As the new year approaches, some prepare traditional collard greens to better their revenue luck in the new year. While we’re not opposed to such a delicious tradition, your business and ours also reflect on our performance. Where did we start? What have we done in the past 12 months? Where do we want to be? And what do we need to do to get there?
The point of all of this business performance evaluation and planning? To look for missed opportunities and plan how to maximize our revenue streams moving forward so we can not only stay relevant but thrive.
Our agency focuses not only within your home service industry but also on revenue-generating business outcomes.
In the holidays’ giving spirit, we’ve prepared a guide for how to capture more revenue from marketing in the new year.
How to Capture More Revenue from Marketing
We walk you through a business health check, website health check, digital marketing health check, and market research that will leave you with valuable data and insights to steer your business into more green.
1. Perform a Business Health Check
Understanding your business on a granular level allows you to know how your marketing efforts are trending over the past year. And with that understanding, you can make informed marketing decisions for the new year that help you capture missed revenue.
Here are a few items to note:
- Services (and Revenue per job): What services do you offer, and what revenue do you get from each job?
- Geography: In what geographic areas do you operate?
- Capacity: How many employees do you have, and how busy are they staying? Do you have the bandwidth and desire to grow your demand?
- Customer Acquisition Cost: How much does it acquire to acquire a customer? If you don’t know the answer to this question, you’re not alone. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) = sales & marketing costs / net new customer. For those who prefer video over written formula, check out this video guide to determine your customer acquisition cost.
- Customer Lifetime Value: What’s the lifetime value of your customers? If you don’t know the answer to this question, you’re not alone. Lifetime Value of a Customer (LTV) = average revenue per transaction, churn rate, and repeat visitor rate. For those who prefer video over written formula, check out this video guide to determine your customer lifetime value.
- Return on Marketing Efforts: The golden ratio is LTV: CAC, or how much you’re paying to acquire a new customer at the stated LTV. What is your rate of return? Our goal is to make that marketing return so that you can not just achieve more revenue but sustainable long-term revenue growth. As we dig into the next sections (website and digital health check), we’ll uncover ways to do just that.
2. Perform a Website Health Check
Your website is the foundation of your brand’s entire digital presence and strategy. How does your website stack up?
Here are a few areas to examine:
- Website Ownership. Do you own your website, or are you paying a monthly fee to a company for a proprietary platform? Website ownership, preferably on a WordPress platform, ensures: (1) you have control and access to the back end of your site for digital marketing (2) you’re not limited in design and functionality (3) you’re not subject to high monthly website fees, nor the high-switching costs associated with abandoning the proprietary site for a new build.
- Website Optimized for Conversions. Does your website follow industry best practices to convert visitors to customers
- Website Optimized for Search. Is your website optimized for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? SEO helps improve your page 1 rankings and inbound lead volume. When combined with a solid Content Strategy and Paid Search, SEO also enables you to achieve Search Engine Dominance. To learn more, check out our SEO for plumbers article.
If you need help assessing how your website stacks up, feel free to contact our experts for a free website audit. The objective and expert feedback of a website audit provides valuable insights into improving your digital foundation.
3. Perform a Digital Marketing Health Check
Ninety-three percent of all website traffic comes from search engines. Google your primary services. Do you show up in search engines? And how to does your presence stack up to your competitors?
- Are you showing up in Google’s map pack? Ranking in Google’s map-pack is prime organic real estate, especially in the home service industry. The map-pack is a crucial way to get more local business and lower your cost per acquisition.
- Are you create content that supports your organic search and converts? Create content that shows up organically in search when homeowners are looking for answers and how-to guides. Businesses with value-packed blogs get 126% more lead growth than those without them.
- Are you overpaying for clicks in Google Ads? It’s essential to participate in Google Advertising. HVAC has one of the best Google Ads conversion rates (3.3% on average) of all home services industries. But PPC alone is not sustainable or the path to maximizing revenue for your home service company. Check out how to reduce cost per lead to cut out unnecessary expenses.
- Are you fostering relationships with your existing customers? Recall your business health check and the lifetime value of your customers. You’ve already established trust with your customers and can increase customer lifetime value by scheduling customers for regular maintenance visits and notifying them of additional services you offer.
- Are you showing up in search engines for emergency service requests? When homeowners have an emergency, they turn to search and choose the least path of resistance. Maximize revenue for this opportunity by showing up in search for these quick decisions. If you’re not, check out how to generate more emergency service requests.
- Are you strategic about your service efforts? Showing up for high-value services & take advantage of those leads by employing opportunity dispatch.
4. Conduct Market Research
Addressing your website and digital health should uncover opportunities to capture missed revenue. Above and beyond that, if your business has the bandwidth and desire to grow, consider if you want to expand into new geographies or add additional service lines.
To facilitate your decision, check out our free revenue opportunity calculator to see how much revenue your online presence should generate in each geographic location.
Need help unlocking more revenue from marketing for your contracting company? Let’s chat!