AI, Branding & Customer Re-hash Breakthroughs for Contractors
Welcome to the Podcast
Meet the Hosts: Alec and Crystal
Introduction to Today's Topics
The Power of AI in Marketing
Utilizing ChatGPT for Effective Communication
Branding 101: Building Awareness
Balancing AI With Authenticity
The Importance of Personalized Marketing
Creating Effective Communication Strategies
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Speaker 1: 0:04
Thank you everyone for joining. I'm Alec, so I'm the editor of Home Pros and if you joined, like from our sort of like existing readership, thank you. Thank you very much, and if you joined from outside, then welcome. Marketing, a couple of hot topics AI we'll get into some branding conversations and then at the end, like Crystal said throughout it, if you have like questions or things that come up, feel free to put them in the Q&A and we'll address them and we'll talk through it and so, yeah, but before we jump into it, crystal, I'll let you introduce yourself. Crystal, I actually will say before you do I have the pleasure of spending some time today with someone who is much smarter and very cool and a good human being.
Speaker 2: 0:47
Oh well, thank you so much. Same for you. When the Home Pros email newsletter started coming out, I was like I'm obsessed with this newsletter, like I like newsletters that are like industry news, and so that's why I love this, that's why Lemon Seed partnered with it, and so Lemon Seed for anybody that doesn't know we strive to be a branding forward agency that encourages you to really build a solid brand and then utilize strategic advice to get all of your marketing and advertising dollars spent in the best place possible. So we're a combination of like fractional CMOs. We have a full graphic design team that helps you there, a full social media team that helps you there, a full social media team that helps you organically do social media. But our main goal is to help contractors feel organized and planned out and structured, and so we'd love to talk and at the end, like I said, I'm going to have a pretty good deal. So I hope you guys stick around to the end to get that pretty good deal that I'm going to offer.
Speaker 2: 1:42
But yeah, I come from the home service industry. For those of you that do not know, my family owned and operates, still owns and operates a heating, air conditioning and plumbing company here in rural East Texas. We've been in business 50 years. We have a very strong brand. I actually now do very high level consulting for them. I'm very much out of the day-to-day and full day-to-day with Lemon Seed, with my partner in crime here, emily. A lot of you know her, and she and I do the best we can to help contractors feel secure and safe and organizing and structuring their marketing. So come from it, though. I grew up working with technicians and how does this work? And I actually did the work of being a community marketer and driving our brand, and so I really feel like I can bring a different perspective to contractors.
Speaker 1: 2:30
Nice, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: 2:31
So thank you, crystal, for that.
Speaker 1: 2:33
Yes, I think really just to get into it like let's.
Speaker 1: 2:34
So again, we had a few big topics we want to talk about, and I think a good starting point would be to basically get into sort of what has become like the biggest buzzword in the entire world over the past couple of years, and especially over the last year, which is AI, and I feel like every time I open my phone, there's some sort of new thing happening, there's some company coming out, or there's some new data point, there's some breakthrough or whatever, and so I thought that that would be a good place to start, but then within sort of like at the basics and at more of a simple level, because obviously there's a lot going on and there's a lot to sort of sift through and not everyone has a ton of time to, you know, do extensive research on all of these things and ways in which they can be leveraged.
Speaker 1: 3:15
And so I guess, like my, my first question, or like first kind of thing that we, you know, that I'm curious about from your perspective, is like, as far as these you know, tools and what has, regarding what has come out, what are like, what are some ways in which you're finding, you know you working with contractors are being like, these things are being tactically and actually like utilized on a on a day-to-day basis, and I'll I'll pause there, I'll let you kind of roll with it.
Speaker 2: 3:43
Yeah, so you know, basis, and I'll pause there, I'll let you kind of roll with it. Yeah, so you know this is a great question. So I want to say I have this like love-hate relationship with AI because part of me, like I don't want my clients to lose their voice for what they really can do, because AI is a wonderful tool and resource. And will it replace some positions? Yes, but at the end of the day, I think that we should learn how to make the most out of AI as a utilization for efficiency and things like that. I don't think it really would be replacing a lot of things Because, let's be honest, even as good as AI gets people, there are going to be identifiers where we're able to tell, like this is AI generated. But there are a couple of places that I think many of you, even basic level, that have not really integrated full AI into your services. There's a couple of things and not to get too elementary here but most of us I hope our company is a little bit further ahead, but the majority of contractors chat GPT is one of the most simple things that yet y'all it's amazing what it will pump out for you. Little simple things like how do I write a simple email? So let's say you need to email your whole team or you're trying to come up with email content for an email complaint about blasting out to your company about maybe you bought another company and you're like how do I tell their customers that I'm now the owner? How do I tell my customers that we're now that company Utilizing ChatGPT to help perfect that messaging is great.
Speaker 2: 5:17
It's just a really easy resource to type in like your thoughts, and it will shoot it out much more even professional and cleaned up and you can even give it a little bit more of a voice, like make this more comical, make this more professional, I mean. So ChatGPT is one of the easiest ones that I think you can buy into as far as just start utilizing it for little things, and as you use it, it will grow, because the next step that I'll tell you is you know those reports that you're getting from your digital agency. You can actually upload those reports to chat GPT and say provide me with some solid questions to ask today on my call, with my, with my vendor. Hey, I don't feel like, according to these reports, that I'm growing with my SEO, search engine optimization. How can I talk to my web provider about that, and ChatGPT will provide you with a list of questions and then you can say what should their answer be, and it'll say they should answer something like this, and so I really feel like ChatGPT utilizing it to analyze some of your data and then just help you with some communication things, emails, even some social media tasks. I have a love-hate relationship with that because you're a much better writer than you give yourself credit for, and I can pinpoint right now with my little eye who is using ChatGPT for their social media captions. So it's kind of becoming like that had no creativity. It's very generated, so that's one use of it.
