Digital Marketing for Contractors
A podcast for home improvement contractors to help you crush your lead goals and take your business to the next level. Join us each episode as we give you powerful insights and practical tips on the best digital marketing strategies to help you grow your home improvement business.
Digital Marketing for Contractors
Digital Marketing Agencies: Finding the Right Fit
In this episode, Janet and Caitlyn break down how home improvement contractors can find the right digital marketing agency to support their growth. They discuss why hiring an agency is a smart move, the must-haves to look for, the red flags to avoid, and how the right fit can transform your business. With real stories, candid advice, and actionable tips, this episode is a must-listen for any contractor ready to stop wasting money and start seeing real marketing results.
Want to find out how we can create a custom digital marketing game plan for your contractor business? Schedule a call with us at fatcatstrategies.com.
Welcome to Digital Marketing for Contractors. This podcast is brought to you by Fat Cat Strategies, a full-service digital marketing agency based in Raleigh, North Carolina. We specialize in helping home improvement contractors just like you grow their businesses.
Janet:Today, you're listening to a series called Build, Grow, Dominate, marketing strategies for every stage of your home improvement business. Every Wednesday, we take a deep dive into the lessons that we've learned from supporting some amazing business owners in the home improvement industry. In
Caitlyn:part one, we'll cover the essentials from startup to your first five million. In part two, we're shifting gears to focus on what it takes to scale your business to a successful exit and or how to dominate your market. Now let's get into it.
Janet:Hey, I'm Janet, the founder here at Fat Cat Strategies, and today I am joined by my lovely and beautiful colleague, Caitlin Noble.
Caitlyn:Thank you so much, Janet. Too bad y'all can't see me right now.
Janet:Yeah, we'll post a picture of her on the website. She is actually incredibly attractive.
Caitlyn:I am Caitlin, a partner here at Fat Cat Strategies and the head of client services. Janet, what are we diving into today?
Janet:Today, we're talking about... An important topic, a big topic, and listeners, prepare to roll your eyes a little bit because it could be a little bit self-serving. And that's fine. We're here for it. Today we are talking about how to find the right digital marketing agency for your home improvement business. Because let's be honest, doing great work in the home is one thing, but then getting people, but how do you get people to the home in the first place? You need marketing, right? Like, you could be the best kitchen company, bath company, but if nobody knows about you, you don't have the opportunity to do what you do best, and you need marketing. So today, we're talking about how to find a great digital agency that's the best fit for your company.
Caitlyn:And I think it's fair to say that we are definitely not the only agency in the home improvement market. No. We have had clients bounce back and forth between us, other agencies, vice versa. I get it, but let's talk about why you just should hire one. We've talked to y'all about marketing and what digital marketing is, and we're going to keep coaching through that, but let's talk about just why hiring an agency is so important. And honestly, that's the first number one. So just why is it a smart move? When you're getting started, it's very tempting to try and do it all yourself. I totally understand that and do that too. You might want to post on social media. You might want to run a few ads. You may have your cousin build your website. We've seen it all. But if you're serious about growth, about generating quality leads, scaling your team, and looking for a real player in your market, looking like a real player in your market let me rephrase that so if you're serious about growth and generating quality leads scaling your team and you want to look like a real roofing company a real signing company in your market then you need to hire a marketing agency and that will be your game changer they bring a strategy the tools and the time that you probably did not have and won't have as an owner and operator, but not all agencies are created equal. So how do you choose the right one, Janet?
Janet:So, you know, we obviously have so many opinions about this, but I think one of the you know, they might be really great in general, but they just don't understand the home improvement business. They don't get how important leads are.
Caitlyn:They
Janet:don't know the language. They don't even really know what the word lead means to a contractor. They don't, you know, they're not really drilling into your sales cycle and your KPIs. And so if you don't partner with an agency that has industry experience, you could end up working with an agency that thinks that this is a graphic design exercise or a branding exercise, which that has its time and its place. but that's not geared towards lead generation. And so in the end, it just might not be a good fit because your expectations and what you needed are out of line with what that agency is prepared to give. So when you're looking and evaluating agencies, ask for case studies. Ask them if they've worked with roofers. Have they worked with a window company? Have they worked with a one-day bath company? and because you will quickly figure out if they understand your business and a generalist A generalist agency that has, you know, other kinds of clients, maybe an insurance agent, a financial planner, a local dog groomer, they may know Google Ads, but a specialist who understands the home improvement industry will understand how to make them work for you to hit your numbers and KPIs that you want to hit. So that's the first thing. bit of advice that we have in how to pick a digital marketing agency. Caitlin, what's next?
