Business Advertising: Your Guide to Planning Mass Media

By Ed Cerier, Nexstar® Network Marketing Strategist

Independent home services contractors are increasingly using mass media vehicles like television, radio, billboards and so on to advertise their companies. How exciting! Chances are you’re either using one of these advertising vehicles or have considered it. It’s the major leagues of marketing.

Your experience probably went something like this. A nice television rep told you how powerful TV is. Everyone watches TV, particularly your target audience, right? The rep then gave you a proposal with big numbers, like the number of spots that’ll run. Wow! You’re going to be on popular shows all the time! Then she told you how little you’ll pay. Finally, she sealed the deal by throwing in the production of a free or deeply discounted commercial.

Who could say no? The answer is you. Not because you shouldn’t be advertising on TV (or on the radio or on billboards, etc.). Say no because reps don’t take the time to learn your business. TV reps, for example, don’t know whether you can afford to be on TV. If you can afford it, they don’t know when your ads should run and how often. They only know one thing: how to close deals and make money.

To appropriately determine whether you should be using mass media, and how to effectively use these vehicles at the lowest possible cost, you need to hire a media planner and buyer.

For a better understanding on how to work with a media planner / buyer and for tips on selecting one for you, see my article in the April Reeves Journal on media planning.

Does it make sense for my business to “Like” another company?

By Susan Kimball, Nexstar® Network Marketing Coach

Is your company new to Facebook or even still considering a Facebook page? Or maybe you’ve had a Facebook page for a while, and are now wondering what you should be doing with it? Here are a couple basic thoughts about how to view Facebook and how it can work for growing your contracting business.

Generally, local residential service businesses similar to yours turn to Facebook to get the phones to ring. Companies want people in their community to “Like” them so that they can communicate and build relationships with those people. The people who “Like” those companies represent an engaged group of potential customers. Further engaging this pool of customers can lead to more business and referrals, as well as expanding brand awareness to “Friends” of those people who are also likely to be members of that community and therefore potential customers.

Asking other HVAC contractor companies, either from Nexstar® or other business or trade organizations, to “Like” you from their company page doesn’t meet the goal of marketing to potential customers because they are probably not located in your community where your potential customers live. That said, if you are trying to reach the number of “Likes” needed to get a vanity URL (i.e. www.facebook.com/NexstarNetwork) or if you are just starting out and want to look more popular so others will “Like” you too, then asking peer contractor companies to “Like” your company Facebook page may be a good tactic.

If your company brand on Facebook is incorrectly set up as a personal profile rather than a business page, and you “Like” other contractor pages, their posts may appear in your newsfeed. Your personal newsfeed is where your “Friends” as well as potential customers who have “Liked” your page may see this posting activity from other businesses as well as how you interact with them. You need to ask yourself, will this communication exchange be meaningful or annoying to them?

If you and another contracting business “Like” each other acting as company pages then the posts each company makes won’t appear in your personal timeline unless posted directly on your wall or if you are tagged.

Facebook does have a ranking algorithm which involves engagement on your posts and content.  So, once you and other contractors have “Liked” each other, if you all then start “Liking”, “Sharing” and “Commenting” on each other’s posts it increases the number of people talking about you. It would also have a positive impact on whether your posts are shown on the newsfeed of other individuals (hopefully customers in your area) who “Like” you — which is a good thing. But you would need to consider if this type of activity/content would be engaging to your potential customers or would they be driven to “Unlike” you?

Your business’s Facebook and other social media content also contribute to overall reputation and search rank on the Internet. If you are focused on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your company’s website, which I highly recommend you are, then your activity on Facebook will contribute to that success. For more SEO basics, take a look at the Nexstar column in February’s Reeves Journal, where I outline the top concepts that contractor business owners should understand to maximize their online search results.

The New Rules of HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Contractor Business Engagement

by Bryan Martin, Nexstar® Network Business Enhancement Coach

Are you engaged? Do you want to be? I guess I should clarify that I’m not talking about the marrying kind of engagement here, but rather the kind that commits you to your customer. Although I guess in both cases, the engagement most often results in a long life together.

One of the things I enjoy about my job is seizing social media opportunities to engage with potential customers, or in my case, prospective members of Nexstar®. Mostly, we chat on Facebook about timely topics. I toss questions out to them so I can tune into what’s on their minds and how I can help them with some of the challenges they’re facing within their plumbing, HVAC and electrical contracting businesses.

