Whether you’re doing marketing yourself or are outsourcing it to a partner, you should do regular reviews of your results and adjust how you invest in marketing.

Key takeaways:

• Many contractors handle some (or all) marketing tasks in house. It’s important to keep track of how successful these marketing efforts are.
• We share some questions to ask and metrics to track to get a better idea of your marketing ROI.

You invest in marketing to generate calls and revenue for your business. But what are you really getting out of this investment?

Getting activity from your marketing campaign doesn’t necessarily mean you’re generating more revenue with it.

In this blog, we’ll share some questions and steps you can use to assess your marketing efforts and identify areas where you can improve.

Your Marketing Scorecard

Need a quick way to measure how your marketing team is doing? This scorecard should be a good starting point:

What Should Your Marketing Team Be Responsible For?

Whether you do marketing in-house or have a partner, it’s important to define what the role of your marketing team is.

It can include:

• Building brand awareness.
• Generating qualified leads.
• Improving local search visibility.
• Managing paid advertising.
• Creating website and blog content.
• Supporting customer retention and referrals.
• Tracking performance and reporting results.
• Working with the sales or operations team to improve lead conversion.

Many contractors make the mistake of keeping marketing separate from the rest of their business. Your marketing team needs to work closely with everyone else to better understand your services, ideal customers, and business goals.

Assessing Your Marketing Strategy

Your marketing strategy is a guide that will help your team decide how to spend their time and resources.

Here are a few questions you can ask to better define your current strategy:

• What are our primary marketing goals?
• Which services and locations are we prioritizing?
• Who is our ideal customer?
• Which marketing channels are we using, and why?
• What makes our business different from local competitors?
• Are we focused on generating leads, increasing brand awareness, retaining customers, or all three?
• Does our marketing plan support the company’s revenue goals?
• How often do we review and update the strategy?

If you don’t have the answers to any of these questions, it’s usually a sign you need to do more planning with your marketing team.

Are You Tracking the Right Metrics?

One of the primary ways to measure how well your marketing team is doing is to look at metrics and track them over time.

Building trades businesses should look at metrics that reflect the jobs booked and their value.

Here are a few examples:

Questions to Ask about Job and Lead Tracking

Measuring your marketing ROI in terms of jobs booked and how much you earn on these jobs makes sense. However, many contractors don’t have a good system in place to track jobs and revenue.

These questions will help you assess your job-tracking system:

• How many leads did marketing generate this month?
• Where did those leads come from?
• How many leads were qualified?
• How many became appointments?
• How many appointments became completed jobs?
• Which channels generate the most profitable customers?
• Are we tracking calls, forms, messages, and directory leads?
• Do we know our cost per lead and cost per booked job?

If you don’t already use one, a CRM can give you valuable insights into the leads you generate and how many turn into booked jobs.

Assessing Lead Quality and Conversions

If you’re getting a steady flow of leads but not seeing many booked jobs, you likely have a problem with the conversion process, or your marketing team isn’t driving the right leads to your business.

These questions can help you assess lead quality and take a closer look at your conversion process:

• What does a qualified lead look like for our business?
• Are leads coming from the areas we serve?
• Are people contacting us about services we actually offer?
• How many leads become scheduled appointments?
• How many appointments become completed jobs?
• Which marketing channels produce the highest close rates?
• Are we receiving duplicate, spam, or low-quality leads?
• How quickly are we responding to new inquiries?
• Are missed calls, forms, and messages receiving follow-up?
• Why do customers choose another contractor?
• Are certain services or job types converting better than others?
• What is our average cost per booked job?
• What is the average revenue generated from each marketing channel?

Once you have a better idea of what a quality lead looks like, you can refine your marketing efforts to connect with users who are more likely to convert and book high-value jobs.

Questions About the Channels We Use

Your marketing team may be using several channels, including local SEO, paid ads, directories, social media, email, SMS, and referrals. Each channel should have a clear purpose and a way to measure results.

Ask your team:

• Which marketing channels are we currently using?
• Why are we using each channel?
• Which channels produce the most qualified leads?
• Which channels produce the most booked jobs?
• What is the cost per lead and cost per booked job for each channel?
• Are we investing more in the channels that perform best?
• Are we giving new channels enough time to produce reliable data?
• Which channels are not producing acceptable results?
• Are we testing different messages, services, audiences, or locations?
• Do we know whether customers interact with several channels before contacting us?
• Are our paid ads, website, Google Business Profile, and social media using consistent messaging?
• Are we using email and SMS to stay in touch with past customers?
• Are reviews and referrals generating measurable business?
• Are we tracking leads from contractor directories and marketplaces?
• When was the last time we reviewed our channel strategy?

Do not assume a channel is successful simply because it generates traffic, clicks, or impressions. Compare each channel based on lead quality, booked jobs, customer value, and return on investment.

Get Better Marketing Results With Tempesta Media

If you found gaps in your marketing processes after answering these questions, it might be time to think about outsourcing some of your marketing.

Running marketing in-house can be challenging: It requires time, resources, and a wide range of skills your team may not have. Outsourcing frees up time and gives you access to expertise you may not have in house.

Tempesta Media specializes in marketing for building trades and home service businesses. Our team can help with content marketing, local SEO, website content, answer engine optimization, local visibility, and other marketing strategies designed to help contractors get found online.

Learn more about our solutions here or contact us for some personalized advice on your current marketing campaigns.

FAQ

How do I know if my marketing is working?

Look beyond activity metrics such as clicks, impressions, and website traffic. A successful marketing program should generate qualified leads, booked appointments, completed jobs, repeat customers, and revenue.

What marketing metrics should contractors track?

At a minimum, track qualified leads, booked appointments, completed jobs, close rate, cost per lead, cost per booked job, average job value, repeat customer rate, referral rate, and return on marketing investment.

Why am I getting leads but not enough booked jobs?

The issue may be lead quality, slow response times, poor follow-up, unclear pricing, weak sales messaging, or a difficult scheduling process. Review the entire process from the first inquiry through the completed job.

How can I tell which marketing channels generate real leads?

Ask every new customer how they found your business and track calls, forms, messages, referrals, directory leads, and appointments in a CRM. Then compare each channel based on booked jobs, revenue, and cost—not just traffic or clicks.