Speaker 2: 6:50
The other thing that I would say is, if you do not have things that are like AI driven, like reputation management tools, things that can request ads not ads request reviews, monitor reviews and even sometimes respond to those. I know that Podium has launched some cool stuff BirdEye nice job, those of you that are using some of those techniques. They now have some AI integrations with them that take off some of those tedious things that we have a hard time getting to, and so I think those are great, and then even there's even AI built into your CRM right now, like service type, knowing when, when you should notify people that it's time for services, if you're on Housecall, pro or Job or any of those like they have some integrations tied in already that help with the reminders and things like that. Things like that. Ai should be helping you remember things that is hard to remember and do things that are easy for it to track and do. That should just be rolling behind the scenes, and so I encourage you to look for that.
Speaker 2: 7:55
Brandwatch is another what I call sentiment analysis and, like social listening. Even Lemon Seed is starting to dabble into this a little bit when we start thinking about how we could improve services is you know? Brandwatch is listening socially for your brand being mentioned and named, negatively or positively. Again, those are all AI tools that you can utilize for your actual marketing. And then those decision-making things, like asking it for support on analyzing all the data that you guys are getting from anything that you have out there. If they provide you with a report, you can upload it. You can also upload. Let's say, you go to a show and they send you their PowerPoint. You can upload that PowerPoint and ChatGPT will summarize it for you. So again, just lots of cool things for you to use it. That helps you really take a step deeper than what your own thought is. And then, of course, chat functions. Most of you should be considering a chat bot or a virtual assistant style thing that comes along there and provides that support. Again, you're looking at things that make your life more effective and more efficient, so that's my gut sense there.
Speaker 2: 9:10
On that, I was gonna make sure we didn't have any Q&As, but if there's any thoughts about that, is anybody actively using an AI bot somewhere that I didn't mention? There are some other ones that are like blog content, like Jasper and Claude and things like that, and there's even companies that are now offering AI, like build-outs for you using Zapier and things like that. So tons of cool things going on to utilize AI. But again, just a quick recap Content is an easy way to use AI, booking scheduling quick way to use AI. And then I love the review side answering, responding and monitoring your reviews. Those are some three cool places that are fairly elementary level to implement.
Speaker 1: 9:59
I think something that is interesting about it is like there's a lot of um thing, like findings that have come out of some of these companies recently, about not just, yes, like we want to. For example, you you gave an example of, uh, using you know some of these tools to generate social copy, blog posts, like a really you know, kind of the low-hanging fruit from a content perspective. But something that I think can really make a difference and and I've this is kind of I've recently started really diving into this is how these things are prompted and so how you're sort of speaking to it to generate something that it goes beyond what would be more of a typical response. And so an example of that is and it's again, I'm, I'm personally learning about this, you know, every day, but you know where, let's just say, you're, you know, coming up, there's social posts or there's certain blog posts that you want to be written. You know, instead of just saying here's this topic that we want to write, you know, here are the three points we want to include, here's our voice. You know, generate me a thing.
Speaker 1: 10:58
It's kind of this idea is you tell these kinds of systems who they are before you ask them the question. And so what that means is you say, look, you are a, you're an expert marketer at a really sophisticated heating and air conditioning or plumbing company located in Dallas, texas, and you are crafting a series of social media posts or a series of blogs or an individual blog about this topic. Here, you know you want to include these. You know three things or five things you want to make it known. You know you want to emphasize this point and you want to come off, as you know, here's your company's voice. So you kind of like put it in the position of like it's almost like an employee already at the company, and so you and you reminded, like here is the voice, here's what your, you know your company stands for.
Speaker 1: 11:46
Here, you know even maybe some past examples of stuff that you guys have written and you can upload them, of course. Like, considering all of that stuff, please generate me one or a series of blog posts. So it just has, like it kind of has additional context and it thinks of itself, like you know, as sort of what you tell it in the beginning, which is, like you are an expert copywriter at a very you know XXXX, and I found that little tweaks like that, where you're adding those contexts, actually makes a difference in the responses that you get, which I think is very, very interesting because it seems so dumb and so obvious, but it's it really does make a difference. I've seen the same thing.
Speaker 2: 12:22
Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. So one of my favorite things is to do is I love to do a couple of things. I love to tell it what to act like. So the best example I have for this is you know, when you're watching Family Feud and he'll say we ask a hundred married men, and then they'll spit out like the question right, and so your answer really is indicative of like who did they ask this question to? So it's the same thing that you apply here is chat GPT. The more we, the more concise and precise that we get, the better content that it's going to spit out so you can tell it.
Speaker 2: 12:54
Act like an expert marketing strategist specializing in home services, but act like an experienced HVAC sales rep. Write a persuasive email convincing a homeowner why they should replace their 15-year-old system. So you have to just give it. The more information you give it, the more tailored it's going to be. And so, even like, act like a CSR for a plumbing company. Act like a CSR for a multi-service company that has plumbing, electrical and HVAC. Act like a social media manager for a pest control company. And then that clarity of create five engaging Instagram posts. You know, the more you can give it. It's going to use trends and it's going to use engagement to spit out as much as it can for you.
Speaker 2: 13:39
So, like, my biggest encouragement is be specific and clear. Use detailed, uh, context. So provide brand details that says hey, like. I'll say hey, lemon seed loves all things yellow and we use zesty a lot. Now, help me write a sentence blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right, and it will say create, you know, create a fun and engaging instagram caption for my marketing company, lemon Seed, which is based in East Texas.
