Top of the Funnel Marketing: Truck Wraps, Social Media, and More

Aaron Horner
In many neighborhoods, you’ll see that one remodeler seems to have a corner on the market. You’ll see their yard sign in one house and then another house and another house. That’s what it looks like when remodeler has become a household name for that neighborhood. They are the go to remodeler that people go to before anybody else. How do you establish that kind of brand presence in an area? In today’s episode, we’re going to be covering the most common strategies that people are using to build up their brand presence in areas. We’ll be covering everything from truck wraps to social media marketing, all the way to billboards and magazine campaigns. We’ll talk through the pros, the common pit calls, and how to actually measure if your branding is making an impact in your area. This is the last episode in our remodeler marketing strategy series.

Aaron Horner
So if you haven’t listened to the others, I would at the very least recommend going back and listening to episode 466 so you can approach these marketing campaigns with a stable foundation that will actually help you get a return in the end. That being said, let’s get into the episode.

Logan Shinholser
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Contractor Growth Network podcast. I’m Logan Shinholser, and today I’m still joined by Aaron Horner. I am back, and today we’re going all through top of funnel marketing for remodeling companies.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So top of funnel. Aaron, how would you define and describe. So somebody, they’re a remodeling company.

Aaron Horner
They.

Logan Shinholser
They’ve heard of a marketing funnel. But when we say things like top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel, that stuff can get confusing. So what is top of funnel?

Aaron Horner
Yeah, so top of funnel is people that are the furthest point away in your marketing process from buying. So it’s people that probably have awareness of the product, but probably don’t have awareness of you yet. They’re not actively looking to seek out your services. They’re not ready to buy. They are at the earliest stages of the process.

Logan Shinholser
Yes. And when we, like, look at, like, there’s like, rules of thumbs around this stuff, basically the very bottom of the funnel, those are people that are closest to buying. You have about 10% of people that are either ready to buy or pretty close because they’re, like, actively looking up pricing and things like that. So that’s your bottom 10%. Then you go up and it kind of breaks out into like 30%. 30%, 30%. The closest to that 10%. 30% are people that are like, maybe open to the idea, they’re also not quite looking yet. Like they are more problem aware, meaning that they have a problem in their home. They don’t like their kitchen, they don’t like their bathroom, they don’t like how the space functions, you know, like with their current home floor plan, but they’re not actively looking.

Logan Shinholser
So that’s going to be like your 30%. That’s right next to the 10%. And then so if you’re like looking at like a funnel that would collectively be like your bottom 40%. And when I say percentages, these are like people like in your market that are like potentially your ideal clients.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Then you have the remaining 60%. And then half of those people are like people that are like open to the idea maybe at some point that they will hire you. Maybe. And then the other half. So like the last 30% of people that no matter what you do, no matter what you say, they will never hire you.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
It’s because maybe their spouse owns a remodeling company or they don’t, I don’t know, own their home and they can’t remodel it and things like that. So basically it just segments it out into 10% of people in the market are somewhere around the realm of looking to hire, whether it’s right now or in the relatively near future. Then 30% are open to the idea. At some point, 30% may be open to the idea. And in the last 30%, no way breaking that down. That’s really what we’re going to be addressing today is the people that are not in that very top 30% that are never going to hire you, but the 30% of people that are open to the idea at some point in life that maybe they’ll remodel their kitchen and hire you to do it.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Does that make sense?

Aaron Horner
That makes sense. Okay.

Logan Shinholser
So when it comes down to these, like that market, like, basically what you want is the stronger that your brand name is meaning the more that people already know your name. When it comes time to actually wanting to look at hiring a remodeling company, the more likely it is that they’re going to hire you. It’s the idea that people, if they know you and they like you, then they will trust you. We want to make sure that people know you. Where. Yes, went through this whole thing of website and Google and SEO and AI search and all that stuff is still very relevant for like those bottom 10% and then a little bit more in like that next 30% of people that are just actively doing some like basic comparisons and things like that.

Logan Shinholser
But the more that we can become more of a household name before they start to actively like, really seek out a remodeling company, the higher likelihood it is that either one, they’re going to start with you first, or two, if you are in the running, you already have a major leg up because they already have. They’ve seen you enough. There’s trust in brands that they know. Okay. This company, I’ve seen them for five years. Like, it’s like car companies at this point. Like, there’s, you know, if you want to go out and buy a truck, you really only have a handful of companies that you can go out and buy a truck from. As far as like car brands go, that’s because they have run commercials for trucks your entire life.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So it makes it a little bit easier to then go, okay, this is who I want to start to interview to see if I can take the next step with them.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Conceptually, what did I miss?