Twitter is another great engagement tool. When I get valuable tips from contractors and the business and marketing coaches that I work with, I can “tweet them” and spark a conversation. If you have something timely to share that might be of help or interest to your customers, try “tweeting” it and see what happens.

In addition to being a vehicle for talking with your target market, your level of social media engagement influences how your website ranks with the search engines. “Tweets” and “re-tweets” help to increase your ranking, along with Facebook, blogging, YouTube, etc.

You see, I believe in my organization and I’m sincerely committed to helping contractors generate calls, implement systems, find good people, increase revenue, lighten their load and improve their lifestyle. And, the more I talk about how I can help them do that, the better our relationship becomes. In fact, I’m starting to build a relationship with you right now through this blog. Do you think you could benefit from what I’m telling you?

It’s not rocket science. It’s simply taking human interaction to another level and if you’re not engaging with your potential customers or if you’re only doing it once in a while, you’re missing out. They want to talk about the challenges they’re facing in their homes and you have solutions to these challenges!

Social media also has the ability to capture your business culture and introduce it to prospects. It’s relationship marketing because you’re reaching out to and engaging them in a way that highlights your company values and commitment to excellence. It also helps enhance your credibility and builds trust, so people turn to you when they need service. It’s not something that you can track like a phone number on a direct mail piece, but when your social media is working together with other marketing strategies, it’s a perfect orchestra.

There are approximately one billion monthly active Facebook users as of October 2012 and Twitter currently reports having over 500,000 registered users. Is your business one of them? Are you using these social media opportunities in your contracting business to engage with your target audience?

Let’s engage in conversation. Call me at 888.240.STAR (7287), Like Nexstar on Facebook , Tweet me and follow us on LinkedIn to get industry news and information.

By: Denise Swafford, Nexstar Network Training and Development Manager

I’ve seen a lot of activity about the recent Super Storm Sandy and the devastation she has caused. I wanted to share my personal experiences in dealing with these types of natural disasters in hopes that it might help someone that is going through struggles wondering what to do now. 

First, try to stay positive. Your attitude as a leader is so important. Every move you make is being watched by the rest of your team and your community.  They need reassurance that everything is going to be OK.   By now, hopefully you’ve heard from your team, but if not – your people have to be your first priority.  Make sure you know what your peoples’ needs are.  You need to take care of your people so that you can get your people back to work with their head in the game as soon as possible.  If they need help cleaning up their yards, repairing roof damage, etc. – hire someone to help them with that stuff so they can get back to work. 

Second – if your facility was flooded or damaged- reach out to vendors or relationships you have your community to see if they will allow you to use space in their buildings to operate out of until you can get back up and operational. Vendors have been generous enough to allow some companies to utilize office staff, offer extended terms, utilize office equipment such as phones, copiers, fax, computers, etc.  Third, if you lost trucks due to flooding, reach out to leasing companies such as Enterprise to lease vehicles on temporary basis.  They have been known to work with companies in the past that have experienced Acts of God and offer generous payment terms which allowed companies to get back up on their feet quicker. 

Next, get involved with FEMA – offer to help them set up their trailers, run their plumbing, electrical, hook up their HVAC units. Make friends with them. They can’t refer you exclusively, but they can put you at the top of their list of companies they recommend. Also, remember, cash is king – once customers start calling – they will ask you to bill their insurance company – instead offer them financing through a company such as GE – perhaps even use 12 months terms.  This gives the homeowner up to 12 months to resolve any issues with their insurance company and you get paid right away. 

Once you are in a neighborhood – be prepared to stay there the entire day if necessary. Have flyers or door hangers that you hand out (hand out – being the key word – don’t just put it on the door – knock on the door and talk to people letting them know you are in the neighborhood). Remember to show empathy that you understand what they are going through and you were just at their neighbor’s house and wanted to stop by and see if they could use any help as well. 

Be prepared to maximize every day. I’ve seen other members post very generous messages that they are willing to fly in equipment, they are even willing to fly in licensed technicians to help out.  Remember once a work day is gone, it’s gone forever.  Make the most of each and every day and minimize backlog as much as possible. 

In terms of marketing, remember radio is probably best for a captive audience until power is fully restored.  Offers of safety inspections provide tremendous value to your community. 

 If you have any questions or want more information, please feel free to reach out to Nexstar Network. We’re here to help.

By: Ed Cerier, Nexstar Network Marketing Strategist

What Should You Do If A Supplier Wants You To Refuse To Deal With Its Competitors?

