an individual whom the Michigan Administrative Hearing System (MAHS) determines to be in an employer-employee relationship using IRS revenue ruling 87-41.

Factors to be considered include:

• Instructions
  Training
  Integration
  Services Rendered Personally
  Hiring, Supervising, and Paying Assistants
  Continuing Relationship
  Set Hours of Work
  Full Time Required
  Doing Work on Employer’s Premises
  Order of Sequence Set
  Oral or Written Reports
  Payment by Hour, Week, Month
  Payment of Business and/or Traveling Expenses
  Furnishing of Tools and Materials
  Significant Investment
  Realization of Profit or Loss
  Working for More Than One Firm at a Time
  Making Service Available to General Public
  Right to Discharge
  Right to Terminate.

This is a departure from the old test that focused on whether a person maintained a separate business, held themselves out to the general public, and were an employer subject to the act. Additionally, the Michigan Supreme Court previously found that income tax records were directly relevant to the question of employee status. 

A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit examined the issue and seemingly applied a hybrid analysis finding the old test was not necessarily replaced but supplemented. This issue will surely be addressed in future Michigan appellate court rulings.

While there remains confusion about Michigan law, it is clear that many people are unfairly denied. We recommend speaking with an experienced attorney if your workers’ compensation benefits have been disputed based upon employment status.

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Local SEO for Paint Contractors

 What is this and How can it Benefit Contractors?

If you want to successfully market your business and make it grow, you have probably heard that SEO is the way to go. Search Engine Optimization is beneficial no matter what type of contractor you are. Whenever it comes to SEO marketing, local SEO is the next best thing for contractors to consider. 

What is local SEO for contractors? What makes it a different SEO approach? Why is this beneficial to your contractor business?

Local SEO for contractors is a term used to describe contractor SEO marketing aimed within the town or city where your business is located. This means marketing your contractor business to local clients, whether they are online or offline customers.

The Advantages and Benefits of Local SEO for Contractors

• Easy to Apply: Applying local Contractor SEO to your business is not so challenging nowadays because of some SEO tools you can use like Google Maps and Google Search.
• Finding Quality Leads is Easier: It’s frustrating to get leads, only to find out that they are far from where you are or the phone numbers cannot be contacted. With local SEO for contractors, you get leads from local clients only. With this, you are certain that they are quality leads or leads that can really turn into customers.
• Easier for Leads to Find You: With local SEO, you make your contractor business easier for these leads to find. This means your business is enlisted in local listings, which is what most clients are searching for. Most clients find local contractors a practical option for their needs.
• Highly Effective: Local SEO for contractors means you are enlisting your business to Google Maps and other local directories online. With this, the use of the internet means more people will see your contractor business. This will eventually lead to more potential clients.
• Serves as a Stepping-Stone to Contractor Business Growth: Applying local SEO may mean starting to reach out to customers within your area. If you succeed in this local venture, you will have more opportunities to expand your business and cater to non-local clients in the future. This will eventually lead to more success for your business. In short, local SEO for contractors also means gradually taking your contractor business to success.

Even if local SEO was not really considered before, the many benefits your business can get is proof that you don’t have to reach that far to make your business grow. It actually pays when you start checking for local opportunities first.

Begin your local SEO efforts by registering your business on Google My Business.

Enter your business name, address and phone number so your local customers can easily discover your company through a Google Search and Google Maps. You can even reach new customers without currently having a website! Create a description about your business and upload photos to help your customers truly understand the type of services you offer. Once your business is verified by Google, you will be visible online to all local customers.

Make sure your website has the needed information.

If you are using the YOAST All in One SEO plugin, then get the Local SEO plugin. If you are not using YOAST, then use a WordPress plugin in like Local SEO and Business Listings. This will enable you to add local information to your site that search engines will detect. This is important, as Google knows the location of a user when they are doing a search and will serve up results based on the closest businesses to their locations.

Check your content!

You want to use relevant keywords in your content that matter to the people in your area. Target your specific region by using terminology for your neighborhood or specific region in your posts and pages. Use the name of your neighborhood in the text of your posts. Use your neighborhood as part of your description on your Google My Business page. Use it in your tags. Use it in your profiles. Use specific messages targeted to your neighborhood. Use a subheading that targets your neighborhood. Use images that reflect the style and architecture of your area.

