I was at a marketing conference in Sydney when an accountant said, “When a business owner says all their clients come from referrals, it’s because they’re useless at marketing.”
If most of your business comes from referrals, it could mean you do a remarkable job so everyone talks about you.
Or it could also mean that you do such a bad job of marketing that no one will ever find you and choose you, unless they get referred.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Referrals are great and everyone wants to build their business to the point where they get them. But there’s a lot more you can do to take charge of your destiny than rely on referrals.
Here’s some of the options you have to bring in new clients:
How can home building companies use the web to make more sales?
Untapped Potential
A local search for building companies or new homes in New Zealand shows a lot of results that are very similar. This means there is a lot of potential for someone to standout by doing something different.
Many of those building websites do a good job of explaining the benefits they offer and showcasing the plans that are available. They are basically a nice online advertisement.
Google Now runs on the latest Android phones and basically gives you information when you need it, before you have to search for it.
Right now it’s not widespread enough to make much of a difference to local marketing, but it’s going to have a big impact in the future. Mobile marketing has exploded in importance overseas and is going to become a major focus in New Zealand in the coming years.
Facebook has got a huge amount of useage in New Zealand. But should you focus on building likes to your Facebook page?
Many web companies feel like they’re being held to ransom by Facebook. Earlier this year, Facebook changed how they distribute page updates, so that now they’re only going to about 15% of subscribers. To reach the rest of subscribers, you have to pay. (There’s coverage in various places, but here’s a good post on it.)
Social media is great in its place, but it’s important that you’re not doing that instead of building a database you control. James Schramco calls this idea, “own the racecourse.” Basically you don’t want your business assets to be at the mercy of another company.
Building a list of email subscribers should be a primary goal for most web marketing. It’s a valuable database that allows you to repeatedly reach prospects and clients who are interested in using your services. And if you control it, then no one can come along hold it for ransom.
I got number one results on Google last week for two of a clients main search terms. This is a big win because the top results gets by far the most visitors.
We got there by consistently doing the right things.
Lots of sites have dropped in the rankings this year as Google have updated their algorithm to take a harder line on spam.
There’s always things you can do to trick the search engines temporarily. But it doesn’t work out in the long term, because they will find out and punish you.
The key thing is to play for the long term and build an asset that’s going to bring clients and profits into your business for years to come.
Real estate marketing in New Zealand, and Tauranga in particular, could be getting much more mileage from the internet than it does.
There’s so much interest in real estate online. Over half a million searches on Google every month for real estate in New Zealand. And over 80% of home buyers are looking online.
But when you look at the results that come up, they’re very much on the bland side. Everybody’s doing fairly similar, predictable stuff. Nobody really stands out. There’s isn’t much good content out there and no consistent inbound marketing.
All that means there’s a lot of potential. One company or a few salespeople could get serious about the web and get some big results.
The report I’ve put together looks at the current state of the market, and outlines what could be done to get much more from it.
It’s only available in hard copy, but if you’d like one of those (and you’re someone who can actually put it to use) just email me, and I’ll be happy to post you one.
Google is still the main source of visitors for local service businesses. So it’s important we keep them happy.
This year we’ve seen big changes from Google as they try and improve the quality of the results they give. Last week has released a new tool so you can disavow links that point to your site.
Candour is an effective way to get prospects to believe your advertising message.
There is an inherent distrust for advertising messages. When you tell the prospect the negative points about your service they will believe you. That trust in what you’re saying carries over to your positive messages.
We’ve had some hard times in the last few years, and plenty of businesses have been cut way back. But a few businesses grew through the hard times. How did they do it? Pretty simple really, they kept promoting. That’s how you grow a business, ongoing promotion. And because other businesses were cutting back on…
Email: luke@marketinggeek.co.nz Office: 07 218 0278 Mobile: 021 241 5330 Address: 80 Vernon Rd, RD1, Tauranga, 3171 Or use the contact form to contact Luke.
New Zealand Internet Marketing Blog.">
I was at a marketing conference in Sydney when an accountant said, “When a business owner says all their clients come from referrals, it’s because they’re useless at marketing.”
