Mark: Today on PowerTips Unscripted, we talk to Tanya Bamford, managing director of R/A Marketing. High interest rates and other market conditions have caused the remodeling industry to have lackluster lead flow. For many remodeling companies and we’re heading into an election year. But did you know that if you take steps now to boost your online reputation, you can keep your pipeline full?

Mark: Well, Tanya is here to talk about the steps you should take to leverage the voice of your clients in an effective reputation marketing program. And we’ll hear all about it in just a minute.

Victoria: Hi, I’m Victoria Downing and welcome to Power Tips Unscripted, where we talk about tips, tactics and techniques to help you build a strong, profitable remodeling company. And I’m here with my co-host, Marc Ferrari.

Mark: Yes, you are.

Victoria: Hi, there. How are you today?

Mark: I’m good.

Victoria: Good. How are you? Good. You know, one of the things we’ve been in this business a long time, I much longer than you. But one of the things that I.

Mark: Much longer than me.

Victoria: Much longer than you? Yes.

Mark: Thank you.

Victoria: One of the things that I am proud of is our reputation in the marketplace. Right?

Mark: I think it’s a pretty decent reputation. Yeah.

Victoria: I mean, we work hard to to to do to do that and build it. And I think it makes a huge difference in how people perceive us.

Mark: I agree.

Victoria: So now we get to hear about how remodelers can take that that superpower and put it to greater use for themselves.

Mark: Yes. With great power comes great responsibility.

Victoria: True. That’s true. All right. Shall we dive in?

Mark: Sure. Jump.

Victoria: Jump. Okay. Tanya Bamford is the managing director for our Marketing and remodelers, best friend and a sister company to remodelers advantage. They exclusively serve home remodeling companies across North America. All right. Marketing helps remodelers grow and thrive by delivering marketing programs so yield a positive return on their investment. Woo! Which is fantastic. Welcome, Tanya.

Tanya: Thank you guys for having me. It’s great to be.

Victoria: Yeah, Nice to have you back. And this time we’re going to be talking a little bit about reputation management and a number of other marketing topics that might be of interest to our members.

Tanya: Yes.

Victoria: All right. So you have clients across North America. What do you hear in terms of market conditions? What’s happening from your point of view?

Tanya: Well, it varies a little bit from market to market, but overall, it tends to be down across most areas. So that’s what we’re seeing. And it’s got some of our clients concerned. Although Lee quality generally seems to still be good, the overall leads tend to be down across most markets.

Victoria: Now, when we’re talking about down, are we talking about down, down from 2021, 2022? Are we talking down from 2019?

Tanya: Yes. Some of them have returned to the levels of like pre-pandemic levels and or lower. So it’s it’s causing concern.

Victoria: Okay. All right. Yeah. So, you know, that’s what I’ve heard, too. That leads are definitely down, but they’re still strong when compared to pre-pandemic levels. Well, I.

Tanya: Think, you know, there is this perfect storm of circumstances that we’re experiencing because of the market conditions that, you know, you’ve got these incredibly high interest rates at a time when there’s still very little inventory on the market as well. So, you know, it’s expensive to try to get into a new home. If you did want to relocate and needed to relocate, you know, there there’s limited inventory, limited opportunity to even find any kind of a new home, whether it’s a a resale or a newbuild.

Tanya: And, you know, so it’s expensive to do it and it’s difficult to find one. I mean, it’s just, you know, there aren’t as many people, you know, moving and therefore, they’re not as many people investing in remodeling projects when they do move. So it’s in the interest rates impact financing as well for home remodeling projects.

Tanya: Now it’s less and less.

Victoria: You got a lot of cash. Yeah. Stuck with interest rates that could hold you back a bit.

Tanya: You try to get on those clients who have a lot of cash to spend and want to just, you know, reinvest in their in their existing home.

Victoria: That’s right. So we’re going to be talking a little bit about reputation management. Would you define that for me?

Tanya: Reputation management is the process of managing your reputation online. Is it’s pretty simple. Is that what you want to you want to build and cultivate a solid reputation online as a part of the reputation management is the process of prompting reviews, but making sure that you’re getting your your reputation is being managed, that you’re prompting reviews, getting a lot of reviews, getting a strong rating and responding to all of those reviews.

