[00:00:00] Mia Fileman
Are you tired of empty promises and stolen ideas? Me too. Got. Marketing is a podcast for marketers and small brands who want real talk and clever strategies without the bs. Running an online business is hard, but everything gets easier when your marketing starts performing. I am Mia FileMan, your straight shooting campaign loving friend here to talk marketing, running a business, pop culture, and everything in between.
Let's dive in.
Mia
Hello, friend. I don't usually speak directly to Tradies on this podcast, but chances are that they're listening and that you know, one, your partner, your brother, your client, or your best friend's husband, and if they're running a trades business, they're probably working pretty bloody hard and still feeling stuck when it comes to their marketing.
That's why I'm bringing you today's conversation with Lex Stanley from Vastly Digital. Lex is the director of Vastly Digital. A digital marketing agency that primarily works with home improvement businesses, including builders blind and shutter companies, roof restoration specialists, as well as product-based businesses such as tile and flooring suppliers.
She has strong opinions, which we love about what works and what is a complete waste of time. This episode is also an opportunity to announce that we are hosting the tradie panel at Ripple Festival in November, supported by Squarespace, and we are thrilled to have Lex on this panel as a speaker.Tradespeople are so often left out of the small business marketing conversation. The challenges are real. The stakes are high, and the opportunities are huge. If you know what you're doing, so whether you are in trades and home improvement space, or you care about someone like your partner, who is, this episode is well worth a listen, so let's get into it.
Welcome to the show, Lex.
Lex
Thank you so much, Mia. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Mia
You are such a wealth of wisdom in this industry, which I don't know anything about, so I am going to be a really good listener. Start this episode and take a million pages of notes.
Lex
Well, the good thing is I'm a good talker, so here we are.
Mia
Oh, me too, babe. Me too. All right, let's dive right into it. What is the biggest marketing misconception, trades and home improvement businesses belief?
Lex
Yeah, look, I think this is probably gonna hit a bit of a nerve with. Some businesses. Um, so I say this with love, but I would say the biggest [00:02:00] misconception is that great quality and great service is a unique selling point. Almost every single home improvement business, whether it's a trade or a product based business, they're really saturated with competitors and a lot of them are saying the same things. You know, we have the best. Quality. So differentiation in the market is really, really critical. No marketing happens in a vacuum.
So if they're seeing your ad for blinds and shutters, it's likely they're also seeing other people's ads for blinds and shutters. You can't just say that you have good quality and, and if quality is really your differentiator, you need to demonstrate it. And a good quick example of that is one of our clients does retractable fly screens, right?
For sliding bifold doors and things like that. And they said to me, oh, we have really good quality. And I said, okay, but what? What does that mean? And when we really got into it, he was actually able to explain to me that, you know, it depends on where the seams are and it's custom cut. It's not made from one big panel. And so once I actually understood that, it's like, okay, now we can demonstrate it. We can't just say We have really great. Quality. It's just not a unique selling point. So I would say that's probably one of the biggest misconceptions for trades and home improvement businesses.
Mia
And actually every other service based business.
If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me, I just really care about my customers, and I just, I go the extra mile and I'm like, wow. Yeah. So does everyone. Yeah, that's the cost of doing business, mate. That's the minimum bar that you need to. Pass to still be in business in 2025. That is not, as you said, a point of differentiation or competitive advantage.
Lex
Totally. And I think the challenge for trades and home improvement businesses is that they find it difficult to work out what the, is their differentiation. Because you know, if you're a plumber, it's like, well, we install hot water system. So we install hot water systems in the same way that another plumber installs hot water systems.
And so it could be your brand, it could be your team, it could be your tone of voice. You know, there are different ways to differentiate yourself in market, even with a product that isn't very sexy. And so it is important to really think about that a little bit deeper.
mia
Oh, I love that. Those are some good examples.
What kind of marketing advice just doesn't work in this space? 'cause when we were talking before this episode, it's quite a different beast, right?
Lex
Yeah. So typically the, you need to build brand awareness. Advice just doesn't work in this space and that that comes from a really practical place. And I say a little bit tongue in cheek because what I really mean is brand awareness in the traditional sense of doing a spray and pray, you know, or doing radio or doing tv.
And the reason we say that brand awareness is, is kind of not the best advice is because what we're really talking about is brand discovery is what is important. You're not the good guys. You're not a product. That you can convince just about anyone to buy some trades and services. Businesses are a grudge purchase.