Speaker 2: 14:05
We want a friendly and trustworthy tone on a post about why we should clients should be scheduling AC maintenance for summer. Hits, you know. And then it'll write it and they'll say you're a marketing company asking for this. Like, let me make sense of that. And so that you can also say give me multiple styles, including like do you want this? In bullet points, do you want it in a graph? Like, how do you want it? And the other thing, I love to use it for brainstorming. So, hey, help me write, you know, hey, pretend that you're an expert marketing strategist, but honestly, I want you to use this inside of your business more.
Speaker 2: 14:43
So the marketing side, I think, takes a lot more than just asking chat, gpt. There's more to consider. But inside your business, like, hey, this client left me this terrible review. Help me prompt a. Help me with a good email response to this review that remains professional, yet a tone of encouraging them that we're going to make this correct. But I use it to help me brainstorm and then I copy that, put it into the email and then I go edit it to make it more mine, mine specifically, so it doesn't look like this. I specifically copied and pasted this. Perfection looks not intentional, right, it looks unauthentic, so it shouldn't. Don't strive to make things look perfect. Make them look authentic and you'll go a long way there.
Speaker 1: 15:31
I think the other thing to add onto that is in that sort of like what we're considering, like a prompt, which is very clearly explaining who you know, like telling it kind of its role before asking it, something that can be included, you know, in that and and is basically like don't sound sort of like academic or don't sound like a robot, or do not sound like this and this and this, because often I've noticed you know, at least personally, that sometimes I will do that, you know, unless you're very, very, very clear about not just here's like the desired outcome I have, but here's exactly what I do not want and like please avoid doing these things like just so funny, how like it, you know, clarifying it really does make a difference. Um, I think so. This is so, this is kind of it's along the same, you know the same lines, but it's kind of. I think the flip side of it and so a big part of the conversation around ai is, and these tools in particular, the chat, chat, gbts of the world, et cetera is that as more and more consumers use them and adopt it, they are obviously looking to monetize their success, sometimes in the form of advertising, and so they think a lot of these companies chat GBT, for instance, a couple of their competitors have said we would like to come out and we want to offer or we want to start launching an advertising product. And so there's, you know, been a lot of like you know, talk and chatter and and and there's some things about.
Speaker 1: 16:55
Oh well, you know, as these products grow in adoption and really you know, tons of people use them, like what will that mean? And from a, you know, from a search dollar, like allocation standpoint, like does does that mean Google is kind of in decline, like does that is it going to kill? You know, there's I've seen some, you know, the death of Google headlines. I think it's kind of, I think that's misleading, but that's kind of the the other side of it. And so one thing that I I kind of wanted to discuss, or I wanted to throw out there, because I'm curious as to your opinion on it, is that I think, while there's a lot of truth to that, like these products are growing tremendously I mean, they've grown exponentially over the past couple of years, you know, just three years in, they've basically taken over the conversation globally, and there's truth.
Speaker 1: 17:41
But with that said, I think something that's over or underestimated is the gap between these products and Google, still to like today as it stands, is still like miles wide. And so the, for instance I looked at it before this ChatGPT has about four billion monthly searches that happen on it globally. And then there's another competitor, perplexity, which has they're kind of the second biggest one 400, 500 million, so not even close and then every other one is much smaller. So you'd think, okay, that's a lot of people, right, they have 4 billion searches, a lot of consumers are going to them. Does that mean that I should follow that traffic with dollars once I can?
Speaker 1: 18:28
Well, in 2000, yes, 2012, google had 100 billion monthly searches globally. So 13 years ago, it's 25 times the size as ChatGPT is today and it is obviously a lot bigger today. I don't have the, I don't have the updated number, but I just think it's like it's, it's noteworthy and it's something to kind of keep in mind that that Delta is just so big still that I you know, I just think it's something to keep in mind is a such a big gap even to this day, even regarding how popular these things are getting.
Speaker 2: 19:05
Well, sometimes I can be a little like flippant about things, because one thing I want to tell contractors that I live this, my brother's one. I talk to him every single day about different things that are going on. This is what I want to tell everybody and this is my East Texas coming out. Okay, but I want to be like, just sit down for a minute and understand that. I've said this numerous times lately Marketing specifically will make you pull your hair out and love everything, but it's like East Texas weather. It like those things happen in the same day you sit down. It's like sitting down at a game of chess and constantly having to strategize and move pieces, but you never get to get up. That's what it's like, because marketing is ever evolving. So the sooner that you grasp the concept that I think you're going to go through seasons of all types of things. You're going to go through seasons of AOI. So AI optimization right now is hot button. Everybody's talking about it and you should pay attention. And then Google for a while. They're changing it. They're rewriting algorithms left and right, like all night long, for days on end. They're rewriting everything. It's just part of your journey in marketing as a business owner, you're never going to be able to check the marketing box and sit down and not look at it for days and weeks and months. Even with teams like Lemon Seed on your side, marketing is always evolving and changing, so I think what we need to worry about honestly is are you preparing for what we can see on the horizon at all times? So I don't think we have to jump off the deep end with chat GPT, but should we be paying attention to it? Should we be talking to our trusted digital advisors? Yes, and are they going to try to scare us? Maybe? There's a lot of scare tactics that go on all the time and there's a lot of guru syndrome right now, like everybody's a guru right, but at the end of the day, are we seeing loss in search? Yes, should we try to figure out where it's going? Yes, should we start playing our piece of the puzzle? So the easiest thing to do right now is ask your digital provider. What are we doing to optimize my site for AI optimization so that when AI is coming up there and chat GPT is crawling and all of these, I know I've got an SEO plan for Google. What do I do now for an AI optimization plan. How do I plan for that? So just start taking it in stride of how you do it. I do think that eventually we're going to see like.