Caitlyn:Yeah, so you've Found an agency with industry experience, check. So now you want to make sure that they offer services that are actually going to move the needle. And if they are in the home improvement industry, they do know what it means to generate leads for you. And you're looking for comprehensive service offerings. A lot of small businesses do fall into the trap of hiring a web guy, like we were talking about, your cousin, an SEO girl, thinking that that's enough. But honestly, digital marketing works best when it best when it's integrated. If you've listened to any of our previous episodes, we harp on this. Your SEO should support your Google Ads. Your Google Ads should support your remarketing. And your email follow-ups should support it all. So make sure the agency that you hire has a full suite of services or at least knows how to play well with the other platforms. If they offer SEO, PPC, social, content, email, reporting, you're right on track. they're gonna be generating leads for you. Make sure they offer comprehensive services. What else do these agencies need to do, Janet?
Janet:First of all, I just wanted to say I love that tip that you gave about the comprehensive services. We've seen,
Caitlyn:you
Janet:know, when we talk about do's and don'ts, that's a don't that we've definitely seen where we get, you know, home improvement companies who come to us who have, you know, one agency working on their SEO, another agency working on their PPC. They usually have, quote, unquote, a girl. They do. And they call them a girl working on their social services.
Caitlyn:But
Janet:it's
Caitlyn:probably a
Janet:boy. Yeah. But what happens is those channels are not integrated. And so, you know, if one hand is not talking to the other, it just makes things like running a promotional offer or making sure that you're asking for reviews and referrals. You really want all those messages to be integrated across all channels so that you can really understand that. how your money's being spent and what you're getting back from it and that all the messages are consistent and really coherent. Okay, so the next thing when you are looking for and evaluating agencies, make sure they've got industry experience, make sure they have comprehensive services that actually move the needle, and then ask them to prove it. I love that. Ask for results. Don't ask for promises or theories. Ask for proof.
Caitlyn:Ask
Janet:how many leads have they generated for a company that's similar to yours. If you're a window replacement company, do they have another window client in another state? Ask about ROI. What kind of ad budget did that other company have? What kind of gross revenue did that other company have? What is the cost per lead? What is the appointment set rate of the leads that they generate? A good agency that understands this business will not only be happy to show you this information, they'll probably geek out on it and they'll really get into talking about it. So if you start asking those really specific questions and they start to get cagey or vague or they try to make you feel dumb by using a bunch of kind of digital marketing nerd speak. That doesn't
Caitlyn:make
Janet:sense. That doesn't make sense. They're trying to avoid... You know, you asked them to prove it and they're trying to avoid it. And that's just your sign to walk away. They're going to talk to you like
Caitlyn:that for the rest of your partnership.
Janet:Oh, that's such a good point. Yeah. If they're going to belittle you with overly complicated acronyms that you don't understand and then, you know, try to convince you that the report that they're showing you is the one and only report that you ever need to look at. Yes. It's just not a good sign. So Caitlin, what's another thing that our listeners could... should look for when they're looking for an agency to partner with?
Caitlyn:So not only do they need to prove it, but I think it's spot on that they are transparent. Your agency, oh my gosh, this just hits home. So
Janet:you're talking about communication?
Caitlyn:Communication for sure. Communication is everything, but transparent communication. I mean, your agency should be sending you regular reports and taking their time to explain those reports. You don't need a marketing degree to understand what working I cannot begin to emphasize the number of companies who have come to work with us and just accepted this below average report and thought that they knew what like that that that was fine like I like that they thought that these KPIs that this other agency was telling them like were the end-all be-all and It's not. It's not aligned with what you need as an agency.
Janet:Can I sneak in a little story? Please sneak in and
Caitlyn:keep talking about transparency.