Article Provided by Mr. Pipeline Internet Marketing for Contractors. © 2016

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Paint Training Made Easy

There is no doubt, the world is changing. In some categories, the paint world hasn’t kept up. Critical skill and knowledge standards that painters need have not evolved into reliable and accessible digital form.

There are plenty of marketing, estimating and sales resources, but paint training for crews in the field remains behind. Paint contractors can sell beyond their ability to deliver. That is a problem – a training problem.

If you hire the right people, they really can learn and train using online resources. It just hasn’t been done correctly yet…

Interactive and Social Paint Training

Paint contractors search online for the quickest answers to most problems, including this one. And that can send you deep down a rabbit hole of mixed search results. Google doesn’t always put the best in front of you, especially when there is no real “best” to be had.

Social media as an educational platform falls short in functionality. Almost as soon as something is said or posted, it is buried in a sea of clutter. That applies to Facebook, with popular “live” video and good posts that you’ll never see again. Twitter never educated anyone. And Youtube has almost become a victim of its own hugeness. Although it is one of the most used “search engines”. Video is what people prefer, over reading or other methods of learning.

That said, we are seeing a rebirth of the good old fashioned website as a learning tool. Yes, you remember actual sites – destinations that archive critical information that people need. By way of example, Blogging Painters is exactly that, a reliable site where you know you can find news and information. And now, that site-based principle is available in the area of paint training.

Education doesn’t happen without action. Watching videos without doing something (to learn) is mostly passive & entertaining. #painttraining

— Prep to Finish (@PreptoFinish) December 26, 2016

How is a Focused Online Paint Training Center Possible?

This one hits close to home. Blogging Painters assists and partners with many segments of the paint industry, including some high profile “sister” sites powered by BP founder Chris Haught’s Partner’s in Sites web networking platform. The long standing tool junkie site, Topcoat Review is a popular example. As is the online home of paint industry education pioneer, Prep to Finish.

Paint Trainers Todd and Scott

The latest educational resource to hatch out of this collaborative group is a new Online Training Center for painters – paintertrainer.com.

This digital division of Prep to Finish distills the essence of highly successful P2F ‘hands-on’ active learning methods into a gated online community where professional painters can learn without the confusion and distraction of surfing online for good information.

If there is a paint industry education entity that could figure out how to bring “learning by doing” to a video based online venue, it would be paint trainers and educators, Scott Burt and Todd Pudvar who are noted for their curriculum development abilities. And if there was an online creator that could twist the nuts and bolts to make an interactive training site simple for painters, it would be Chris Haught.

What is unique about the paintertrainer.com Online Training Center is that, for the first time, painters will be able to learn on an easy to use site that is video based, with downloadable materials, real skill building assignments, accountability and implementation support daily from the trainers. It is designed to speed learning curves and will set standards for job completion, efficiency and profits by making processes consistent and predictable for companies.

We may be biased, ok, we definitely are. We built it. The Online Training Center for painters is a solution that allows you to use outsourced paint training talent in an “in-house” manner. We can only say that because we built it. And we built it because it was needed.

The first class starts on January 9, and registration is now open on a first come first served basis.

Check out the first class by pressing here.

If you have questions or feedback about this new resource, please talk to us right down below in the comments.

 

 

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Blogging Painters

The Blogging Painter is always out on the web looking for the best information to share with readers.

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4 Strategies for Maximizing Word of Mouth Painting Referrals

In the service industry, existing customers are your bread and butter and you need to make sure they have an amazing experience. Yes, you might get additional business from them for add-on work, but that’s not how they are most valuable. According to a Nielsen survey, people are FOUR TIMES more likely to buy when referred by a friend.

Source

Thanks to Brandon Lewis of The Academy for Professional Painting Contractors for sharing these tips in a Blogging Painters exclusive video!

How many of these tips can you implement this winter?

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Chris Haught

Editor at Blogging Painters at Partners in Sites

Chris Haught is the editor of Blogging Painters, the leading resource for paint contractors. Chris also works with contractors to improve their website and social media presence. When not blogging about the painting industry, she works in the educational sector as a media and technology mentor.

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Be Fully Engaged in Managing Your Reputation

Yelp. Google Reviews. Angie’s List. Ugh.

Doesn’t it seem like everybody always has something to complain about?