Speaker 2: 21:39
I read something today and I'm so sorry I cannot cite. It was a person's opinion, but they were saying that they have been seeing where their clients are not showing up in both Mac Pack and organic host. They're showing up in one or the other, but Google's making it to where they don't show up in both. Guys, just another pivot, just another place to pivot. It's not the end of the world, so you just have to kind of sit down and always be thinking of but am I evolving? If you're looking for that, sit in and forget it. Strategy for sure, digital is not it. It is one of those things you just have to move around with.
Speaker 2: 22:16
Rose made a good statement here, perhaps moving some dollars to Microsoft ads, since they're investing in chat GPT. I'm going to tell you something that's so funny to me. Do you know, when you buy a desktop computer right now, you know what's preloaded on it Bing, right. So people are like who is searching Bing? I'm like older people that just don't change the recommended search engine. So again, I like diversification Now. I don't like taking a small budget and making it T90 so you can be everywhere. I encourage you to take your budget and put it as where you can afford to be to, where you have enough to make a difference. I still would be starting with Google myself. If I had a client says I only have X amount of dollars. I would tell them you need to be starting in Google because that is the beast, and then I would start adding into other places. And so this is just a game of strategy and I'll be honest.
Speaker 2: 23:11
Another thing I cannot sit on this call and give blanket advice about that, because many of you have a brand problem which is showing your, which is why your paid ads are underperforming. Some of you have a finance problem, like you're not investing enough in it to make a difference, so that's why it's not performing. Some of you are not with the right vendor. The vendor is just not right. They're out of the. They're either out of our industry and not well-versed in it, or they are set it and-and-forget-it style people and it's just not performing.
Speaker 2: 23:42
So to give blanket advice here, I think is a very that's not a good move on my part. Instead I wanna give you flags that should be going off. But honestly, own your website, own your AdWords, make sure you're active on GLSA, get money dedicated to digital. If I could tell you, probably again, this is a very probable statement 50% of your advertising budget, which should be between 8% to 10% of your revenue goal this year, I would say 50% of that should go towards digital and that's your website. Ppc paid, any other type of paid ads SEO, social media ads, anything that you're doing digitally remarketing, retargeting, optimizing for AI 50% of that budget. Now, if you're a $50 million contractor, odds are you're not having to spend 10%. We can duck down a little bit, but 50% of what you're spending, I would tell you if you're less than $100, hundred thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 2: 24:41
I would have like 75 of my money in digital right now getting my website right and things like that, and I'd be doing boots on the ground, branding stuff um, there's a lot of yeah, no, that was great.
Speaker 1: 24:54
I appreciate it. I, uh, nathan, you made a comment. So, yeah, I think and I'm happy to email you, nathan, if you're listening after this, because I think it's a this is like a really interesting topic. But, uh, he, nathan, asked like, basically their ai overviews and some things, have, you know, pushed results down on the google page, so when you search something, if it's a question, it'll just display a snippet and link to a few different things up top and requiring someone to scroll down before even seeing advertisement, and then organic results underneath that. I think I mean, look, my initial thought is, uh, obviously it's had impact. I mean, in 2020, we covered this. In 2024, it's slashed click-through rates to both organic and paid uh, or yeah, yeah, two uh results. Um, but I think at the same time I don't know, I think Google's have to figure it out because I think they I don't imagine they're going to long-term alienate all their advertisers If there's clear performance, like they're negative impacts from a performance standpoint as a result of that. I think I'm gonna have to figure that out. But yeah, I'm happy to.
Speaker 1: 25:49
That's actually an interesting topic. I'd be curious to your opinion on it. So, okay, chris, I think you made a good point. You're talking about budget allocation. Maybe this is a good time we can switch over to branding, from going from to kind of segue from digital to branding. There was one point when we were like preparing for this and we were talking about our conversation, you had mentioned a good point about not just kind of thinking about the tactics of going through a rebrand and kind of how to build a brand, but there was this timing component that you were that you brought up and you were kind of mentioning that's. You know like the timing of it can be a very important factor in the whole decision. So I'll let you kind of speak to that.
Speaker 2: 26:26
Yeah. So let's talk. Let me level set us here on what when I say branding? So Lemon Seed is a full service branding company. We can rebrand companies, give them a new logo, but more than anything, we want to give companies a new idea or help them identify who they want to be in their market. So that is where we talk about branding here. So when we talk about how to implement branding strategies, it's how do we just make people aware of who we are and what we stand for? So I'm going to bet 99% of you guys on this call are great people. You're very giving. You run a good company. You help lots of people stay employed. You do great things.
Speaker 2: 27:08
Odds are that you're not actually telling that story correctly into the market, because if you do, and when you start doing that, you will feel your other marketing take a natural lift. So if you don't have a good brand and you're launching direct mail, people open their mailbox and they're like who are these people? And they throw it in the trash. But if they open that and they're like oh yeah, I see their billboards, I've heard their radio, I see them on my social media feed. I love what they do or they're always celebrating people. That's what clicks in people's heads, and so when I talk about branding here, I'm talking about the holistic approach to teaching people who you are, and it really can be impactful when you understand that. When we talk about launching that and turning that, sometimes I tell you it's like turning a cruise ship right. You're like, oh my gosh, I'm very overwhelmed with this concept To refresh in your brand. So even McWilliams so that's the company that I come from, it's my family's company Every three to five years we're updating our look, whether it's adding another or freshening up our colors to a brighter red or a better blue.