You know, you don't wanna call an emergency locksmith, you don't wanna call because you have a blocked drain. You're not gonna get hoards of followers, you know, unless maybe you do those really satisfying plumbing videos where they're pulling roots out of a, you know, out of a drain. But doing brand awareness in the traditional sense is not always going to be effective.
So we wanna be thinking about is my product or service the type of thing that I could put in front of anyone and convince them to buy? Or [00:05:00] is there quite a specific market that we need to be visible in front of? So it's really about brand discovery. So working out what is the process that my client is gonna go through, or what are the triggers maybe beforehand that I need to be in front of them at that.
Point, we're not just gonna do TV or, or radio. We wanna think about that consumer's behavior and, and try and make sure that we're there in the most efficient part of the funnel. So it's not about not having brand awareness at all, but we don't wanna get in too early. You know, we don't wanna be spending money too early in the funnel to try and keep our brand in front of someone who might be 12 months away from making a decision.
And it was interesting, I was listening to the Got marketing podcast and you were talking about your own assets, you know, and, and building that. And I think making sure that we're a. Efficiently building our assets at the right point in the funnel is, is a really good way to think about it. So, you know, myself, I've been researching a pool and so I've been looking at it for two years and they're not gonna advertise to me for two years, but I inquired about the price.
So having me in a marketing database where they can email me and give me updates and they sent me a winter special. And that's the sort of marketing that we want to be doing, not this really broad kind of brand awareness. And in a practical sense, we did something like this for one of our clients around the engineered stone band.
So they do natural stone and porcelain primarily. And so what we did was we went, okay, well let's look at that market and say, okay, there's a lot of people who are researching this engineered stone band and what that means. Let's write an article. Pool, an SEO optimized article, and we managed to get it ranking actually above like WorkSafe Victoria and stuff.
So we were very proud of ourselves for that, which was quite the feat. Drove loads of research traffic. Then leveraged that traffic with a meta campaign about alternatives to engineered stone, and then drove those into a funnel about sign up to our mailing list for our email sequence about how to choose the best bench top.
Now that engineered stone doesn't exist. There's some really clever ways that you can use brand discovery, but brand awareness in a traditional sense isn't always the best for trades when we're trying to get the most efficient cost per result.
Mia
That makes a lot of sense to me actually, because you mentioned earlier that there is a low level of differentiation from one plumber to another, or one even tile person to another, and so brand is important. But we also need to overlay that with need, you know, like, yeah. Yes. Is there demand? If I've just bought a brand new house and my plumbing is great, then you're right. I'm not going to need a plumber for 12 months. And so investing in that top of funnel brand awareness is just pure wastage when it comes to your marketing, what I'm hearing you say is that search engine optimization and.
Meta ads, Google ads that are really targeted is probably the better channel mix than just above the line. Traditional advertising.
Lex
Yeah. What we want to be doing is filling the top of the funnel in the cheapest way that we can really, because if the buying decision is long and your industry is really saturated and all your competitors feel really similar, you don't wanna be spending loads and loads of money just for brand awareness.
You wanna use that to differentiate, you know, your brand from [00:08:00] other businesses. That are providing a similar, the same products and services, but use that awareness to, to give value and get them early in the funnel at the cheapest possible rate where you wanna be investing the majorities at decision time.
So we wanna be educating 'em and proactively pushing them through the funnel. We really wanna wait our budget. Quite heavily at that decision making point because that's also where the competitors are waiting it. And so if you're not there, then you're definitely losing out at at crunch time.
Mia
Hmm, that's a really good point. So what are some of the typical marketing challenges that trades and home improvement businesses, whether they're high ticket or lower ticket? They face on a daily basis.
Lex
Yeah. Look, I think the reality, particularly when we're talking about traditional trades, so your sparkies, your plumbers, your bricklayers, you know, those sorts of businesses where there isn't a lot of overhead to really enter the market as a business owner, your biggest competition is, is sole traders and, and this is where that differentiation comes into play.
The reality, if you're a plumber or a sparky, you're probably [00:09:00] hiring your next. Competition, you know, and so as you grow as a business and you are investing in marketing and you have an admin person and you are building funnels and you are growing your business, you know your overheads increase and your prices need, need to go up as well.