Janet:Yeah, you keep talking about transparency, but it just reminds me. This story is not from the home improvement industry, but it goes back. Caitlin and I had a client years ago, and it was a local, private agency. like tech school college where you know you get out of the military you your job changing and you want a career college you want to change jobs you want to get some sort of certification um that's what this company offered and we were their marketing company and they went out and I think they started working with a local tv station a
Caitlyn:lot of our clients do
Janet:anyways yeah um
Caitlyn:they do yeah
Janet:and This company, so we were still working with them. They went out and hired somebody else, which goes back to the comprehensive service thing where one hand wasn't talking to the other. And they started running all these ads that were like pre-roll video ads on YouTube and through this networks, this local cable networks thing.
Caitlyn:And in our defense, we could not produce TV commercials. So it was good that the client at the time went out and got them. But they're running these pre-roll ads. Oh,
Janet:my God. We sat in this meeting. Me and Caitlin are in this meeting. And this person in this fancy suit is there with their slide deck. And it was just super professional. And they just kept talking about view-throughs. And it was thousands and thousands of view-throughs. And we knew for a fact that there were zero leads that came from that campaign that our client had spent thousands of dollars on. And we had the data and we were in their CRM and we had all the tracking. So, you know, you're talking about communication and you're talking about transparency. You know, I just wanted to share that story that if you're sitting in the room with somebody and you feel like they're blowing smoke, They probably are. They probably are. And
Caitlyn:I, you know, if we don't feel like the results that we've produced month over month are great, you know, we address that on the call with our clients. We don't hide data points. We say, hey, here's what we're going to do differently. Here's why these results maybe weren't as great as they could have been. Search, like, et cetera. So don't. Settle for less. I think your agency and your report should be telling you things such as how many leads did you get this month? That's huge. That's where we start at our reports. That's how we open every conversation. Here's how many leads we saw generated. How was your business? What keywords are driving traffic? And then which ads are converting best? Those are just a few things that we always touch on. If they're not sharing that or if it's just, to Janet's point, a bunch of jargon to confuse you, that's just not a partnership. It's a smokescreen. You deserve better. Absolutely. So the
Janet:next tip that we have is look for an agency that's going to customize their services and and not like shovel you into some cookie cutter solution, like whatever their levels are. You're going to be the gold level or the blueberry level or the silver level or whatever. You know, these packaged offerings, your business is unique, your marketing should be unique, and your marketing strategy should match what you need and where you are. So if you can avoid the plug and play agencies that give you the exact same plan they give to every other client, like here are the five area serve pay that you're going to get. And
Caitlyn:do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like that.
Janet:Yeah. Like it's just this very rigid, like when it comes to SEO, they've got a formula. Well, we write eight blog posts and we do five area serve pages, you know, like that. But does it work? I know. And did you need eight more blog posts? And are you reporting on the results? And does anybody ever go read them? And do they ever convert into a lead? So it's that kind of like rigid formulaic package offering that we've seen it be pretty pervasive and kinda popular in this space and you know it just might not be the best fit for you so You know, just ask questions. Try to figure out if the agency that you're talking to is giving you the same plan that they give to everybody else. Because the right agency will actually take the time to learn about your business, your goals, your ideal customer, your service areas, your pain points, and then build a strategy that fits you.
Caitlyn:Totally agree. And I will say, yes, we are levelizing. I just made up a word. Do it. Levelizing our listeners and our contractors. You know, right now you're listening to a level one series. We will and we do have packages that are perfect for our level one contractors. But that does not mean that we're not going to ever release. be able to be flexible
Janet:it's more like a category exactly you know like oh you would be a best fit for these types of services at the level your business is right now
Caitlyn:exactly and and and that's what i wanted to make a plug because we do have those packages it's different though it's not cookie cutter it's still going to be so customized to your business um and speaking of um kind of packages and knowing what you're paying for, let's talk budget. Hiring a marketing agency is an investment and it shouldn't feel like a gamble. I know when I started working for Fat Cat, what did we used to say? We're less expensive than a full-time hire. And I think that's just something to note is it is an investment, even if it is less than a full-time hire, you want to know what you're paying for. You want transparency and pricing. Ask what's included Ask what the monthly retainer covers. Make sure there's a clear understanding of what success looks like so you can hold them accountable. Oh, that's so important. I'm going to say it again. Make sure there's a clear understanding of what success looks like so you can hold them accountable. If they did tell you, you know, they're going to give you five area serve pages and they're going to manage a $3,000 ad budget and they're going to keep your website optimized. What does that mean? Like, make sure you understand that. A good agency will explain the value behind the cost and they will help you grow into a bigger budget over time. Like, they should. I mean, that's a win. These clients that we've talked about, these leveled up clients.