Many Nexstar Network members pay to be listed in directories that advertise “verified” and “rated” contractors for plumbing services.  One of our members had an indcident recently where one such directory reportedly told its customers that it will not list them if they do business with a competing directory.

In some situations, actions like this – specifically, a supplier’s refusing to sell products or do business with you unless you agree not to deal with the supplier’s competitors – are illegal.  For example, a federal antitrust law known as the Clayton Act states in part (Section 3) that: 

“It shall be unlawful for any person … to … make a sale or contract for sale of goods, wares [or] merchandise … on the condition … that the … purchaser thereof shall not use or deal in the goods, wares [or] merchandise … of a competitor …, where the effect of such … sale, or contract … may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce.”

Other federal and state antitrust and unfair competition laws, as well as federal and state courts, have condemned similar behavior. 

Restrictions on dealing with a supplier’s competitors are not always illegal.  A supplier may limit a customer’s right to buy from a competitor if there is a legitimate business reason for doing so – for example, if the supplier is offering the customer a discount or other benefit and can only recoup the benefit if the customer agrees to an exclusive relationship for some period of time.  But if the supplier does not need to restrict the customer in order to compete, and is doing so only in order to gain an unfair advantage over other competitors, its attempt to limit the customer’s ability to do business with its competitors may be illegal.

If a directory or another supplier that is offering a product tells you it will only do business with you if you agree not to do business with other competitors, and if doing business with competitors is important to you, consider consulting a lawyer before you agree to the supplier’s demand.  You may have more options than you think!

This blog post by Nexstar Network is not intended to provide legal advice or a legal opinion on any specific issue.  Your legal rights depend on your individual situation and on the individual facts relevant to your situation.  If you have questions about your rights in a particular situation, you should consult your own attorney.      

By: Ed Cerier, Nexstar Network Marketing Strategist

We’ve reported on the importance of motivating your employees in past blog posts. In our post, “Want to Motivate Employees? Try Time, Not Money,” we discussed how employees may prefer time off versus cash incentives.

To expand on this, I’d like to point out that bonus or commission checks often get cashed and spent on necessities, like paying bills, buying groceries, filling up cars, etc… This is not to say that you shouldn’t  have a proper commission structure in place, but that you want to balance the tangible reward with the public acknowledgement for a job well done.

When rewarding your employees, you really want to showcase that they have achieved something special. Creating a culture that embodies and rewards quality service will foster commitment to your company and will motivate people to operate at their highest potential.

During Nexstar Network’s Super Meeting, I’ll be presenting a breakout session titled, “Motivating Employees For World-Class Service.” We’ll focus on how you can celebrate your employees through gestures of appreciation and recognition for performing fantastic customer care. Nexstar Network member, Applewood Plumbing, Heating and Electric, has developed an extensive program to recognize employees and their spouses. Applewood’s Paula Washenberger will share this program and answer questions about its implementation and effectiveness. I hope you can make it and that you’ll attend this invaluable session!

By: Susan Kimball, Nexstar Network Marketing Coach

Using call tracking services provides great information that you can use to make knowledgeable marketing decisions, as well as identifying opportunities in your call center.  It is important though to fully consider the impact of assigning call tracking phone numbers to everything in your marketing tool box to avoid any potential issues.   

Before assigning a tracking number, some key things to consider are:

1. How do you plan to use the information that you gather by putting a tracking number on this tool?
2. Will that information be a) “clean” enough, or b) detailed enough to provide information that you can use to determine if your goals are being met or to make decisions?
   1. Example a: if you put a tracking phone number on media such as a truck, billboard or radio commercial where people are more likely to look you up on the web or in the yellow pages than use that tracking phone number, in your analysis of results you will need to account for the fact that the call count for both the specific advertising media you are tracking and the media they actually looked you up on will be skewed.
   2. Example b: Using one overall tracking number on your website will combine all the calls that come in from any avenue to your website: Pay Per Click, SEO efforts, direct traffic (people that type in your website address), and referral traffic (links from anywhere to your website).

You will also need to consider the longevity of the promotion/marketing tool? Where/how long might that phone number exist in the marketplace? How long do you plan to keep this number in service, either holding or re-using this number at your call tracking company or by porting it over to your regular phone service?

• People may keep a magnet or a yellow pages book, even some mailers, for years.
• Would consumers be likely to put that tracking phone number from that marketing tool in their phone contact list?
• Tracking phone numbers used in media such as online directories like yp.com can get scraped by Google to create additional Google profiles, or by other directories — spreading your tracking phone numbers many places across the web.  Will you keep these numbers over a long term or make the effort needed to clean this up in the future should you stop using that tracking number? 