And so as you have these sole traders entering the market, they become your competition. And they're obviously not as. Experienced in business and they're not forecasting these costs that they're gonna have in the future. And so they often slash their prices and a lot of trades and home improvement businesses really find themselves competing on the price.
When you have an established business as well, your reputation is so important and so you know you don't wanna cut. Corners, but sole traders are new to the business often, you know, are willing to go a little bit cheaper just to get the job. And, you know, well, let's use that cheaper product instead of this one.
And as an established business, you're just not willing to do that and, and you shouldn't be. But it also means that that's where your marketing messaging and that differentiation and the value that you provide has to be really clear. Clear. You know, we actually go through it frequently with our clients [00:10:00] and one at the moment is a painting, uh, and roof restoration business. And they're struggling to close. You know, they're going, we're getting these leads and they seem really great, but we're just getting undercut on the, on the price, on the hourly rate. So we said, okay, well, let's directly call out these other businesses that are quoting. So when we looked to do the creative for them, we went, let's show footage.
Of what a paint job looks like in five years time when corners are cut, you know? And let's talk about the difference between one quote and another. Right. And go. We don't cut corners, we do prime. We do have expertise, you know, and let's call that out directly and cast a little bit of doubt in the client's mind about what does cheap really mean.
And all of a sudden we saw a big difference, you know, in the quality of the leads that were coming through and what they cared about.
Mia
Oh, so good. That's probably the biggest. Issue, you know, is this price comparison. And particularly when the client doesn't understand where the price comes from. So they go, this is exactly the same as this one, but it's 75% of the price.
Obviously, I'm gonna go with that one. So differentiation, educating the market, you know, that's a, that's a really good, a good place to start. Yeah, I can imagine that that's, I mean, you see that in traditional service-based businesses like designers and copywriters, but it would be even more cutthroat in the trades businesses because, and this is something that's just coming to me now. Is that you have a very uninformed. Customer. Well, they think they're informed. True, true. But like if I'm hiring a copywriter for my business, I think I know a little bit about copywriting, right? I have an understanding of what's involved. But if I'm hiring someone to fix. A hole in my roof. I have no idea what they are doing.
I don't know how big a job this is. I have no clue. And so I get a $30,000 quote and I get a $15,000 quote. Then one just sounds like it was opportunistic and they're trying to take me for a ride, and the other one looks like they're being fair and reasonable, whereas to your point, they could just be absolutely cutting corners and I'm just gonna get another leak there in a couple of months and then have to bring them back out again.
Lex
Yeah. You know, worst case scenario, you have to pay more to. Fix the problem, you know, end up paying double or triple. Our painting and roof restoration business says that that happens for them. They go, we went with a cheaper quote and now we've come back to you to fix it. So now we've had to pay your original price and the price of the cheap one that we paid before, you know, so, uh, particularly in this.
Space, educating your consumer is really important, and to throw back to that kind of brand discovery, that's where you can really leverage that is if someone is considering hiring a painter, if they're already getting a quote, that might be too late because it looks like you're desperately trying to sell your services.
Whereas if you can educate the consumer a little bit before then back up what you're saying with your quote and the way that you. Quote and speak to the client and all of those things. That's probably one of the biggest challenges that we see in that space is being undercut and you know, how do we handle that?
And marketing can support it, but you also need good salespeople and you need that. That behind the scenes stuff as well.
Mia
Hmm. Yeah. The other thing that I, I think would be really [00:13:00] challenging for trades businesses is reliability. So there is a bit of a reputation in this industry that they never come on time. We've made an appointment for 11, it's one o'clock. They're still not here. I've got shit to do. And so like how should trades businesses deal with that reputational tainting that is happening across the whole industry?
Lex
Look, it's funny that you say that. This morning I had a meeting with a plumbing business and they work primarily with property management businesses, but they're looking at doing, uh, a water filtration service where they're going to resi.
And because of the property management. Side focus of their business, they overstaff so that they can be on time every time. And there's never an issue where the property managers are waiting or the landlord's waiting. And so that's now really working their favor doing this water filtration. So they're now going, how can we do a 48 hour guarantee from requested appointment to booking it in?
We can do it within 48 hours. And my suggestion for any trades and home improvement businesses is that [00:14:00] ultimately if you have an issue with showing up on time, that's an issue you have to fix. You know, ultimately you really need to fix. And then you can use that as part of your messaging. Again, it's not a differentiator because it's, again, it's the cost of doing business show up on time.