Speaker 2: 28:14
We don't go rewrap all 200 trucks. What we do is we get on a schedule like what is the chunk of vehicles that are new enough and it's worth a rewrap? And so normally we're going to put now remember, scale this in your mind. Normally we might wrap 10 when we freshen things up. Or Trey will say we're about to buy 15 new vans over the next, you know, 14 months. Let's just rewrap those with the new look, those of you that are changing your name and all of that. That requires a little bit more of an upfront investment, but this can all be strategically lined out for you and you shouldn't be afraid to launch a refresh of your brand because it reinvigorates your community, your team, like you ever feel like man.
Speaker 2: 29:00
But what will people do? Y'all people don't care as much about what your logo's been for 50 years. They care about the main identifier. So if your name is crystal williams heating, air conditioning and plumbing and I go change it to crystals heating, cooling, plumbing people aren't gonna go. Well, who's that? You know that's that's not what happens. People get excited for it and all of a sudden you it looks like you've doubled your plumbing. People aren't going to go. Well, who's that? You know that's not what happens. People get excited for it and all of a sudden it looks like you've doubled your vans on the road and like where did y'all come from again? And what you did is you no pun intended, but kind of you juiced it up, right, you gave your little shot of steroids to your brand and we talked about that.
Speaker 2: 29:40
So do you need to wrap vehicles? Yes, that's one of the easiest, most efficient ways and I'm going to tell you I want you to wrap the biggest dang thing you have. You got a school bus in your fleet. Let's wrap that. Okay, you got an install box truck. Let's wrap that. You have pickup trucks, and that's how you go do all of your vending for a vending, all of your installs for water heaters. Then let's wrap these trucks. Let's wrap a bunch of your Chevy Silverados, whatever you've got.
Speaker 2: 30:10
So is that a part of the puzzle? Yes, do you have to be afraid of it? No, you just we're just gonna schedule it out there, and it's just deeper than just that, though. So now we need to figure out what is our messaging, what are our core values that are associated with it, and how do we start telling people? Many of you want to know how to do it, but don't want to spend money on it, and I'll sit here and tell you how to do it without spending any money on it, but you're not going to do it because it's time. So, to make things great, we either have to give it money or we have to give it time, and sometimes we have to give it both. But even organic social media if you're a smaller company so I'm going to for today's conversation, I would say smaller companies will be less than let's go less than $3 million. Let's say, you're a $1.5 million company. So what? We're looking at? Three or four trucks on the road, probably something like that.
Speaker 2: 31:08
I would say it's time to brand, when you can afford to rewrap those and do some social media. Social media is free for you to do videos and video your team stacking the van and hi, I'm Crystal. And let me tell you why. My new name is Crystal's Heating, cooling and Plumbing, and I have this beautiful pink flower. Why did I choose when you can start doing that type of content behind your brand launch? That is when it will launch, when you're able to really talk about why you added a character or why you're this fun color. Um, and I think there's a trend right now for everybody to look the same, and so limit seat is set out on this goal, like we can help you look totally different. We can help you look this way, and then we're going to help you reiterate that into the market, because you need to be talking about who you are and what your brand is.
Speaker 1: 31:55
So you mentioned. So thank you for that, chris. You mentioned that in McWilliams' case. It's every four to five years that you guys are doing some sort of refreshing. Is there a reason for four years, five years versus shorter versus longer, like is that? Is there any logic behind that?
Speaker 2: 32:11
So normally in year three like so that's how fast McWilliams is normally moving with things, just because by the time we rewrap it takes us a couple of years to get whatever new stuff we're added. Okay, now we've got another level. Either we've added another service, taken a service away, or we want to refocus on some different things. So we start evaluating and just saying, okay, for instance, we actually dropped the and son. So as McWilliams has grown to further and further away from our home office, the and son portion stopped mattering to people here locally. People understood oh, this was a grandpa or this was a dad and his son, and then that dad and his son, that's so great.
Speaker 2: 32:51
Well, now we've grown and where we implemented Sailor Mac, which is our Sailor mascot, modeled after my grandfather who his name on the warship when he worked on them in the early 70s and late 60s was Mack. So we have Sailor Mack, so we were able to drop the sun. So now we've rewrapped things to say McWilliams with Sailor Mack on it instead of a big picture of my brother and dad and grandpa. So we've just evolved. So some years it's very minor, we just update our vehicle wrap design, but some years it's pretty dramatic and we just like to be planned around it and understand what we're looking at intentionally. But I would encourage you if you've had the same logo for more than five years and some of y'all are like I've had the same logo for 40 years it's okay. But think about what you could do if you just revamped that and kind of kicked it back into your market. It would drive a lot of interest and a lot of organic buzz around your brand.
Speaker 1: 33:49
So yeah, I think that makes sense. So it's these iterative things more frequently, depending on whatever it is that is needed. And then there are these more bigger things that are kind of on what often come out to be a four to five year cadence, give or take.
Speaker 2: 34:02
Yeah, and you know, utilizing your own community. Here's another thing that I tell people to do and I'm telling you people will not do it and they're like I don't understand why I get no new customers. Odds are, if you're like man, my lead count is low. When I get in and start auditing what you're doing for marketing, it is all bottom of the funnel things that you're doing. You're only talking to people that are ready to buy right this minute and you're not doing any pre-work. So it's like asking a girl to get married on the first date without ever dating her and showing her how you're going to treat her. So you have to go through this like dating phase with people and like, hey, girl, like here I am in the hallway, right, and then let me take you out a little bit and then, hey, now let's get married. Some of y'all are like nope, you're mine, we're getting married today. You don't get to know anything about me.
Speaker 1: 34:46
That's a really good point. So I don't mean to cut you off. This is what I'm about to say, I think. So what do you say? Like, if someone is like their spend and they're wanting to quantify a return, they're wanting very clear metrics and they want to be able to. You know they want good attribution.
