Hudson, Ink

Ty Bell, an electrical contractor for eight years, says that one thing that worked for his business better than he thought it would was the online Lead Generation system, Service Magic. “It will get you a pre-qualified lead, somebody that wants the service,” Bell said. It also provides ratings and reviews from a third party, he noted. And that gives a contractor a lot more credibility than, say, an ad that proclaims “We’re the best!”

Basically, an online Lead Generation service is a website where a consumer with a specific need enters it into a particular service category. The registered members of that category (the contractors) get the lead and the opportunity to provide a quote or make an appointment, then the consumer gets to choose the contractor. Sometimes there’s bidding among contractors, sometimes not.

Given the numbers of contractors participating, the lead costs can be quite low – ranging from $10 - $25, depending on the work to be performed. Contractors only pay for the leads they choose to pursue, and they can turn the service on or off whenever they want to.

This technological way of reaching out to consumers has also translated into another significant development in contractor marketing. Though Bell has used Direct Mail and some newspaper to market his electrical contractor services, he said, “We spent a lot of time on our website.”

When people want something these days, he said, they go to their Blackberry and the Internet to do a search. This is the way customers have found him, and he’s made use of this marketing knowledge. “We even got to the point last year where we dropped the Yellow Pages entirely and went to our website,” Bell said.

“We change it frequently,” he said, “probably once a quarter.” That’s one thing you could never do with your Yellow Page ad, of course, and content changes also help you achieve higher rankings in Google and other search engines. “If you continually update it with fresh information, it certainly helps with the rankings,” Bell said.

Does your company have an interactive presence on the Web – a way for customers to find you, learn about you, and contact you? If the answer’s no, just imagine what it was like several generations ago when contractors asked each other, “Have you gotten a telephone yet?”