You said you would be there, then be there. But being able to use, say, an on-time guarantee or something that supports building trust with your consumers is definitely a good way to go. Another friend of mine who's a, who's a plumber as well, actually, whenever he does his first site visit of the day to quote, he always buys them a coffee.
And that's marketing. He he'll call 'em and say, I'm getting a coffee. What's your order? And he brings them a coffee and he's remembered as the guy that brought them a coffee first thing in the morning, you know? So there is some distrust as well within trades and home improvement because people are uneducated.
They think they might be getting taken for a ride. So if you come across as that person who is giving them the keys and telling them all the information and giving them the ammunition, then you automatically have trust.
Mia
Do you know the other thing that I really love that has happened to me recently, and I wanna say it was with Tricky electrical here in the Northern Territory, but like we can forgive almost anything if there's an explanation, right?
And often you don't know how long a job is going to take until you get there. Yeah. So I got a text message saying, Hey Mia, really sorry. Your technician is stuck at a job in Palmerston, which is taking longer than expected. Is it a problem if we delay by 45 minutes? And I was like, oh, that. That's reasonable.
Like, you know, it wasn't that he's sitting there having coffee and donuts at the Greek bakery, which is where our mind goes, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just waltzing in and these big work boots not caring. Exactly. I feel like that transparency is possibly what's missing from all marketing, not just trades businesses.
Lex
Well, interestingly, we use that a lot for our marketing as well. You know, as an agency, especially because we work with trades and home improvement businesses. We do have some professional services and other lead space businesses as well. But home improvement is really where like, that's my passion. It's what I love doing.
So we use that as a differentiator for us is [00:16:00] our transparency and education, because particularly with. Tradies. You know, a lot of agencies treat tradies like they pat them on the head and go, oh, don't you, don't you worry your trady brain about it. We've, we've got it. And then they feel like they have no buy-in or they, they're paying this money and they don't really know what's happening.
And so one of the ways that we build trust is tell them how we do it. We go, Hey, we will share our screen. This is what we're doing and how we do it. And that has a really big impact on trust. They go, I know that if I ask you what have you done or what is the plan? You won't go, oh yeah, don't worry. We've got it.
You'll, you'll talk us through that and, and build that trust. And so lots of industries should. Take that. But Es, especially for trades and services businesses, where you have not only a customer that isn't necessarily educated because as the example with copywriting, it's like, I might think I know about copywriting, but actually when I talk to a copywriter, it's like, oh wow, I actually have no idea.
Whereas with a trades and home improvement business, the consumer often knows that they don't know and they already have their guard up. So it's. You know, even more important to educate the client and and make them feel more comfortable.
Mia
Yeah. Well, that's actually what I'd love to talk to you about next, because Vastly Digital has grown really quickly.
You've now got 17 staff, I think.
lex
Yeah, F 1516, including me now.
mia
So we need to hear a bit about your secret sauce and your marketing approach. What do you do with your clients? Beyond just getting their name out there.
Lex
I, I come from a family of small business owners. I've grown up around small business my whole life.
My parents own business. Even now as a family, we own a restaurant together, so I've just always been involved in that and I think I, I spent a number of years working for really large agencies and I saw a lot of businesses just becoming a bit lost. The goal of those big agencies is scale. There's kind of.
The clapping, you know, to, oh wow, we, we hit this revenue number and there's a little bit of a clap about the results that we got, but it's really a sales organization and I, and I really didn't like that because like everyone, my parents and our business has gone through challenging times where it's like, wow, something's gone wrong and we are tight on money.
And I always thought, what if one of these slimy salespeople with a. Sales target comes in and pitches my family's business, some strategy that's about hitting a quota and doesn't understand the business or where it's at and what it is really gonna take to go to the next level. And so my approach to vastly was always about treating every client that we have.
Like it was my family's business, my my friend's business. And so we tend to really get involved in. Understanding the business and, and where it's at their margins, what, what works for them, what, what the challenges are. And sometimes that can be confronting for a business. We say, Hey, what's your, what's your average job work?
How many are you doing? What's your revenue? What's your margin on that? And they go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But it's like, well, I'm not here to sell you, you know, I'm here to partner with you and make sure that whatever recommendation we're making is correct. Maddie, who's my business strategist, she always laughs and she goes, oh, you're so ethical.