Janet:Yeah, their marketing budget grows as their revenue grows because their needs are bigger. They need more leads, so they've got to spend more money. That's amazing. It's
Caitlyn:a sign of success. Exactly. And we definitely are transparent. And any other agency that you're talking to should be transparent. transparent about what they're what you're paying for as well um Janet anything
Janet:yeah so here's a few more things to look for when you are evaluating um a potential agency partner. What are the tools and tech that they use? Ask them. What is their tech stack? Are they running PPC campaigns through Google Ads or Microsoft Ads? Are they using tools like SEMrush or CallRail or HubSpot? Are they familiar with your CRM? Have they ever logged into your CRM and pulled reports? Not yours specifically, but let's say you use MarketSharp. Are they familiar with MarketSharp? Are they familiar with lead perfection. Can they find sales
Caitlyn:in your
Janet:CRM? Yeah. Can they log into Acculinks independently and get what they need? Yes. So, you know, if they have, like, for instance, you know, we mentioned CallRail here. We actually love one of CallRail's competitors, WhatConverts. Yeah. And so we have all of our clients on WhatConverts. Our clients
Caitlyn:love it.
Janet:And our clients love it. We're able to capture all the sources of all the leads if they came in from organic search, from paid search, from social, from direct, from email. You tell us that you want to do some sort of yard side campaign. You give us a special phone number, and we'll make sure we can track that phone number. So ask about the tech. Ask about lead source tracking. An agency that totally gets this industry will be excited to tell you what they're doing. Absolutely. So you want a partner who's not stuck in 2017, but who's got their finger on the pulse of what they need now and what's working now.
Caitlyn:Staying on top of those algorithm changes, ad platforms. I mean, y'all know we have continued to talk about it. The algorithm keeps changing on Google and more and more ad platforms keep appearing. Make sure your agency is bringing those ideas to you.
Janet:So what else can people look for or think about when they're evaluating, you know, considering partnering with a new agency?
Caitlyn:I think instead of what to look for, how about what
Janet:to watch out for. Oh, I don't. I love a list of don'ts. Yeah,
Caitlyn:yeah, yeah, yeah. So some quick red flags. And y'all, I have seen it, seen it, seen it. I'm just saying, and sometimes it works, but I would say it doesn't meet the full agency standard of what you should have is they promise guaranteed leads or instant rankings. You're going to, I mean, I just, I don't, I don't have anything else to say other than like, that is a red flag. You're You're going to get instant rankings. You're going to guarantee leads. How?
Janet:Yeah. How?
Caitlyn:And what are you
Janet:paying for? And what does that look like? So I guess you're saying anybody that quote promises you to be quote unquote number one on Google, that phrase doesn't even mean anything anymore.
Caitlyn:That's laughable. Yeah. I have seen portions of the digital marketing agency world say, who can guarantee leads. So I just, I don't think that that's your end-all be-all though. I mean,
Janet:in terms of an agency. I think in that sense, you're really talking to a lead aggregator. That's exactly right. You're not talking to an agency. An agency who can do all of the things we listed. Right. And so there's a space for an agency and there's a space for lead aggregators. But a lead aggregator is, if you're buying leads from them, and a lot of our clients still use lead aggregators, they're one of many channels of leads, but once you stop paying, You turn the faucet off. You pay per lead. An agency, in my opinion, a good agency, their goal is to increase your brand so that over time you're generating more word of mouth referrals, more organic search referrals, so that you're not always addicted to that brand. pay per lead drip. But I interrupted. You were in the middle of a great list of red flags. Yeah, first
Caitlyn:red flag.
