Yes, you can grow your fencing work online. In this digital age, it’s important for business owners to connect with new and existing customers and increase their online presence.
Your clients want to engage with your brand in a meaningful way. They want you to listen and respond to them.
Showing your customers that you care more about their concerns than you do about your profit margin will endear you to them. So, your online efforts must be driven by empathy.
Growing your fencing work online involves two processes: Lead generation and lead nurturing.
Here’s how you can scale up your fencing business by using the internet to your advantage.
Lead generation tactics attract prospects to your business.
Once they visit your site or social media accounts, they take a desired action, such as signing up for your offer or following your page.
This stage requires them to leave their contacts with you so that you can follow up with them later.
Would you trust a fencing business that doesn’t have a website? Probably not.
Your prospects will look for reviews and do extensive research before they hire you to do their fencing, and chances are that they are doing this from a mobile phone.
By 2016, Australia had a smartphone penetration of 84%, according to the Deloitte Mobile Consumer Survey.
Making sure that your website is mobile-friendly will capture more leads and land you more fencing work.
If a user finds it difficult to understand who you are and what you offer at first glance, they’ll drop out of the buying process, but a mobile-friendly site mitigates this through fast loading speeds and easy navigation.
A well-designed website also gives you social proof and guarantees that leads will get the information they need round the clock such as customer testimonials and images of previous work.
Remember to include your pricing, team member profiles, the different services you offer and contact information on your website.
Websites need to be refreshed regularly because search engines regard sites with recent content as the most relevant to users.
Your fencing work is not only judged by customers and prospects but by search engines, too.
Search engines will give your business credibility and visibility if you play by their rules.
One way to do this is to improve your search engine optimisation (SEO). Designate a section on your site to host your company blog where you can upload different forms of content for your visitors.
Tools like Moz Keyword Explorer and Google Keywords Planner will show you search volumes for certain keywords and how they compete on search engines.
Moz Keyword Explorer
Google Keywords Planner
Image from flickr by Ged Carroll
Examples of long-tail keywords that you could customise for your site include how to advertise a fencing business, fencing business licence, fencing business marketing or fence installation tips.
You could also place social icons on your website to make it easier for users to share your content to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other networking platforms.
Online ads are cheaper and have a higher return on investment than traditional forms of marketing.
They allow you to view specific metrics such as reach, number of impressions, clicks and click-through rate (CTR) and adjust the ads based on your findings and budget.
Depending on your marketing objectives, you may choose one or all of the following ad strategies:
Once you successfully bid your fencing keywords against other businesses, the search engine shows your ad on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Google Ads drive traffic to your website and even make it possible to reconnect with window shoppers who visited your website through remarketing.
These are visual and interactive and will appear on third-party websites related to fencing.
Display ads are perfect for brand awareness and customer engagement.
These will appear as sponsored listings at the bottom of a blog post page or social media feed.
They’ll usually be highlighted under ‘other people liked’ or ‘recommended content.’
They’re non-disruptive since they follow the editorial flow of the page.
These target people who are most likely to procure your fencing service based on their demographics, interests, educational background, location and more.
For instance, you can select 30 to 45-year-olds who have shown an interest in gate automation and show ads to them.
Social media ads are ideal for generating leads and driving traffic to your website.
The leads you obtain need to be reminded of their fencing problems and how you can solve them.
Increase their desire to make the problem go away and communicate the benefits of your business.
Regularly making these deposits in their emotional bank account will prepare them to say yes when you finally make an offer.
Customers are always scouring the internet for answers to their problems.
Provide these solutions through relevant and engaging information on your social media accounts.
Questions, quotes, contests, images and videos of your fencing work, industry-related news and trends will bring you profile visits and encourage customer interaction.
Once in a while, celebrate your customers or active page followers to build loyalty and credibility.
Constantly track engagement, mentions, shares and retweets to find out how your leads are responding to your content and adjust accordingly.
Always ensure that your content is on-brand to distinguish yourself from competitors and build trust with your followers.
Get your leads closer to making a buying decision by sending them useful content to their inbox.
Regular emails build rapport and goodwill between you and your reluctant leads.
Steer clear of passive voice, all caps, too much punctuation, embedded forms and spammy words like ‘free’, ‘sale’, or ‘order now.’
Doing this will trigger the spam filter and your email will skip your lead’s inbox.
Segmenting your leads based on their different fencing needs and stated preferences will enable you to craft messages that relate to them.
Take this personalisation further by including the recipient’s name in the subject line and if they don’t open their emails, reach out to them and ask them what they really need and how you can assist.
Reward them with email subscription-only freebies such as discount codes for first-time customers.
Over time, they’ll associate your brand with value, you’ll stay top of mind and be the first person they consider when they need fencing work done.
Lead generation and lead nurturing are tedious and costly. You could learn how to do this yourself through online courses in addition to your fencing tasks.
You might even have to hire professionals who specialise in social media management, Google Adwords, conversion optimisation, SEO, SEM and content marketing.
A better option would be to list your business on a credible site such as Service Seeking.
The number of customers who have visited and hired fencing business sits north of 3 million so far.
Service Seeking has become the best way to grow your fencing business in Australia today because it allows you to send as many quotes as you wish and doesn’t take any commissions.