It's so hard to make a bloody sale around here. But really what we try to do is work backwards from a goal and then understand what is the margin that we have to play with here? What information do we already know? You know, as an example, we might say, all right, our goal is 10 more laminate flooring, supply and install jobs per week.
The average value is four and a half grand, and then this is gonna influence, okay, well. What budget are we gonna need and what are our costs per acquisition goals from that? If they say, well our, our margin on that is $500, it's like, Ooh, that's gonna be pretty tough. There's not enough margin in that. So maybe let's talk about something else.
Rather than going, great, $45,000 a week, done sign the paperwork, we'll send you the invoice. We wanna make sure that they're getting the value out of that. So kind of partnering them a little bit, I guess. On the business strategy side is, is a really big, big part of it for us as well.
Mia
Yeah, great. Actually, my family are small business owners too, and I'm so passionate about small business.
Oh yeah. I've, I've worked for myself and I've worked exclusively with small business owners now for the last five years, and I get really, really like Angry Mama Bear to. Defensive when I can see people taking advantage of small businesses because it's my lived experience. I know how tough it is. Like if it was just 10% easier, the failure rate of small businesses would be so much lower than it is now, which is sitting at about.
50% within the first four to five years. And so when, when the sharks come in and they, they try to just extract from small business owners and it's often the reason why so many have to close their business. I just get so fiery and passionate, which is what about 90% of these episodes are about on got marketing, but.
Anyway.
Lex
Yeah, we actually had, um, an instance as well where we often, for businesses that wanna work with us, we do a, an audit first. So we do a digital audit and it's designed to be a combination of kind of a business and digital audit. So we do charge for it because it takes a lot of hours. It's many, many, many hours, but it's designed to be a bit of a filter for both of us.
So it's for us to make sure that we are allocating the right budget that matches with their goals, and also to make sure they have the budget to make it a success. And we've done more audits than we've brought on clients. You know, we, we often say, Hey, look, judging with your competition and where your business [00:21:00] is at and all of these things, here's our recommendations we give to you to take away and, you know, start to implement some of these things yourself, but you're just not ready for us just yet Here.
Here's what we think you should be going and doing. And so we had a business that was referred to us for an audit because he was a bit. Suspicious that his SEO agency wasn't doing the right thing. And so in this example, we did a, a free quick audit. We found some big red flags and so we actually offered to do the, the audit for free for this business.
'cause we suspected that not much was being done at all. When we did the deeper dive, he had been paying for SEO at, at a low amount Oh granted, but still paying for an SEO service for 12 months. And we couldn't find evidence of anything being done in at least nine months. And so we provided all the receipts, right?
We took all the screenshots, we had all the last revision on the pages, all the last posts on GBP, all everything. We provided the receipts and he took it all to a lawyer. The lawyer asked if he could name us in the letter of demand to say that we had performed the [00:22:00] audit, and I went. Abso fucking lly. So, um, he took that to the agency.
He got outta the contract. Uh, I don't think he could get any money back, but the agency had tried to debit $5,000 out of his account for canceling the contract. And yeah, it just, it makes me wild. I don't know how people. Sleep at night sometimes with the, with that stuff. But anyway, so I know what you mean about the mama bear.
Like I'm not a mom, so this is like how I become mama bear is with my clients.
mia
Yeah. I think it's like the trading on ignorance. They're like, they're not gonna know whether we are doing anything on their SEO or not. We'll just keep, continue just. Sending them these reports, which they don't understand, will show a slight uptick in metrics and we'll call it a day.
And SEO is actually probably the worst for it. And you know what drives me crazy? Lex is, I actually met with a chiropractor business yesterday and he's spending quite a bit of money on. An external SEO agency and Google ads and the website is a hot mess. Like who in all consciousness is like, yeah, I'll take your money and do Google ads and I'll do paid SEO when the organic is terrible. I'm like, do you realize that you are just. Pouring money down the drain and like, I don't know, it just really shifts me. So let's get back to helping these home improvement businesses. Where should they actually start with their marketing? Because it's exactly the same as it is with all businesses.
Before you invest in paid, you need to have some foundations in place. So what are those for home improvement businesses?
Lex
Yeah, so something that I always say to home improvement businesses is that you either need time or money. And if you feel like you don't have either, you need to find. One of them. You know, you can't grow your business if you have no time and you have no money.