Determine in advance how you will address any of the potential issues above so that you won’t have disconnected (or reassigned to another company) phone numbers floating around that might cause you to miss any significant call volume in the future. Some examples of how to do this are:

1. Reassign a tracking phone number from a marketing tool with a limited lifetime or an expiration date at a later date to another media.  The carry over should be minimal so won’t significantly affect the results of the new tool.
2. Port over (to your regular phone service) phone numbers that might still be delivering calls. Make sure your tracking service provider allows this.
3. Find where your tracking phone numbers may have been picked up across the web by doing a Google search for them.  You can then go into those profiles and update the phone number, paying particular attention to the directory sites such as the online yellow pages that will continue to get scraped by other portals.  

Using tracking phone numbers on your internet marketing can provide some great information such as the conversion rate of your Pay Per Click or SEO.   Depending on how it is done it can also have additional implications, and in some cases can even work against your SEO efforts.  When putting tracking numbers on your website and/or Google Local, you may want to discuss the best way to track calls and protect your search engine rankings with your Marketing Coach, webmaster, or SEO vendor.

By: Bryan Martin, Nexstar Network Membership Sales

To operate a successful home service company, you need an organizational chart that puts the most capable people in charge of key operations and eliminates inefficiencies in your business.

It does not matter if you’re starting a new business or reorganizing your existing business, the design of your organization should not be taken lightly or overlooked. Careful consideration will result in improving productivity and communication while reducing inefficiencies.

• Establish four key leadership positions. The general manager is a direct report to you the Owner.  He/She is responsible for the entire operation. Reporting to the general manager should be an operations manager, finance manager and a marketing manager. The service, installation, sales, call center, warehouse and fleet managers all report to the operations manager. Human resources, payroll clerks, AR/AP clerks and service contract administrators report to the finance manager. And as you would expect the marketing manager handles all things marketing.

• What if I only have a couple employees including myself? The organizational chart above still applies. When you’re working with a small staff, each person is required to do more than one of the job functions. The key is for each of these roles to be taken on, even if, as is often the case with start-up businesses, the owner is in all these positions.  Your goal is to replace yourself one position at a time starting at the lowest level position you hold.

• When the time comes add another role: training manager. Whether your training manager position is full time or taken on by an existing employee, someone should be responsible for maintaining a quality training program. (The training manager doesn’t necessarily do the training himself.) Customer service training and reinforcement is the key to growth and success.

• Match the person to the job, not the job to the person. A very common practice is to promote good employees to management positions but that is usually not the right decision. It’s important to re-evaluate all positions in your company on a regular basis and either re-train or replace. Write a well-thought-out, specific job description for each position (or download them from the Nexstar Library). All job descriptions should reflect the positions as they serve the company’s needs, rather than reflecting the abilities of the people who may be holding them. Conduct interviews for each position, including current co-workers and outside applicants. Finally, choose the right person for the right job, regardless of the applicants’ previous roles.

This may seem like a daunting project but you can’t manage a home service business to its full growth potential and profitability without a solid organizational design. This Nexstar Org Chart Template and process is being used by Nexstar Network contractors successfully throughout the United States, Australia, Grand Cayman and Canada.  To see how your business aligns take this Free Business Assessment. I would be glad to help you look closer at your company’s direction and goals – Feel free to contact me any time.

By: Ed Cerier, Nexstar Network Marketing Strategist
It’s not easy getting consumers’ attention. There are a seemingly endless number of marketers battling for people to “Look at me! Look at me!” And marketing companies come up with new tools all the time, so that consumers are surrounded by messages. You can’t get money out of the ATM, take a ride in an elevator or even go to the bathroom without being hit with marketing messages.
There are a number of things you can do to help you get peoples’ attention, but today I want to focus on what I refer to as “connecting the dots.”

 To illustrate what I mean by “connecting the dots,” let me give you two scenarios.

Scenario 1

A consumer – we’ll call her Mary – sees a particular company’s trucks a few times a week (let’s call them the XYZ Company). XYZ’s bright colors and large graphics catch her attention. She thinks to herself, “That’s a big, bold, happy company.”