Studies have shown that, unfortunately, people are more likely to write a review of a negative experience than a positive one. So even if only one out of twenty jobs leaves a customer feeling unsatisfied, you might find that only that one negative experience ends up out in the world for everyone to see. We’d all like the opportunity to address our customer’s concerns one-on-one, but that doesn’t always happen. It’s frustrating to find out that you’ve lost business because someone has posted a negative review online. Plus, let’s be honest, it hurts to hear that someone is saying nasty things about you, your employees, and the way you make a living.

The best way to resolve an issue with reputation is to not let it get to the internet. Although this isn’t always possible, most people just want to be heard and feel like they’re being treated fairly. If a customer calls to complain, take the call and listen attentively and with a sympathetic ear. One of my colleagues has a great series of posts covering how to deal with unsatisfied customers at Field Nimble that I recommend you check out. But what if a customer doesn’t engage directly and jumps right to negative reviewing online?

What you can’t afford to do is bury your head in the sand and hope the reviews will go away.

Whether you like it or not, nearly 70% of potential customers now look for reviews online and an even higher percentage say they trust online reviews. In order to maintain your reputation, you need to be engaged online.

It’s crucial that you respond to EVERY online review. Everyone loves feeling appreciated and responding to a positive review shows the customer that you care about their satisfaction beyond completing the job. When a review is negative, be courteous, make it clear that you are sorry that the customer was unsatisfied and publicly ask for the opportunity to talk in private and see how you can make it right. If you resolve the issue, ask the customer if they’d be willing to remove the negative review or post a follow-up indicating that you’ve satisfied their complaint.

If you can’t persuade a customer to come around and clean-up a negative review, the best option is to make sure you have enough positive reviews to drown out one voice. This means actively engaging customers for review. One of the simplest ways to do this is to make sure you get your customer’s email as part of the process.

First, incentivize your employees based on customer reviews. Reviews are incredibly important, so having a monthly award for the worker who gets the most reviews is money well spent. When your worker is at a customer’s home, have them tell the customer that the company is going to send out a VERY SHORT email survey about the quality of the experience. Have your employee personally ask them to fill it out. People are more likely to do something for an individual than for a company, so be sure to train your people to let customers know that the employee’s performance is graded on the review. In the email, put a direct link to your page on a referral review site like Angie’s list, Yelp, or Google.

It’s important to not focus only on negative reviews. When customers praise your service, thank them and let them know you appreciate their business. Showing other potential customers that you are engaged and grateful for business is as important as demonstrating that you are concerned about addressing problems and making things right when there is a complaint.

Even more important than online reviews are direct referrals.

In the service industry, existing customers are your bread and butter and you need to make sure they have an amazing experience. Yes, you might get additional business from them for add-on work, but that’s not how they are most valuable. According to a Nielsen survey, people are FOUR TIMES more likely to buy when referred by a friend. With 65% of new business coming from referrals, no other marketing channel is going to perform as well as having happy customers tell their friends how great you are. Unfortunately, you can’t assume that customers who have had an exceptional experience are going to remember to make a referral. In a study by Texas Tech, only 29% of customers end up making a referral… even though 83% of customers would be willing to do so.

Here’s what this looks like in the real world:

Friend: “I need to get some work done on my bathroom Didn’t you have someone do yours earlier this year?”

Customer: “Yeah, my contractor was great.”

Friend: “Great, who was it? I’ll give them a call.”

Customer: Blank Stare

We all want to think that when we do great work, our customers will have our name at the tip of their tongue. The reality is that everyone’s life is just as busy as yours and no matter how wonderful a job you’ve done, most people aren’t going to remember.

Fortunately, there are ways you can combat this problem. Start by keeping in touch with your customers after you’ve served them. A great way to spark referrals is to give your customer a leave behind they’ll use and keep handy. How about a refrigerator magnet that has this year’s calendar for your NFL team or measurement conversions for cooking? Giving away something that’s useful beyond just having your customer get in touch with you keeps you and your services at the front of your customer’s mind.

Steve Raines Co-founder, COO at Field Nimble
For over 20 years, Steve been passionate about putting the right people in the right seats and giving them the tools to make amazing things, profitably. Steve is the co-founder of Algonquin, SWRemote, and VCAMP. He loves bringing his experience in residential home services, professional services, SaaS, and mobile to bear with humility for successes and a hard, honest look at failure. Steve is an active angel investor and spends time working with and mentoring young entrepreneurs.

 

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