So for sole traders or businesses that are really just getting started and they're trying to grow in terms of the marketing, it's, it's boots on the ground stuff, right? It's partnering with property managers, [00:24:00] it's contacting builders and seeing if they have a preferred supplier or what sort of projects they're doing.
It's building those relationships and getting that referral work. Particularly from consistent sources. It could be as simple as doing flyer drops in your local neighborhood, posting in your local Facebook community groups. I think with a lot of trades and home improvement businesses, they focus on organic social content, which can be good, but think about whether people actually really wanna subscribe to you before you put all of your energy and effort.
If you're a plumber, you know, maybe not. If you're a natural stone supply that has these gorgeous, beautiful images of the. The kitchens and it's like this fantasy that you want to follow or there's really good educational content and the buying cycle for your product is really long. Then yes, you know, focus in those areas, but really have a think about the audience intent and what they care about in terms of, I guess, practical things as well is really organic is going to be your best bet in terms of.
Google, so do not underestimate your Google business profile. So optimizing your Google [00:25:00] business profile, posting on it, selecting the categories, and starting to focus really on the suburb that you are located in. I know you might want to service everywhere. Good example, my friend who's a plumber who tried to.
Come to me and said, I wanna do marketing. I said, absolutely not. You're not ready for it. What we're gonna do is just optimize your Google business profile to be visible in your suburb. And he goes, yeah, but I service more than that. I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll get there. And within like a month, he was number one for plumbers in that area because there wasn't a lot of competition.
So all of a sudden he had way more phone calls than than he could want just from that area. So I think starting there is a good place to stay. Start also with things like chat, GPT becoming more of a search engine and a research engine. Just write blogs. Don't worry about SEO optimizing it. Think about the topics that your customer is interested in, particularly right before you know right before they need you.
What, what might they be researching? Really good little hack is go onto Google, do a search for your product or service. Scroll down to the people. Also ask. [00:26:00] Section Google will tell you the questions that people ask in relation to that product or service. The other hack is you open it and close it a few times and it gives you more and more and more.
Every time you open it and close it, it populates more questions. So that's a great place to start. The writing blog content, I use that hack too for my own blogs, like people also ask. What are the different types of marketing campaigns? Cool. That's the topic of my next blog. So good. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Then I think if you're gonna move into paid, it's hard for me to recommend a specific platform because it does really, really depend on the type of, you know, service or, or trade. So, for example, if you're an emergency plumber, you are not gonna start with meta, right? Because people aren't, don't have a burst tap and there's.
Doom, scrolling, waiting for an ad to come up. You know, they're gonna go straight to Google. So think about where your audience lives. A good question I always say to people about whether they should start with Google or Meta as a really basic level, is if you put an ad in front of just about anyone, could you convince them to buy?
And if the answer is no, it's a very specific market, or they really would be specifically looking for [00:27:00] it, then probably start with Google where it starts to get a little bit convoluted. Then gets down to cost per click, your margins, the competition, the service area, the. You know, electricians and plumbers in particular are often very surprised at how expensive it is to run a Google Ads campaign because it's so competitive.
It's just so, so, so competitive. If you are going to start with paid media, then my advice is do not dilute your budget across multiple channels. Just focus on one and even better Focus on one service and think about what is the one that is the most profit. What's the one that you close the most? What is the one where you have less?
Competition. You know, give yourself the chance to get the highest return on investment as quickly as possible and start there. Don't dilute if you do painting and roof restorations. Internal painting, external painting, you also do decking. Don't, don't try and focus on all of those. Pick the one where you go, you know what, we can get in and out.
Of a, you know, on and off a roof. In two days we make 10 grand really highly profitable. I've got capacity in that area. I'm just gonna boost that area, [00:28:00] increase my cash flow, and then I'm gonna start investing in other areas. That's typically how we work with a business, who is looking to start getting into that sort of space.
So really it comes down to search engines. It starts and ends there. It really is. About search and, and search engines also in different ways. Like you think Pinterest is a search engine. You know, if you have a really aesthetic product, like you're doing tiles or flooring or whatever, it really early in that buying cycle, people are gonna be looking at Pinterest for those things.
So having a Pinterest, for example, might be better for you than having an Instagram, because if people are looking back at your images of your. Product all the time for inspiration, and you can drive them to Instagram or drive them to your website from there. Same with YouTube. It might be people looking at, you know, can I replace a fan myself?
