Turn more prospects into customers
Industrial and manufacturing tradeshows are a large expenditure, and you need a significant ROI to make them worthwhile.
Say you spend $10,000 on a small show. Let’s assume it is a three-day show, and you have 7 hours a day. Out of that, you have 21 hours of actual time on the floor. Extrapolate that, and you have 1,260 minutes on the floor. Now if you divide the $10,000/1260 m, you get $7.93 a minute.
Pricey.
So it will be 2017 soon! Yeah! New year, new cool things we can do in marketing! Right! Right?
Well, maybe….however if you haven’t proven that your marketing is effective then maybe not. You might have the same budget you had last year. Or even worse, lower. Yikes
So what can you do now to make sure you have a bigger budget in 2017.
The problem is that marketing departments often have a challenge tying an increase in your marketing budget into an increase in company KPI’s. So let’s start there
It is the fall, which in addition to pumpkins and turning leaves, also means it is marketing goal setting season.
We have written before about the marketing metrics that your CEO cares about, and how you can use those to make sure you get the most resources possible.
However, today I want to talk about how to make better marketing goals that are more powerful and how you can meet them.
First of all, your goals need to be well thought out. Saying “oh we want to increase leads” is not an excellent goal. Why? Because it is not SMART.
It doesn’t have the limitations of time, specificity, or well, anything. This goal is not a SMART marketing goal. Making your goals SMART will help you know when you meet them and help give you a mark to hit.
Secondly, your goals need to have buy-in. And not just from the marketing department. Talk to sales and learn what their goals are. How do your prospective goals match up to theirs? If they don’t, there is a problem.
Look at your company’s overall goals. Where can marketing help them meet it? While many of marketing goals tie closely to sales, there are other aspects of marketing including brand awareness, PR, etc. that don’t necessarily pair directly with sales goals.
Thirdly, you need to make sure that you have an effective strategy to meet your goals. Increasing inbound leads by 30% is not going to be a realistic goal if you don’t have an effective strategy to do so. Make sure that you have the budget and time to enact the plan that fits the closest with your goals.
Lastly, be conscious of your budget. Having a 100k strategy to meet your goals is not going to fare well if your marketing budget is only $60,000. Figure out ways that you can judge past strategies and tactics and see if you can move money to more efficient marketing techniques.
If you need help with your marketing goals, download our SMART Marketing Goals Template.
Building great insurance websites can be difficult. However, here are a few tips that might make it easier for you. While we have cautioned about not using website builders, here are some things you should do. Most of this advice has to do with saving time. Saving time directly translates into saving money.
Budget: Know your budget and stick to it. Whether you have $5,000 or $50,000 to spend will greatly influence what you can do with your website. But even if it is only $5,000 that is still enough to have a good site. Be sure to share your budget with any web designers or marketers that you consider contracting.
Avoid stock photos (for people): Sometimes businesses see stock photos as a cost saving measure. However, if you do your research and use a good photographer for your website, it can save you 
money in the long run. It also helps with your customers if they can see pictures of the people they talk to on your site. Instead of random guys in suits. By the way, if you need a good release for your staff to sign, download customizable video and photo release.
Know what you want: I cannot emphasize enough that you need to know what you want from your financial services site going in. That means that you need to know your goals, your message, your unique selling proposition, your marketing strategy, all of these before you write one line of code.
Know what you like: You need to have an idea of what you like before getting started, while your web developer is going to help you refine your vision, having a broad base of “we like this, and we hate this” is going to save you tons of time. If you already have a style guide pass that along as well. If there is anything, you want to change in the guide be sure you bring that up as before you build your insurance website.
Use a CMS: A CMS, or Content Management System, is going to make things easier and less expensive in the future. With a traditional website, you have to go back to the developer or designer to make changes to your site. So whenever you have a change, i.e., add a service or change your about page, you get a charge.
It is much easier to use a CMS where you can make the changes yourself. In fact, your web designer should offer some training to one of your staff members in the proposal, so you have this option.
Team: Pick your team wisely. Make sure that they have the time and desire to help with this project. Your website will probably be your financial services companies biggest marketing spend of the year, so make it count.
With these caveats in mind, you can build the best insurance website and stick to your budget. If you want to learn more about building a great insurance website, get our Guide to Building the Foundation for a Great Insurance Website.
Being found by potential customers is one of the most important elements in having a great general contractor website. After all, no new leads means no new jobs. The best strategy to be found is through content marketing. Content marketing is a great way to get the search engines to notice you and rank your results (web pages, blogs, whatever) higher.
Ever wonder why when you search construction firms, some companies appear before others? Is it the vagaries of chance? Or is it something else?
Well, good news!! It is not chance that causes you to appear lower than your competitors; it is something that you can actively control. It only takes hard work and some strategy.
But hey, nothing worth having is easy, right?The reason that some results come before others is because of how the search engines work. They want to give people the most appropriate results, so the SE’s employ algorithms to make sure they give people what they want. The search engines want recent, relevant and popular content. (I tend to use Google for most exam
ples, sorry Bing).
Here is a guide to three ways you can use content to make sure that you show up first.
Recent: To have a better rank the more you publish, the better. Google loves new pages to index. Your construction site needs to add new content for a variety of reasons.
It allows you to be found by potential prospects for more search terms. So if someone searches for construction companies in Charlotte NC, you are there. But also having more content means that you get to frame the message and talk about your unique sales position.
Relevant: Make sure the content that you are putting out about your construction company is relevant. Make sure that it adds value to your prospects.
So what makes valuable content?
Popular: Now that you have created all of this great content, make sure that you share it on social media so that people can show you that they care about it. Google wants to make sure that the content that it values is content that actual humans value. One of the best ways they can rate it is if people show they like it through social media. 
So be sure to share it and ask your employees and friends to, as well.
We hope this helps get you started on improving your construction or general contractor website. If you need help, get our guide to build a great foundation for your website.