Victoria: Okay. All right. So what are some of the elements that go into reputation management? Like you said, it’s the management of the reputation which is built around reviews. So what are some of the most important steps that our contractor remodelers should be taking in order to bolster that?

Tanya: So it’s important for remodelers to remember that if you want to direct people to the reviews sites that are used more frequently by consumers. So your past clients really want to direct them to Google and reviewing you on Google and your, you know, really meeting your Google, my business directory listing. And because we can create fatigue among our clients if we ask them to review us in too many places and the place where it will do the greatest good these days are variety of different reasons is Google.

Victoria: So every chance you get, you should try to get your clients to give you reviews on Google.

Tanya: Yes. And research shows that most consumers have actually been prompted, like 80% of consumers have been prompted to leave a review and the vast majority of them will leave a review when asked. So it’s only like 19% of consumers who don’t leave a review for a company, especially if they’ve had a good experience with them. So so it’s important for remodelers to remember to ask for the review and and ask, you know, and don’t forget to remind them if they don’t follow up, the most effective way they can do that is via email.

Tanya: By the way, most consumers, when asked via email, will actually respond to a review.

Victoria: So that means put the link in there and say, Hey, just click here. It’s easy to do that sort of thing.

Tanya: Exactly. Make it as easy as possible for them sending them email, but then follow up with either, you know, a phone call or a text as a reminder.

Victoria: Now, why is it important to respond to reviews?

Tanya: Because the consumers reading those online reviews will trust them more and they’ll have a better impression overall of your customer service and the customer experience overall. If the owner of the business takes the time to respond to the reviews.

Victoria: It doesn’t have to really be too much of anything. Just thank you for the review. Sort of a thing. We’re paying attention. Appreciate you. That sort of thing.

Tanya: Yes, it really they don’t have to be overly verbose. It’s just a function of going in and acknowledging the review and thanking the customer for taking the time to share that their feedback.

Victoria: Now, you mentioned trust. Talk about trust and how this helps that.

Tanya: So. So business relationships are founded on trust. And I mean, it’s really essential and critical to any successful business relationship that you have. But how do you establish trust with someone that you don’t know already? Yeah, these online consumers encounter, right? Like, how do I do? I just add the stress. How do they know that they can trust me?

Tanya: Well, these online reviews are proof. They’re the social proof that a consumer can trust that these folks are going to do a good job, because ultimately it’s such an intimate relationship that remodelers have with their clients because they’re working inside their homes for extended periods of time. So you really I mean, trust is so essential and critical and important to that relationship.

Tanya: So that is what a consumer is really looking for when they read through these reviews and why these reviews are really important.

Victoria: Okay. All right. That makes a lot of sense. Now, I’d heard talk of a local park. What is that and why is that important?

Tanya: So it’s important to remember that in search results, there are sort of three different ways that you can, I guess, generate visibility within search. There is the paid results that pops up as a sponsored ad at the top of the page. And then you have organic results. That’s based on how Google has you indexed within search. But then there’s local park and that is where you have a map with pushpins and three business listings.

Tanya: So as a consumer goes in and they use a search query to find you, the results are presented in three different ways via three different mechanisms, one from a paid ad campaign, one from the indexed search results, and the other from a list of businesses from the Google directory. And this, again, specific to the the Google search results, but that’s the most popular ad tool.

Tanya: So so those are the three opportunities businesses have to gain exposure and drive traffic back to their Web sites through those three local pack. A lot of businesses don’t seem to recognize that local TAC results are driven by how well optimized their Google my business directory listings are and how many and the quality of the reviews. And it’s also a function of whether or not they have actually responded to the reviews because Google sees the response to every review as a good indicator of customer service and they want to match their clients to people using search with good service providers.

Tanya: So the more that businesses take the time to optimize their Google, my business directory listings prompt and get good reviews and respond to them, the better they will be presented in local results.