Speaker 1: 35:05
Well, oftentimes the sort of branding the top of funnel branding investments are harder to track or they're harder to measure right, Because if you're, you know it's not direct, it's like PPC, where you can literally look at it in the dashboard, for instance, how do you, how do people, how do you think about that? Like, is it even though, yes, it is more unclear, if that's the right way to put it then these bottle of the funnel, sort of digital, you know things you can do how do you, do you, do you look at it? As I'm not even going to quantify an ROI, Is it? You know? I just know that, like, how do you think about, from an ROI standpoint, someone who's a little bit hesitant, given that it's not as attributable as some of these other things?
Speaker 2: 35:39
So, as much as I would love to tell a contractor that we really shouldn't measure ROI, we all both know like, at the end of the day, I want to spend money to make money, right. So I think when you're launching a new logo, you have to think about and measure both the tangible and the intangible things. You know a new brand is primarily an asset right of yours. Like you're going gonna own this whole concept and the return that we want to see from a new brand launch is brand awareness, meaning you're being talked about more, seen more and organically, people are searching for you. Meaning when I sit down and I'm a homeowner in your market and my AC goes out or let's use a different service my electric panel goes out and I'm like something's wrong, the whole house is dark, but everybody else has electricity and I know I paid my bill and I sit down to search. I want people to search for my name Crystal's Electrical Company more than I want them to go out and search for anybody that'll listen. Which is electrical repair near me, right? So you want to see a growth in people searching for you directly, but that has to be more than you just putting a logo on a van. We have to start really doing lots of branding work for people to start knowing you and searching for you specifically. Another thing that we can measure is just like customer perception the reviews and things like that that are being left about you. We should see them drastically growing to be better and more intentional when we have a better brand for them to grab a hold of.
Speaker 2: 37:07
I have a client right now I'll tell this quick story that is launching an animal mascot and it's adorable. It's adorable. Okay, our team knocked it out of the park and it's a unique animal and so. But they went and asked a couple of people and people came back to them and said you know, are you sure about this? Is it really going to make people take you seriously? And I'm like man, we overthought that a lot, because here's why you need something memorable. Memorable and so memorable is not doing something that everyone else is doing. And so, listen, you're never going to get a group of people to agree on something that's risky and different. You have to buy into it first, and then you're going to show everybody like I chose this, you know, lizard, because I know that this is going to be a brand identifier for me, and the perception that the customers are going to have are going to be that I am a new, fresh, moving up brand.
Speaker 2: 38:08
People love to be a part of things that are successful. No one wants to say, well, you know, I use the cheap guy. They might use the cheap guy because he's cheap, but no one brags on man, I use the cheap guy, unless they're bragging like on being a cheapskate, right, which they might. But at the end of the day, people want to be a part of things that are successful and say, man, that's my HVAC company, you know. And then, long term, business growth. So branding is a marathon approach to growth, right? This is not something that you're going to be like. I'm so glad I launched my brand yesterday, I sold five systems today. And this is not something that you're gonna be like. I'm so glad I launched my brand yesterday, I sold five systems today.
Speaker 2: 38:45
And this is why your marketing has to be multifaceted.
Speaker 2: 38:46
It is not a one-stop.
Speaker 2: 38:48
If you tell me that your marketing company is your digital company, that's the first problem. Your digital company is a core piece of your advertising, but it is not a marketing company. It is a core piece of a marketing strategy. You have to have a strategy to build your brand, a strategy to grab people when they're ready to buy, and then a strategy to cultivate those people once you get them in your database. It's all of those things pumping at the same time. And so to measure the ROI effectively on your brand, I would definitely say customer traffic and engagement directly with your name and just around your website and things like that. Social media is a great way. When you launch it there, check for more likes and shares and followers and are people just engaging with you more? And then who is actually mentioning your brand more and more? And then it should help your other pieces grow as well. So when they see your ad, they've seen your branding, so they tend to engage because they know who you are. People do business with who they like, know and love.
Speaker 1: 39:51
Yeah. So it's almost like there's a solid set of non I won't say non-financial, but for lack of a better term non-financial KPIs that are pretty easily tracked, that are sort of a way maybe to measure ROI from a branding standpoint, to your point likes traffic, you know, direct search yeah.
Speaker 2: 40:07
And listen, don't discredit things that are harder to measure. Just because they're harder to measure does not mean that they're less effective. So you know a billboard campaign. People will say I'm going to put a QR code on my billboard. I'm like, sir, when is the last time you were driving 80 miles an hour around the loop to scan a QR code, like with your camera? You don't.
Speaker 2: 40:25
Yeah, and you don't dial phone numbers either, because, remember, we don't have to know that anymore. It's not 1985. We don't have to know phone numbers. We want to be able to go to Google and type in your name and your GBP, pop up and be clipped to call. That's what we want, right? So just understanding that billboards and TV and radio, even digital versions of all of those things, should all be brand forward, building your brand, because that's what you want. Is that brand recognition?
Speaker 1: 40:54
No phone numbers or QR codes on billboards. I like that. I think that's a Um. Yeah, the traffic thing is funny, um, so okay, to kind of like switch gears, we'll go one more time.
Speaker 1: 41:07
So there's this uh conversation again that we had prior to this, which is kind of about all things, sort of existing customers rehash, sort of tapping into them. Um, and you made a good point when we were when we were chatting, which is that it's again sounds very simple, but it's that, um, before getting into mapping out sort of campaign templates, meaning, okay, I want to go, you know, run these estimate, follow-up things. You know, for seven days we're going to skip day two, we're going to do text, email, text email, et cetera. It's very simply being intentional about just designing a strategy at a high level before even getting into that. And you think that's actually where there's a kind of a bottleneck, where there's often a problem, and so I just want to one, if I'm remembering our conversation correctly. I'm just curious as to your thoughts on that or you know, as to kind of what you think about that.
