How to Choose the Right HVAC Marketing Strategy - Skip this could cost you $1,000's | Jeff Harrison

Can the next meeting you have with a client or if you're the client, the next meeting you have with your digital marketing agency change the whole scope of how you move forward and make a bigger impact on your business? Stay with me. Today I'm going to share something that happened to me with one of my customers.

Hey, welcome back. My name is Jeff Harrison. I own a company called Swing Point Media. We are a digital marketing agency helping local businesses get more customers using organic content. Now, yesterday I had a great meeting with a client who's been with me now for about 18 months. And we've known each other for about three years. He has a credit repair company and quite frankly, it's a challenge to get their credit repair business out there because of, you know, privacy and, you know, personal things. You know, you can't call people out for having poor credit, things like that. So we were talking and he said, listen, he said, 80% of my business comes from doing what he calls one to ones. Now these are meetings he sets up with other business owners around the United States who may be having his ideal client. They don't compete against each other, but they may be working with their ideal client. As an example, a divorce attorney or a bankruptcy attorney. Those are perfect candidates for him to have these one on ones. And he said, listen, he said, jeff, he said, the content that you've made, the videos and the articles, we wrote an article basically once a week and also create a video once a week. And we put out all the social channels and we also have some ads behind it. He said, this is what happens. He said, the people I am going to that I've reached out with and they are candidates to have this one on one to have to start building relationship. He calls them referral partners. He said, what I find is those people go to check out my website and they investigate me. They kind of do the research to find out, hey, am I a fly by night kind of guy? Am I flake or am I somebody that maybe they should spend some time with? He said 80% of his business comes from these people and the contacts. So he said he's really happy with that. But on the flip side, he said, listen, he said, my customers, he said, these are people that are in a situation where they have to make a financial decision and their situation with a credit is a problem. And he gave me this, I'll give you this real quick story. He said, imagine, he said, my ideal client, he said, they've gone in to see about a car repair and the car repair is at the dealership and the dealership comes back and says, hey, listen. He said, listen, it's going to cost you more than your car is worth to get. To get it repaired. You may want to think about getting a new car. And so they go through the process of looking at new car and they get to the point where now the finance and insurance guy, the F and I guy making the decision whether or not they're going to deliver the car or not, is racking their brain trying to get a way to make them be approved. But they come back after about four hours of this and the F and I manager says, listen, I'm sorry, you know what? You're not going to be able to get approved because your credit is that bad. He said, these are the type of people that are probably his best candidates for their business. The people who are emotionally needing help right then and there. And he said, if I can get those people to reach out to me. And he said, it doesn't have to be just a car, it could be a home, it could be a job, things like that, things that really affect their credit. He said, those are the people that I need help. And he said, quite frankly, he said, they're not going to my website and they're not researching information about who I am and how to do this. He said, they are the type of people that reach for me when there's a disaster, when there's an emotional trigger. And as I'm listening to this, I began thinking. I said, I said, you know what we've been doing? I said, we've been a gardener. In other words, we've been, we've been growing vegetables and growing crops in your business and they attract a great deal of ideal customers as far as your one to ones are concerned. But I said, it sounds like to me, like what we need to do is shift. And I said, I need to go hunting. And he looked at me, says, he says, wow. He said, I never thought about it. He said, yeah, we need to go hunting. And by this what I mean is, you know, if you think about, I'm going to say levels of customers, intent or interest. He said, you know, the people that are, I said, at the top of the list are the people who maybe they're just kicking tires, they're just thinking about doing something and they're casually seeing something on TV or hear something on radio or see an ad on their YouTube channel and they check it out. Not a real high level of interest, but they start that process. But then they get in Kind of the middle of the funnel, and they're starting to take a little more interest. They're watching a video here and there. They're checking out a testimonial. They're looking at reviews, they're looking at prices, things that nature. And then there's the bottom of the funnel. And this is what we're talking about hunting. These are the people that are emotionally ready to make a decision. They are, as most of us are. We are need buyers. Do I need that? And if I do, can you justify it with either a price or whatever it might be? Well, today I want to share with you that sometimes when you have this discussion with your customers, or if you're a customer with a potential digital marketing agency, it's important to let them know, are your customers the type that like vegetables? In other words, they like to be nurtured into becoming clients. Or. Or are they. The people that. They're out living their life, and then all of a sudden they get a cut and say, I need a band aid. I don't care what the brand is. I need a band aid because I'm bleeding. You're a hunter if that's the case. So think about that in your business. Are you hunting or are you gardening? Now, before you decide one or the other, I'm going to say you probably need both. But here's the difference on the gardening side, which is what Swing Point Media does, a lot of we nurture people. We find people at the top of the funnel who, let's be honest, most digital marketing agencies or marketing companies, ad agencies, don't spend a lot of time there because it takes a while to turn these people into buyers. It might take three or four months. Now, granted, there are outliers. Some people might make a decision right away, but that's a longer process. But here's the cool thing. Along the way, all these assets are being built. The videos, the articles, all of that stuff is being built, and it keeps producing over and over and over. So as you think about this garden, it's not something where you say, hey, I got to rip it out. It's not. I think they call it an annual. I got to rip it out every year and put a new one in. No, no. It's like a fruit tree. Every year, it keeps producing fruit. But the point is, it takes a little longer. The good side is, typically those people have spent more time with you, and you've built what's called know, like, and trust. And so they're less likely to start hammering you on your price because they've already invested in you and you've invested in them with articles and videos and those type of things, free webinars, that type of stuff. And so when they call you, it'll be that odd thing where like, no, no, no, I don't need to explain. I've already watched all your videos. I just want you to send it to me or come to my home. And that's a real easy sale. Now, on the flip side, if you need to go hunting, these people are at the bottom of the funnel. This is a. As you think about something as it squeezes down a funnel, what happens? This area gets more condensed. There are now fewer people that are highly motivated to make a decision. But this is where most marketing advertising companies fish. And you can tell this whenever you. If you went to Google AdWords and you said, hey, I'm going to put a search word in, or Google Planner, and you put the words in and it says the cost of that word. The more expensive, the more the intent. In other words, they are bleeding and they need a band aid. They need to make a decision right now. They need to be. They're people that, if you're a marketing agency, you're going hunting for, you're trying to attract them, but so are all your competitors.