Mark: So, Tanya, I want to clarify something, because just so that all our listeners understand the local pack, Google’s not just saying, okay, here’s the three closest remodelers to your location and I’m going to show three or four remodelers. It’s going to actually say, these are the three you want to consider in those pin placements on the map.

Tanya: That’s correct. That’s correct. Yeah. It’s not a function of this is the person who has the highest rating that’s not a function of this is the person who has the most reviews. It’s a function. They use an algorithm and they don’t really share that. But we can make certain assumptions based on the results that we see on how they’re matching businesses to the query that’s being used.

Tanya: So so there’s a there is a lot that’s at play, but that’s why you invest in like a good reputation management system that helps you optimize your directory listing so that you can gain better exposure through local PAC. And local results are really critical because they, they, they siphon off a certain amount of the search traffic from from people who would scroll further to see the organic search results.

Tanya:

Victoria: So, okay, so it seems as though the thing that’s driving this whole thing is the Google my business listing. Yes. Now, when you come in, you know, I know when we have a new client, right? We have a new remodeler that comes to join our roundtables or whatever. There are certain things that we find that are missing. So when you’re looking at new clients for the marketing firm, how many of them or what percent are really have that nailed down the Google?

Victoria: My business listing.

Tanya: It’s a mixed bag. I would say the majority that we see haven’t done a very good job or thorough job in filling out all of the areas or even regularly updating their Google my business listing. I mean, there are all sorts of updates that you can post on a regular basis. You can add more photos, you can feature videos.

Tanya: And I was going to talk about it maybe later on too, about like client testimony or videos. I mean, you can obviously you want to prompt the reviews so that you get that five star Google right. But you can also tape testimonials and post those videos to your Google home. My list, Google my business listing. Really? Yes. Yes.

Tanya: So that there’s all sorts of ways to better optimize and and use that listing to drive lead generation.

Victoria: Now, Mark, you wrote the lobster cheese plate marketing book and one of the things you’re always talking about is pushing people to the Web site. How do you do that, Tonya, If the reviews are on all these outside listings? No.

Mark: Not see how that would be different. I’ll let Tanya speak to that.

Victoria: I mean, because you were saying, Tonya, push them out to the reviews. But is there a way to pull them back in and show the reviews somehow connect it to your website?

Tanya: It’s important to note that the reviews, the especially if you’re showing up in local park, right? Those are going to come up even for organic search results. And so and obviously that’s where your competition is. And so you want to make sure that you are deemed as as reputable as your competition in the marketplace, which is another reason why you want to cultivate those reviews.

Tanya: But each one of those business directory listings has a link to your website. Okay. And we can see from the statistics how many, how much traffic we get, and that’s generated from that Google minus my business listing. And it’s it’s a significant number. And you have to have to know that it’s a function of how well have you established trust in your with your Google my business listing because the better you have it optimized with great content and reviews and responses to those reviews, the more traffic you’ll see visit your site.

Tanya: And at that point, you’ve already done a really good job. Then of of establishing some trust. So the more actually that you can drive people to your Google my business listing, if it’s really well optimized and full of great reviews and responses, the better off we’re going to be at actually converting that visitor to a lead once they arrive at your site.

Victoria: Okay. All right. I got it. I’m. Now, what about, you know, if Google’s the main place to get reviews, the most important in your opinion? How do things like house and guild quality and some of the other places where people could offer reviews? How does that all work?

Tanya: So, you know, all reviews sites are good. And it’s important to to recognize you want to be where people are. And for that reason, for a lot of years we advocated especially for house tip for for remodelers to cultivate reviews there. And then you know with guild quality I I’ve always felt that it was solid service and and was valuable on a lot of different levels.

Tanya: But the the unfortunate truth is or what I don’t know is it’s just the truth without qualifying it. It’s just a truth that Google is the tool that is used most frequently. And because of the way Google has evolved and the way local pack presence is siphoning off of the search results in the search traffic, that those those businesses who have invested more in in getting their reviews on Google are benefiting more.

Tanya: So it’s you know, it’s something I feel like there’s a place for for how reviews and there’s a place for guild quality reviews. But if if you’re worried about fatiguing your clients by asking them to review you in too many places, then prioritize Google over any of the others.