And, uh, you could have a video as part of that search engine that says, I'm an electrician and here's why. You absolutely shouldn't change the fan yourself, you know? So there's so many different ways to get in front of your consumers, but for the most part, when they're gonna make the decision, they're highly likely to do a [00:29:00] search and we can retarget those people.
Cross meta, but fundamentally it's gonna start with a search.
Mia
Yeah, yeah. Cool. I definitely can see a role for builders who, like you said, have got beautiful homes, tiles. One of my customers is Byzantine Designs like Pinterest, even Instagram would make so much sense for them. So it's really about horses for courses.
Lex
Yeah, and I think too, like builders are a great example of where the buying cycle is really long. You know, it's so long because they might say, okay, I've decided to do an extension, and then they start the research process and they go, oh shit, I actually need a draftsman or an architect, and then I need to get da, and then I need to find the builder that I want.
So you could be writing content and publishing videos about. What is the process or how to choose an architect, how to choose a draftsman. How do you then go through the process of DA and you are already the expert, you know? So then coming back to them later with, Hey, we're also a builder that funnel, you know, organically building brand discovery and brand awareness early in the funnel [00:30:00] for as cheap as possible, and then investing at that moment of, of decision.
Mia
Yeah. Okay. So really what I'm hearing is that those TikTok accounts where the tradies are like trying to build this huge, like. Audience and they're doing dancing and they're like suggestively up against a pole. Like that's more ego than it is really brand, right? Yeah.
Lex
I mean that it gets you eyeballs and I think it's a chance to show your personality, but it's ultimately not going to drive.
Business. And I think it depends on your, on your brand voice and your, your goals. Like, I think, I'm sure we've all seen that New Zealand cheap Cars video that's going around with the guys dancing to the, uh, with the cars and stuff. It's, if you haven't seen it, it's hilarious. But I think depending on the, on the brand, like if you're really cheap and cheerful and you're just wanting to get as many eyeballs across your business, it could be part of a strategy, but ultimately it's not gonna be the thing that wins your business.
And, uh. Good friend of mine runs an organic social marketing business, and the, and the biggest misconception that her clients have is that they're expecting views, they measure [00:31:00] the success on views, and she's like, absolutely not. I'm measuring it on leads. You're, you're fencing business. Who cares if 10,000 people in Sydney see your ad when you're located in Perth?
Like, let's just get some leads in Perth.
Mia
You don't get paid per view. You're not an in. Influencer, like it blows my mind honestly. It really does. Um, what about this myth that if I do a good job, people will come back? I feel like a lot of home improvement businesses, they over rely on referrals and word of mouth, and they're just kind of like, I don't need marketing.
If I just do a good job, they'll come back.
Lex
Yeah, totally. Look, I think ultimately. Nothing happens in a vacuum either. The fact that you are getting referrals and recommendations for me is always a really good sign because it means that the quality of the work is really good. So if a business comes to me and says, look, we already have really good referral business coming through.
I go, great tick. That means that if I do a really good job in the marketing and you guys can close the deal, that's going to expand the marketing even further. Because just because you paid for a lead to come through it doesn't mean that that lead also isn't going to refer and. It [00:32:00] also could be that someone does refer you and they say, Hey, oh, we got our pool installed by these guys.
And they go, oh, that's cool. And they go and visit the website and then forget. And then you remarket to them later on Facebook and they go, oh, that's right. That was that business that so and so told me about. So I think also the question really comes down to scale. So if your business is being sustained by referrals and you find that it's consistent and you're not having issues with seasonality or too much, and then too little work, if it's working for you and you.
Don't want to scale up, then that's fine. Keep doing that. If you are looking to grow and you're wanting to add employees and you're wanting to increase your prices and you wanna choose the jobs that you want and all those sorts of things, then those business owners are taking control of that spend.
They're taking control of the funnel of leads that are coming through.
Mia
So good. That's such a good point. Yeah. Not everyone wants to grow, but most people do. If we're being honest. And that word of mouth and referral is a bit of a hope strategy. It's out of your control. You don't know if those referrals are going to come and at the [00:33:00] same rate next month.
So we need to take matters into our own hands. And I have definitely been in a situation where someone has. Said, oh, you should work with this particular cabinet maker. And then I went to their website and I was like, this is gross, like so bad. Unfortunately, it's a bit of an occupational hazard because I'm a marketer.
