Since 1992, when Category 5 Hurricane Andrew brought devastation to many of Florida’s southern cities, the state has been fairly aggressive in maintaining a strong building code to prevent similar damage from happening again.
Last week, I wrote about how Brian Elias has the whole marketing arena figured out in our remodeling space. I also laid out the six functions that businesses need to figure out in order to thrive, noting that almost nobody figures out the marketing side of the business.
I’ve met exactly one marketing genius in the remodeling industry since I began specializing in remodeling marketing in 2005. His name is Brian Elias, the charismatic owner of Hansons Windows in Detroit. He’s built an impressive business somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 million a year—not by having better products or service than everyone else—but by lapping the field in marketing.
For several years, I worked in an interior office with nothing but a buzzing fluorescent light to illuminate my space. After buckling down on a project for hours, I was always surprised when I emerged, looked out someone else’s window and saw it was snowing. Or storming.
Little did I know when I started at Window & Door that the Pittsburgh area is jam-packed with manufacturers in the fenestration industry. In April, I was welcomed to two local-to-me plants. I visited Thermal Windows & Doors in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, which introduced vinyl windows to the U.S. in the 1960s, Dave Steinberg, director of sales and marketing, told me.
Google My Business is a free online tool that is super easy to use and can help increase any business’s online marketing performance. Still, many companies have yet to claim their business profile on Google.
Two weeks ago, I attended Professional Remodeler magazine’s Extreme Lead Generation conference. The Window & Door Dealers Alliance was proud to be a partner of this industry event focused on lead generation tools and tactics for home builders and professional remodelers.
Regular readers know I remain a strong proponent of doing everything possible to make your window and door website rank as highly as possible in organic (unpaid) local search results. While pay-per-click advertising and other internet marketing techniques have gained traction in recent years, local businesses still get the bulk of online lead generation, conversions and revenue from ranking highly in organic searches.
Many companies rely on the expertise of internet marketing agencies for ad development, placement and intellectual property right protection. But, as recent experience with Facebook and “tailored” content has illustrated, internet advertising can also present a Wild West for the digital frontier. Window and door companies using digital ad agencies must exercise caution.
I’ve written it many times before, but it bears repeating: you can’t take advantage of everything online marketing can do for you if you don’t have great content on your website. Content is foundational to attracting website traffic, converting visitors into leads as well as achieving top-quality SEO that ranks your site above local competition.