Victoria: Okay. All right. Got it. So if you are on, you know, you’re searching for yourself. You’re checking out in what’s happening out there. You put in remodelers near me and at the local park shows up, the sponsored ads show up, the organic ads show up. You’re looking at that little local park and you’re not one of the three.

Victoria: So you’ve been doing everything. How do you how could you research? What could you look at? Say, where am I missing the boat here?

Tanya: Well, the either there’s a couple of different tools that you can use that I would start with. Look at the who is showing up and how they have their Google my business directory listing formatted. I mean, that’s a really easy point of research for anyone, but we have a really sophisticated keyword research tool that we use and it tells us what the if this is a term that shows up in local listings and whether or not our clients are actually showing up for that term and which terms they are showing up for.

Tanya: So we can we can actually track that using a keyword research tool. And then for the keywords where we want to have that local presence but don’t currently then we know which terms to optimize for.

Victoria: Okay. All right, great. So then beyond online reviews, what are some other ways that remodelers can leverage the client feedback to improve Legion?

Tanya: I touched on it a little bit earlier. One of the things that you always want to do, I mean, you want to prompt those reviews. Obviously, we’ve said this time and time again and it’s really important, but gathering your client testimonials either in written form or recorded in some form or fashion, either if it’s a voiceover and like a conversation on sort of like a podcast interview, or if it was, you know, the ultimate Mac daddy of all client testimonials is that testimonial video.

Tanya: So you want to be using the voice of the client to help provide the social proof and build the trust and rapport with your prospective clients. And the video testimonial, though, is really one of the most powerful tools that you can use, and then you can leverage that everywhere, including your Google my business listing to reach more people and, you know, having your clients sit in the space you renovated for them and interact with that space.

Tanya: There’s just nothing more powerful and persuasive to another consumer, to another homeowner who’s looking at having someone work on their home than that, you know, that actual image of of people, you know, whoever it may be, sitting in a home that’s beautiful that they are clearly happy with and speaking, you know, waxing poetically about their experience working with your company.

Mark: So to you guys, you guys specialize in reputation management, right? Should should. Is this something that is easily done by yourself or is it something that someone should reach out if you have currently if you’re outsourcing to your your own agency, should you ask them about their reputation management program? Is it something that you should be outsourcing, you think, or can you do it yourself?

Tanya: So I guess, you know, it’s a matter of resources and a lot of our clients have limited time to invest in these things. And so outsourcing is a better option for them because there are, you know, in terms of getting up, getting all of your directory listings, there are literally dozens of these directories out there that can all provide you with backlinks to your websites.

Tanya: Some of them also have your review capabilities. So managing all of those dozens of directory listings can be really time consuming and challenging. So it’s I think it’s something that’s easily outsourced. And why wouldn’t you do that? I mean, that just it just makes good economic sense for remodelers to outsource that function. So we do have a reputation management service.

Tanya: It’s called reputable remodeler. And all of our clients who participate in the program get a micro site at reputable remodeler AECOM, as a matter of fact. And those are also indexed in search and yeah and so it’s it’s it’s unique to our remarketing. No one else can offer you a directory listing at reputable remodeler AECOM. So there’s definitely a lot of value in just the micro site itself.

Tanya: But through this system, it’s a reputation management system. We will set up all of your directory listings for your business. We will respond to your reviews so that promptly. There is a very professionally worded response to every review and the way it manages and prompts reviews as well. You will get lists from our clients and upload them and then they go through a process of receiving an email and text outreach as well.

Tanya: But it will divert anyone who is inclined to leave a negative review away from the actual Google process. Yeah. So. So we have a mechanism for like avoiding having someone go public with a with a negative report.

Victoria: Interesting.

Tanya: Yeah. So it’s it’s a really great tool.

Mark: That’s that’s pretty cool.

Victoria: Yeah, it is.

Mark: So, Tonya, guess what? It’s time for the Lightning Round.

Tanya: Are you ready? I’m ready.

Mark: And now here’s a reminders advantage. Lightning round. It’s a draft. Okay, We’re going to do six questions in 60 seconds. Here we go. What’s your favorite business book and why?