Speaker 2: 41:50
Yeah. So I have two schools of thoughts on this. I have two types of contractors that I talk to and correct me if this is not the direction you want to go with this. But so here's one contractor. I'll say OK, tell me what you do for your existing database, and they're going to go. I email and call those suckers every day I can. I'm texting, calling, and I don't have one person that I hadn't reached out to.
Speaker 2: 42:09
So what we've done there is we are now trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip. We are just annoying the crap out of our database, right. So people are like take me off of whatever you've got me on, stop calling me. Then the other contractor gets on and they're like yeah, never. So I never talked to them, I never talked to my existing database. So I talked to a client the other day $8 million plumbing company, so that's a large plumbing company, right. And I'm like so how are you rehashing these people in your database? Or even like open estimates. He's like I'm not. So y'all do y'all know that he is sitting on a treasure box of revenue and data and direction and I mean it is like low hanging fruit, like so low it's touching the ground Like it is a very low hanging fruit, and I think the tricky part here is understanding that there's a balance to your whole approach to marketing. So the rehash side of things, which that word is very inclusive, okay. So I encourage you and Valerie asked a great question earlier when you get ready to re-talk, so talk again to anybody that didn't make an indefinite move with your company. They purchased a system, got on your maintenance contract, something. What you're doing is trying to create a message that resonates with them and so, using rehash programs, like I personally love to see what Chirp does, I love Justin and his team and Ryan over at Chirp. They do great work for helping contractors get it set up.
Speaker 2: 43:45
Now, listen, it is not the press of a button. You do have a part to play in the situation. You do have to engage and set it up and do the things, but the overall premise and the structure of their program is to have continuous and meaningful flow to outreach so that people will be forced to go left or right with you and so many of you that have not started that. You have a treasure trove rating right there. So when calls are down and weather's not helping, you really should have a strategic rehab strategy lined up, for how do I engage people that are just sitting with me? Some of those niche audiences could be people that had service work from you but did not join your maintenance program, so they haven't had a tune up. People that bought a large repair, so you know they probably are needing to probably do something extra. Or they band-aided something like how can you pitch to them your replacement offers right now, offering financing on large repairs? And so there's tons of these little audiences that are out there that the more you put, the better your data is coming into your CRM, the more you can pull that out into little niche audiences.
Speaker 2: 44:56
I think niching is going to be cool for 2025, because when I get an email from you and it is directed towards me, meaning, hey, crystal, we were out at your house last summer and added some refrigerant this year, let's get ahead of it.
Speaker 2: 45:11
And the first pound of refrigerant is on us. If you, let us come out now and do a tune up and go ahead and add that first pound of refrigerant. Number one, it's getting you back in a home that's already trusted you. Number two, you've already kind of said in their head like oh yeah, I'm probably going to have a problem. And then, number three, you are now becoming their trusted source of information for making that large ticket repair or that replacement when it's necessary, when it's true and necessary. So we're not here to trick people, it's not bait and switch. But do you not want to be in front of people that are having trouble with their air conditioner, especially when they told you last year they were having problems? So this is not. This is a game of cat and mouse, like we're always chasing where are they, and so customizing those messages to go out in your rehab strategy is really a cool concept to make there.
Speaker 1: 45:56
I think the point about I think you made two good two points that resonate with me which is like one, this niche audience and sort of finding these pockets within an existing customer base, I think another one and you can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong or Adam, but there's, you know, there's, there's so many different things you can pull out. There's canceled appointments there's, you know, I never even booked in the first place there's, obviously. And then the second part to that is also on like a rolling timeline basis, and to that is also on like a rolling timeline basis, and so you can segment them by different times. So to your point. You said you know we were out last summer, you know being able to identify that person in the first place, being that it was, you know, 12 months ago or whatever, you know 10 months, whatever it was. So there's almost two parts to segment segmentation there, which is the audience themselves, but then there's also a timing component so that those things can be even more sort of what's the word? Personalized, I guess.
Speaker 2: 46:45
Yeah, and I mean even canceled calls.
Speaker 2: 46:46
So here's another one so most people cancel calls because one or two things happen. Their husband fixed it, which odds are no, they didn't. And second of all, or they called someone else that got there sooner. So now your message was like hey, we saw that you canceled a call with us last year or weren't able to make your call with us last year. Here is a free coupon for us the next time you need service. So you know what they're gonna go. My jackalope husband was not even able to fix it, he's only band-aided and it still has a problem. And here's a free call. Are most of you not willing to give that $89 back to the customer to get in their home when you know they're having a problem? So again, this is a relatively free way to reach out to everyone that canceled service. Make a play on it, give them a coupon of some sort and then let it sit, say you know what this is good for all year. Let it sit, let it rotate in their mind and then when they need it, they'll respond to it.
Speaker 2: 47:39
Another one that's pretty good is when your team is recommending IAQ. So duct cleaning or indoor air quality pieces, or if you're a plumbing company, like plumbing accessories, like water softeners, generators, things like that. Go ahead and say, hey, last year we recommended that you get a duct cleaning Right now we just launched. Listen, they love to be privy to something that hasn't hit the streets. Because you're an existing customer of ours, we're releasing this to you first if you book before March 15th. Well now, all of a sudden, they're cool, they're exclusive. They haven't really seen it anywhere and really what we have done is just make them feel heard and special and offer them something to just let us back in their house to do the job we already pitched. Offer them $100 off.
