Before we launch into a long, detailed explanation of how to go about digital marketing for your flooring company, let’s take a look at digital marketing itself. What is it? When you use the Internet to promote a service or product, that’s called digital marketing. It’s that simple.
Where digital marketing for floor companies is concerned, the possibilities are positive, indeed. You can’t help but increase your business because digital marketing brings you directly into the lives of (possibly) thousands of customers seeking the installation of one or more floors. Even if they don’t know a friend who can recommend someone, even if they haven’t seen your flyer, it’s hard to avoid digital advertising because people are spending more and more time on their computers today.
The goal of digital marketing is clear and simple: Turn the person visiting your website into a customer.
Websites and Visitors
When someone stops and even glances at your social profile or your website, they are a “visitor”. In your service or product, they’re showing some type of interest. With digital marketing strategies to convince them, these prospective customers may purchase a service or product from you – if you can compel them more than your competitor does.
For each product, every business has a precise customer in mind. Specific products and/or services were created for particular consumers. Because strategies for digital marketing are built around visitors, they are a crucial part of the equation.
Here’s a little bit of an example and explanation: Who do you think it would be better to concentrate your marketing toward?
- The 35-year-old owner of a home considered a fixer-upper
- A 16-year-old high school student still living at home
The answer may seem obvious (it’s the first one), but that’s a good example of who you, as a flooring contractor, would concentrate your marketing efforts toward. It’s not likely that any floor installation will be needed by the 16-year-old for a few years. Someone owning a fixer-upper, however, is going to need flooring and more. They’re the perfect candidate for the concentration of your digital marketing.
Strategies in Digital Marketing
The steps of strategies for digital marketing basically boil down to these four:
- Traffic – This is where and how you initiate visitor contact with your social profile or your website.
- Creating leads – Here you convince your visitor to “opt in”. This would entail them filling out an online form through which to supply you with their phone number, email address, etc.
- Selling – When all goes well, your company sees the visitor make their very first purchase. Here the lead turns into a sale.
- Return traffic – Obviously, once a lead turns into a sale, you’d like that sale to turn into another one. To purchase more products or services from your company, motivation may be needed.
Because so much time is spent online by people all over the world, digital marketing has become a major part of what companies do every day. People used to open the Yellow Pages. Now, the first place they look for products/services is online.
All they have to do is Google “local floor installers”. In no time at all, page after page of flooring companies will appear before their very eyes. If your company can be at the top of the first page, all the better.
Creating Traffic
Let’s talk about how to get people to your website. Your goal here is to make potential customers aware that you have a company that provides flooring. The more website visitors you have, the greater your chance of accomplishing all four strategies listed above.
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to increase traffic to your site. To get people visiting, there are some tried-and-true strategies. Here they are:
- Email marketing
- Industry and local directories
- Content marketing
- Social media advertising
- YouTube
- SEM (search engine marketing)
- SEO (search engine optimization)
- Marketing strategies on a more traditional level
Let’s look more in detail at a few of these.
Traffic Strategies
The industry and local directories referred to above could include the following:
- Thumbtack
- Yellow Pages
- LinkedIn company directory
- Google maps
- Apple maps
- Bing
- Yelp
- Chamber of Commerce or a website belonging to your town/city/village
Content Marketing
Where content marketing is concerned, it can consist of things such as downloadable guides, podcast episodes, social posts (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook), videos, blogs, etc. Content marketing refers to the following:
- Social media posts
- YouTube videos
- SEO strategies
Social Media
Social media is something that, more often than not, people engage in on a regular basis. Internet social media sites include Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and more. Business profiles can be created on these pages and should include the following:
- The hours you operate
- Your location
- Business information
- Any discounts you offer
- Customer reviews and recommendations
- A link to your website
- Your price ranges
SEM
SEM (search engine marketing) assists companies in appearing as one of the first listed on a Google page. This is a paid service offered by Google. It is, literally speaking, a “Google Ad”.
SEO
SEO (search engine optimization) looks at search results and how well your business does in them. When done right, as with the above stated SEM, your company will appear at the top of the first Google page that pops up as the result of a search. The difference is, this is not a paid service.
Now that you have people visiting your page, let’s talk very briefly about creating leads.
Converting Visitors to Leads
Once someone visits your website, your goal is to get their contact information and turn them into a customer. Strategies used to gain this type of information from a website visitor are the following:
- Exit pop-ups
- Rather than pop-ups, slide-ins
- On-site targeting
- Downloadable brochures representing your products or services
- Free consultations (everybody likes “free” how to design an interior decor website)
- Content upgrades
- Call leads
From Leads to Sales
Okay, someone visited your website. You actually got a lead on them and you have their information. Now how do you convince them to purchase flooring services? You’re going to, more or less, “close the sale” here. You need the visitor-turned-lead to do the following:
- Set up an appointment
- Confirm the appointment that you scheduled
- Look at an estimate and agree to it
- Put their signature on a contract
- If they weren’t ready to sign a contract right away, follow-up to get that signature
Flooring companies are very familiar with many of those steps. After all, imagine all of the contracts you’ve negotiated and had signed, all the appointments you’ve made and kept, etc. Fortunately, much of this can be automated through digital marketing.
Return Traffic
The person visiting your website made an appointment to discuss flooring with you, they signed a contract, and ended up very happy with the floor you installed. Now, how do you get them to take advantage of more of your products or services?
Stay in the minds of your customers by creating the following:
- Re-targeted ads
- Articles
- Social media posts
- Email broadcasts weekly/monthly/quarterly
Depending on how large a flooring project is, one particular customer may not have a lot of need for a return visit from your company. Even if that’s the case, however, do all you can to encourage them to tell their friends, relatives, coworkers, etc. about the wonderful experience they had with you and your business. Additionally, encourage them to write an online review which will, in turn, help drive more traffic to your website and, eventually, your services.
Digital Marketing Mastery
You can see how digital marketing has improved and benefited the flooring industry. If you do not have the right type of digital marketing out there, it’s high time you did.
At the very least, you absolutely must have a website. But the possibilities are unlimited once that’s done, so why stop there? Your kids, your wife, significant other, etc., is probably already on Facebook and other social media sites. Ask them to introduce you to these sites so that you can utilize them to propel your flooring business to previously unimagined heights.
If all of this seems overwhelming and mind-boggling, there is still good news… SmartSites is an award-winning agency that can make digital marketing work for you. For all things digital, we have an undeniable passion. We just can’t help it! We’re one of the fastest growing companies in America where digital marketing is concerned. Contact us today.