I appreciate good marketing and I'm like, I'm sorry, but this website just is. So sloppy. It looks so lazy. It looks so dated that that's what I thought that they were gonna bring into my closets, and that's not what I wanted. And so even though they were referred to me, which actually should make me more likely to work with that particular brand, it actually, when I.
Then went and did my independent research. I actually chose a cabinet maker who had a better website with testimonials, with videos, with examples, with photos. And I actually said, I feel more comfortable working with this brand.
Lex
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we always say to a lot of trades and services businesses that their website is their showroom, right?
A lot of them are working out of their car. So that needs to really represent your brand. And there is an argument to say that if you're doing skip bins. Right then probably I would almost argue that the best brand that you can have is a ship one, because everybody only wants the cheapest skip in that they can get, right?
So if you've got this really gorgeous, polished kind of looking site, then people go, oh, that looks expensive. When really the the priorities, they want the cheapest possible. So sometimes it can work in your favor, but especially if people are really about to invest a lot of money and they're looking for quality, they're looking for reliability, then your brand absolutely has to represent that.
Mia
Love that. Alright, Lex, we are completely out of time, but I just wanted one final question, which is, what is the hill that you are prepared to die on when it comes to trades and home improvement businesses?
Lex
I will die on this hill. Tracking is everything. You cannot optimize what you don't track. And if anyone listening is with a digital marketing agency and they're getting reports around, these are the conversions that we're getting, I want you to go to [00:35:00] them and say, explain to me every conversion that you are tracking and what it is and what value you assign to it.
And it. Quick. Good story actually from yesterday was we, we spoke to a business that said, look, I'm getting these weird reports and I don't understand them, and I feel like I'm not getting anything. And when we looked at it, it was reporting a 412% conversion rate, so the 400 visitors were delivering 1800 conversions.
And so when we went and looked a bit deeper, the contact forms were like. Quadruple tracking. The phone calls were triple tracking. They were tracking a page view on something and like this agency has absolutely no idea what is happening with this campaign. So ask the question of your agency or your marketer, or whoever you are working with.
When I'm looking at my analytics or I'm looking at a Google Ads or a Meta Ads report, and you are telling me it's a conversion. What is it? Is it a hard conversion where it's a phone call, a form fill that's confirmed, submitted? Or is it a get directions button click because that's a soft conversion? You know, I can't guarantee that that person actually made it to the showroom.
So you have to track, particularly for trades where CPL and CPAs. Absolutely everything when it comes to margins. You can't optimize what you don't track. So insist on really, really good tracking.
Mia
Oh, I love that. And also like, let's agree on language before we even start working. What do we consider a marketing qualified lead?
What do we consider a sales qualified lead? What is a conversion? Because to me, a conversion is money in my bank account. Otherwise, that's not a conversion. That's a lead. Yeah. Let's agree on that so that we're speaking this. Language. Look, we are gonna have so many more conversations about trade and home improvement businesses together over the next couple of months, Lex.
So we'll leave it there today and let the listener wanting more. Really super duper excited to have you on the Squarespace trades panel in November. It is going to be one sensational in-person event in Melbourne. I'm gonna put all the contact details for Vastly Digital in the show notes. How they can get in touch, but just quickly, who are you looking to work with at the moment if the listener is very energized by what [00:37:00] they heard today?
Lex
So first of all, so excited for Ripple Fest. Can't wait to be there. If people haven't got their tickets, definitely go and we, I'm bringing six of, um, a mix of clients and team members, so I, I absolutely can't wait. So we're seeing a really good amount of success for us, and we are becoming really fine.
Tuned at working with these types of businesses is these sort of product based home improvement businesses. So when we think about aluminum windows, bifold doors, stone, and, and porcelain flooring, fencing, decking, pergolas, you know, those sorts of longer buying cycle, bigger kind of average purchase value that wanna really quality lead.
For clients that aren't afraid to spend money are looking for quality. Those are the kinds of businesses and ideally ones that are looking to scale up. If you're already spending on marketing, especially, that's a really good place for us to start 'cause we can look at everything that's going on and give quite predictable improvements so we can improve this CPL by X.
So those are the types of businesses that we absolutely love working with.
Mia
Awesome. Well, it has been such a pleasure chatting with you today, and thank you so much for being so generous with your ideas and your strategies, and we'll be in touch very soon.
Lex
Yeah, looking forward to seeing you again.
Mia
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