Speaker 2: 48:25
I had this contractor one time and I was like, hey, just go in and offer 15% off any repair that we recommended that was not completed last year, in 2024. And they're like, oh my gosh, but what if that? What if I was already offering a discount and it got us low? Okay, so do we want to keep looking at technicians or do we want to get into homes and take the outliers that we actually lose a buck or two? And really, at the end of the day, when we're getting back in the house, are they on our maintenance club? Are they get, are they of age equipment Like, what else can we measure to see if it's really worth crying over this eighty five dollars that we're going to lose by going to that lead? So don't make processes over the outliers.
Speaker 1: 49:04
Right, I think. I think, and I think that makes sense because it's it's also another like dimension to segmenting the audience, like we just talked about. It's there's type of service. There's there's uh, you know, whatever you want to call type of product, type of service that you can add to sort of even niche. It's like this idea of niching down so niche that that then you have these little golden pockets where you might have a lot of them, but each one of them has sort of a unique, personalized thing that you could offer. And I just I think that is a and that's a general business thing that I think works too. I mean, no matter what industry it is, no matter what, I mean, that whole concept of niching down, I think, is just a very fundamental to things working. And so I completely, I just I want to say I agree with that. I think that makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 2: 49:40
Well, and you know, I want to tell people too like so what? That you're building an email for 15 people. It is a direct email, it's not calling 15 people. But you also can't send that email one time be like didn't work, didn't work. Direct mail is another example of those.
Speaker 2: 49:55
Mailing your existing database every quarter is a very good way to stay top of mind. So whether you mail them a newsletter, or if you plan your quarters out to land on holiday times where we love our customers, or we're kicking into gear this spring again, you're working on top of the funnel, keeping them aware of who you are, but offering, like, some discounts on there. So then you might say, okay, I need at least an audience of 1,500 so I can mail these specific postcards to that 1,500. It's going to be a little bit more expensive of a1,500 so I can mail these specific postcards to that $1,500. It's going to be a little bit more expensive of a campaign. But think about again, if I got that refrigerant, you mailed them a postcard that said this is your coupon for a free pound of refrigerant and flip me over for more details. And they flip it over.
Speaker 2: 50:37
Think about it. You'd be like dang. These people remembered they were out here last summer, you know, or the new homeowner gets in and was like they had to have the AC service last summer. Like, oh crap, I should be looking at that. So I think there's some really cool ways to not sit down and be like woe is me. A call volume is low, every marketer lies to me. I hate life. I hate marketing life. Pull up your panties and start working on ways that we can get some cool new stuff going to reach these people Takes money to make money.
Speaker 1: 51:15
I think it's great. I think there was one. We had one question that we answered. Actually, no, you know, it was the Microsoft one that we already answered. Sorry, that was one of the. But I think, yeah, chris, look, this is great. I know we have a few minutes left and we blocked an hour out, so if I mean look, I think, by the way, just for context, so we're recording this and I'll send out a recording or make a recording available to kind of everyone. But, chris, seriously, I think this is great and I really appreciate you taking the time. But, crystal, seriously, I think this is great and I really appreciate you taking the time, and I kind of think if I missed there was one, if I missed anything, but if anybody has any questions about even things that we didn't cover, feel free to put them in here in the questions.
Speaker 2: 51:56
I'll do my best to answer them. So, questions about websites, questions about direct mail, about your brand, about social media, about email marketing, any of those questions I'd love to have. I will go into there right now and post my own ability to contact us and I think let me see for a second here I should be able to ask a question, maybe, maybe not, oh yeah, no, well, let me ask a question, but any of my team that's on here that's listening. If you'll go put in the Q&A so there's several of my Lemon Seed friends that are on here If you'll go put in the Q&A, the Lemon Seed web address.
Speaker 2: 52:39
Here's the special that we have for you guys we love to do an audit for anybody that's looking to come on plan with Lemon Seed, meaning we will go through and look at who is your ideal target market and even look through some of your marketing that you're currently doing, and so I'd love to give you a discount on that service. And so please email us. We talk free, we do a discovery call, we kind of interview. Thank you, hannah. Thank you, lupita. Actually, lupita and I will get on a call with you. It's just a discovery call and we kind of interview each other Are we a good fit for what you're looking to do? And if we are not the right fit, we are known for referring you to who is a good fit for what marketing needs you have. We kind of sit as your marketing coach and your graphic design team and your branding people, and so I would love to just visit with you guys to see if we're a good fit. If you are a vendor partner on here or a manufacturer or distributor that's on here and you're interested in the same thing, you can reach out to us there and just say, hey, I want to talk about helping my clients or speaking to people.
Speaker 2: 53:45
Lupita can. Certainly. She'll be the one that gets all of those and working through all of you know whatever we have. And then there's our emails there if you want to email us directly. But, alec, thank you for the opportunity. I don't see any other questions on here. But listen, we love to talk. Marketing From the Yellow Chair is our my podcast. Emily and I put out a podcast every tuesday and I would love to have listeners and reviews and people that like to listen to it. I like to talk. If you can't tell so, it's always fun to get on there and talk, but I would love to show you what discount we have for anybody that mentions this webinar.
Speaker 1: 54:23
Awesome, Crystal, this is great. Thank you very much. Seriously, you rock. Thank you, and then, yeah again, I'll get a recording out to everyone and make sure that we're everyone's good to go, and then we'll. Yeah, I hope everyone has a good rest of your day, Crystal. I hope you have a good day. I hope you enjoy Lufkin Texas.
Speaker 2: 54:41
Thank you so much, guys. I loved it. Everybody have a great Monday.