Mary has also heard XYZ’s radio commercials a few times, which feature an announcer giving a hard hitting, straightforward presentation of the many reasons why Mary should call them. She thinks to herself, “That’s a serious company.” She hears the name of the company, but doesn’t connect it with the name she saw on the trucks, because the commercial sounds like it came from a different company.

Meanwhile, Mary has received three postcards from the XYZ Company in the last year, but they look dissimilar from one another. They’re different sizes; they have different messages; and the tone and personality of the cards are quite different. Even XYZ’s logo looks unlike the logo that appears on XYZ’s trucks. Mary assumes these cards came from three different companies. She didn’t connect the dots.

This morning Mary needed to call someone in XYZ’s trade, but she couldn’t think of the name of any companies. She knows she’s seen and heard marketing messages, but none of them stuck, because they seem to have come from a number of companies. She picked up her yellow pages and turned to XYZ’s ad, but nothing looked familiar. XYZ’s yellow pages ad has a main message and tag line that she hasn’t seen anywhere else; the ad uses different colors from their other marketing materials; and the writing style and content seem very different. Mary wanted to hire a company that she felt familiar with, so sadly, she turned the page. She called one of XYZ’s competitors, the ABC Company.

Scenario 2

I’m guessing you know the name of my Scenario 2 company. Yup, it’s the ABC Company.

 ABC knows that the average consumer is subjected to literarily thousands of marketing messages every day. ABC also is sensitive to the fact that a consumer’s attention is fleeting. People are busy, and most marketing messages aren’t a high priority. Given these realities, ABC knows that they have to touch their customers regularly, and that their marketing communications have to tie together; they have to be consistent. For example:

• ABC has settled on one main message that’s used often, so that consumers will see and hear it over and over and over, and they’ll connect it with the ABC name.
• ABC works hard to make sure that their logo, which appears prominently on their trucks, is presented consistently everywhere else: on uniforms, in advertising, on magnets and stickers, even on their invoices.
• They use the same colors, typeface and design approach in all their marketing materials.

ABC’s opinion is that they want a consumer to recognize their marketing materials even if she sees them out of the corner of her eyes…even if she sees them quickly… even if she sees them at a distance.

ABC believes in the concept of “One company, one look.” They believe in helping consumers connect the dots.
Please indulge me for a moment while I give you a real life example of a company that does a great job helping people connecting the dots. That company is Nexstar.

For example, we have very strict guidelines about how our logo can and can’t be used. The following is from Nexstar’s Identity Guidelines; it describes how the Nexstar logo should be positioned:

• The logo should never be compressed or stretched out of its original proportion.
• The Nexstar logo should never be positioned at an angle.
• The logo should never have individual parts altered or added.
• The logo should not be combined with other type or graphic elements.

We have similar guidelines regarding the Nexstar colors, typeface, text grid system (“essential for a consistent Nexstar visual image”), photography, illustrations (which defines how we present charts and graphs), and much, much more.

If you’ve not been connecting the dots for your consumers, don’t feel bad. Many large companies make the same mistake. For example, according to an article that ran in Advertising Age entitled “’Ferrets’ of Car Industry Can’t Quite Ad Tinkering: Automakers Struggle for Consistency in Marketing Messages” (by Jean Halliday) a number of American auto manufacturers have been inconsistent with their marketing. The author states:

“…the key to auto advertising is consistency of brand message — and it’s more critical than ever in today’s fractured media environment where consumers are bombarded with marketing wherever they turn.”
“With the amount of money spent on automotive advertising ($13 billion measured U.S. media in 2010, according to Kantar Media North America), how do you expect to build a meaningful relationship with consumers if you are constantly changing the meaning of your communications?”

You probably know more about connecting the dots than you realize. You work hard to connect the dots for your customers everyday through the unique, consistent experience you deliver.

You connect the dots by being consistently friendly, intelligent, observant, respectful, clean, caring and more. Unlike most of your competitors, you unfailingly deliver the highest level of professionalism. This experience is delivered through each of your people, every day.

Your people, your procedures and your products all paint a consistent picture that communicates you’re raising the bar not just for your industry, but for all small-service companies.

Help your customers connect the dots by bringing that same consistency to your marketing materials.

By: Ed Cerier, Nexstar Network Marketing Strategist

In our first ever video blog post, Nexstar Network marketing strategist, Ed Cerier, asks an important question: Should You Hire Someone To Be You? Watch as he explains what this means in today’s marketing world and pay close attention to the advice he gives on what independent contractors should consider if they plan to outsource their social media marketing.

Click this link to watch the video: Should You Hire Someone To Be You?