The difference is when you start doing this, the results happen sooner because these people have a need. Like the example of the car person who says, I need a car, whatever it takes. My car is more expensive to repair than it is to replace, so I'm going to. Or than it's worth. So I'm going to go ahead and take action and try to get a new car and find out, whoops, I can't. My credit won't allow me to do that. The point is, make sure you express this to your customers. Are you a gardener or are you a hunter? If you're an ad agency and you're talking about nurturing, you're probably a gardener. And you need to let your customers know. The toughest conversation you might have is when the customer says, well, how long before I start seeing results? And the toughest answer, but the most honest answer may be, hey, it may take four to six months before we start seeing the results of this, but when it starts happening, there'll be a bit of an avalanche. There'll be a bit of a. Like a snowball effect. It'll keep coming because all these articles will continue and your videos will continue to work. They're built on what we call evergreen content. They're less trendy stuff, no pet rock stuff. It's more like, hey, how often do I change an air filter? I'm air conditioning for my home. Well, that's true today as it was five years ago, probably five years from now. So the point of today is to share with you when you decide a marketing you see or a customer what you need right away. Let those people know what you do. It may not be a good fit now for us at Swing Point Media, I looked at this, I'm thinking, oh, we can become a hunter. We're like that lion on the Serengeti desert that I'm going to go out there and I'm not coming back until I get a gazelle, until I get something to feed my family. This is really cool because I call it ringing the register. And this is when I can say hey, I can directly connect my activities to that revenue for you. And that's a fun thing too because that's a whole different meeting when they say hey, you know What? We had 20 new sales this month and it's a result of your activities. Perfect example. And then I'll let you go. One of our clients, we use this hunting method through using email. Yes, I know email is dead. It's not. They have about a 40 or excuse me, a 55 to 60% open rate. And what happens is every time we send in an email they get between probably a low of 10 to a high as much as 30 sales a week from these emails and their average sales about $350. Do the math works. The return on investment is amazing. When we send those emails out, we are hunting. When we're putting articles out, yeah, we're hunting but we're doing it in a gardening fashion. We're letting people find us through search and that type of stuff. My name is Jeff Harrison. If you'd like to learn more about this there probably somewhere on this page there's a link where you can set up a calendar or see my calendar and set up a time to a free 15 minute call with me and let's talk about are you a hunter or a gardener?