Tanya: Today I’m going to go with Trust Edge by David Horse Aja. He delves into how trust and building trusting relationships has a benefit not only in relationships, but also on your bottom line positions.

Mark: If you weren’t a marketer, what do you think you’d be doing?

Tanya: Teaching.

Mark: What do you not very good at calculus.

Victoria: Good.

Mark: What’s your favorite Christmas movie?

Tanya: Elf?

Mark: What’s the first four letter word that comes to your mind?

Tanya: No.

Mark: Or in one word, describe your high school self.

Tanya: Nerdy.

Victoria: All right, great. Tanya, thanks so much. This is really interesting. You know, I hadn’t really realized that there were systems out there to help you, manages your online reputation, but it makes perfect sense because there are more and more and more important. I look at reviews all the time, so this has been very informative. Thank you so much.

Victoria: Now, before I let you go, though, I want you to share with our listening audience your five words of wisdom and why they resonate with you.

Tanya: Ask for the review.

Victoria: I got to tell you, that’s four words, my friend.

Mark: I always ask for their always.

Victoria: Ask.

Tanya: For the ask for the review. I was just being.

Victoria: I was being efficient, super eco efficient.

Tanya: But I always ask for the review. Well, you know, we you know, in sales, we always say ask for the business. But this is going to help you generate more business, future business, if you will. So always ask for the review is something that’s going to help you ultimately yield more leads for your business. So always ask for the review.

Victoria: All right, great. I think that’s a very smart, very smart thing to tell people to do. Always ask for that review. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. This is awesome. How if people want to learn more about you, how would they do so?

Tanya: well, please visit get our marketing dot com as our website is contact information for me there, but if you’d like to reach out to me directly, I can be reached at Tanya at get our marketing comments T and we’re at get our aid marketing com. You can also check out our reviews online.

Victoria: that’s great. And you’ve got some really good ones, I must say. So that’s awesome. All right. Thanks so much, Tanya. We’ll see you next time.

Tanya: Thank you. Thanks, Mark. Thanks, Victoria.

Victoria: You know, the more I think about it, the smarter it is to look at reputation management as its own little segment of marketing. I just it hadn’t occurred to me how important I mean, I knew how important it was, but know how you’d possibly manage it.

Mark: There’s that’s why it’s so funny. That funny. Not funny. Ha ha funny, crazy. There’s just so much now to the discipline. It’s.

Victoria: It’s hard. The discipline of marketing. Yeah.

Mark: You know, And so it’s why it also kills me when some I talk to some of these guys and gals and I ask who does their marketing? And it’s, well, it’s, you know, so-and-so. He’s my office manager and also a marketer. Right? Right. It’s like it’s it’s already marketing is already more work than someone can do in a full time job.

Mark: You know, you need to outsource so much stuff. Yeah. To cover all the bases and then you’re even doing less than that and you’re giving it as a part time throw away too. You know, it’s it’s just so much. There’s so much if you want to be a real player in the in your marketplace, there’s so much to do.

Mark: I thought one of the biggest takeaways I had from that was the idea of responding to every reveal. Yeah, you know, so many people only take to the responses to the negative reviews, which is definitely a big, huge thing. You don’t let a negative review sit out there on its own right without a response from the company. But don’t ignore the good ones, right?

Mark: Respond to all of them. It means you’re engaged. You’re an active participant in the process and you’re proud and you’re showing an acknowledgment, you know, and you’re thanking people for their kind words. It’s it’s I think it’s such an overlooked part of the entire process. So, yeah, I thought that was a huge.

Victoria: Yeah, that’s very good right there. We better start looking smart hours, too. Even though we’re a little bit different. We’re not gold for consumers, but yeah, you know. Yeah, that’s, and that’s important and good thing to do.

Mark: Yeah, right. Well, that was very insightful. Thank you, Victoria. All right, well, Tanya, for sharing these awesome tips on reputation management and of course, we want to thank you for listening week in and week out. I’m Mark, Harari.

Victoria: And I’m Victoria Downing. See you next.