Janet:What are the rest of the red flags?
Caitlyn:Like, just red flag. Like, check out, gut check what their promises are. Another red flag, they don't explain how they're getting their results. Another red flag, they outsource everything overseas without telling you. I guess we could do a whole separate podcast on how to spot that. Yeah, we should. Let's
Janet:add
Caitlyn:that to the list. We're going to add that to the list. I guess if you started to see other users added to your Google Ads account that were from unfamiliar names, et cetera, we'll go on separately. So outsourcing and not letting you know. They try to lock you into a long contract. That bothers me. I mean, and we could talk about that. We probably have talked about it before, about locking you into a long contract without showing you results. And then, Janet, I'm going to let you take this last bullet point because... Let's talk about they own your website and your domain.
Janet:Yeah, a red flag. If you've never worked with an agency before and maybe you want to rebuild your website or, I don't know, you could be brand new and you don't have a website, make sure you understand inside of the agency relationship who owns what. Yes. Do they own your domain name? Do they own your Google Ad account? Yes. Do they own the Facebook business profile that they set up for you? Do they own your website? So you could own your domain name, you know, bobsroofing.com, but you hire somebody to build your site. Three years later, you're not really happy with them and you want to go to another agency or you've hired somebody in-house. And that's the day you find out, three years later, that you can't take that website with you. So, you know, the red flag is... And maybe it's not a red flag. It's just more like be an educated consumer.
Caitlyn:Ask the questions.
Janet:Ask the right questions so that you don't end up two or three years into a relationship where you want to make a switch and that's when you find out that you don't have the logins to anything and you literally don't own some of these things really critical accounts to make your business run and in your online presence that are related to your online presence. So ask those questions. And if you don't understand the answers, I would say that's a red
Caitlyn:flag. Your marketing partner should build trust, not try to hide behind anything. Wow. I think we could have talked about that for a while.
Janet:Yeah. Janet, any
Caitlyn:final thoughts?
Janet:So I guess, you know, we'll just sort of put a bow on this and say that, you know, we have so much respect for this industry. So many great, hardworking people building real, you know, the politicians like to talk about Main Street. You know, you guys are the Main Street businesses, right? you're taking kids out of high school, you're giving them trade jobs, you're providing career opportunities. So you do all that hard work to create this main street business you need to choose a digital marketing agency that's going to be a good partner for you so that you can grow that business and the right partner will be able to help you generate leads drive revenue and take the marketing pressure off of your plate so you can focus on other stuff and lord knows you've got other stuff to focus on so take your time ask the right questions look for experience look for transparency ask about results ask about strategy And when you find the right fit, I think you'll know it. You will. You'll know it when you find the right fit. And it can really transform your business.
Caitlyn:Vice versa. I mean, if you're an agency listening to this, I mean, when you have a client that comes in or a prospect that comes in and they're the right fit, it's a beautiful partnership.
Janet:Yeah, it's actually fun. And it's not easy. I mean, we're all here doing work. Yeah, none of it's
Caitlyn:easy, but it is fun.
Janet:It can be a lot of fun. I mean, I've had some of the most fun in my career watching home improvement businesses just really take off like a rocket ship. Yes. You know, and watching their revenue grow and they hire people and they create new, you know, not only do they create new jobs, they create new job positions in their company. They're getting married. They're having kids. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's amazing. And the right partnership can help make all that possible.
Caitlyn:Yes. Y'all, we are at the end of the Level 1 series next week. It's the last episode next week. We're going to dive into a topic that can be the difference between burning money and printing it. I love that we're finishing on this one because I think it's super important and we've done many other episodes on it, but we're going to break it down even more. It's just PPC advertising. We're going to talk about the 10 PPC pitfalls that replacement contractors often fall into and most importantly, how you can avoid them.
Janet:Looking forward to that one. Okay, so thank you for joining us on another episode of Digital Marketing for Contractors. As always, we hope you got some value from And if you found this helpful, please subscribe and leave us a review and or share it with a fellow business owner. It really helps us out. If you can give us 30 minutes, we're going to try to give you some tips that you can use. So until next time, keep building smarter and we'll catch you on the next episode.