Aaron Horner
No, I think that sounds good. I mean, if I’m thinking about it from a remodeler’s perspective, listening to this, I mean, based on the synopsis you gave, I’m asking myself the question of, okay, why would this marketing be worth it if there are people not looking to hire me? I mean, I do see some value in like, they know the name, but like, it seems like there’s a. It’s a hard section of people to target based on what you were saying. And I’m not sure I see the value in it. So yeah, I think the.

Logan Shinholser
More like, you know, we’ve done now done CGN for eight years or we’ve been in business for eight years, and the more that we work with a wide range of people or we have worked with a wide range of people, these typically the smaller companies are the people that are like, I just care about leads right now because I need leads right now.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
And then you have the people that are larger and they’re really more thinking for the future, for the long term. The brand part to them makes a lot more sense. Cause it’s basically the brand part. And people knowing you is almost like your reputation out in the market. So now pretend that you’re brand new in business and you need leads right now. Yes. It’d be great to have a good reputation in the market where people already know who you are naturally. But ultimately what matters more about your reputation is you staying in business. So you need leads right now. Flip side, if you are getting referrals through the door and you’re doing the right marketing stuff, then you. The next piece that you really want to focus on is that overall, like, reputation within the community to.

Logan Shinholser
For people to already know who you are and know what you’re all about. That’s where this stuff comes in. Because if, you know, we can all agree if we have a good reputation, it’s going to be easier to then get people to either reach out or get people to then move forward because they’ve seen you enough. That’s basically the idea of it. But if you’re in this like, feast or famine mode right now, it’s a lot harder to then stomach the idea of, okay, I need to have a strong brand around the area. Because it does take time. You’re building up your reputation. It’s kind of like when you go to a networking group or a BNI or a chamber of commerce. You don’t walk in that first day and go, hey, I’m a remodeler.

Logan Shinholser
And people go, oh, I’ve got a bunch of referrals for you right now. You have to go enough. Over and over. And if somebody’s going to refer you to their family member or their friend, they need to trust that you’re going to do a good job because they’re the ones that are actually putting their reputation on the line for you. So by you showing up the first day, like, I remember I was at. I used to go to BNI and there was a. I think it was a plumber. But he like showed up in the first. He only came to one. One meeting. And what he did was he basically told everybody, if you refer me, I will give like them 20% off and I’ll give you a bit of a kickback or something like, along those lines. And like, it was.

Logan Shinholser
It was odd. Like, it just was very transactional. Yeah, he never came back. I don’t think anybody referred him work because they typically refer people that are going consistently that they can trust versus like, okay, if this person’s showing up and never met them and within the first 30 seconds he’s saying, I will give anybody you refer me a discount plus give you some money. For most people, it’s not like the money that they want to do the referral. They want to make sure that you’re taking care of their friend or their family member. So that’s the idea of like the reputation side of things.

Logan Shinholser
And that’s where the brand stuff comes in which is basically, you just want to make it that much easier that when somebody goes to hire a remodeling company or to look at one, whether they are then going right to Google to find them or now AI or they’re asking for a referral, even if they said, hey, Aaron, who do you suggest? And Aaron said, oh, you should go with Aaron’s remodeling. And I’m like, oh, actually, I’ve seen their signs or their trucks all over town. It makes a little bit easier for me to be able to, like, connect the dots together.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. I remember when were a while back doing that rebranding for Tribble up in Ann Arbor. Like, he is one of those people that you can tell would have that kind of brand presence in his area. Like, specifically, were going through the testimonials as were researching for that and talking to clients, and a lot of people talked about, like, well, as soon as I knew I wanted to get this work done, I knew there was a couple options. And so Tribble was one of the first people that I looked up. And most people cited just seeing their trucks around was the main way that they knew, like, okay, these people clearly do a lot of business around here.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. So that’s. That’s basically the gist of it. Now it’s different because we’re gonna go through remodeling today. And, like, what are the important branding vehicles? Like, not one up. That’s a bad term because we talk about vans. Like, what are the platforms or the methods that we want to really focus on first and foremost versus, like, what would be at the end of the line that it’s like, all right, if I have everything else dialed in, then I’m good. That’s what we want to go through today.

Aaron Horner
And then all of them with that same goal in mind of getting your name known in your area. So when somebody does start looking up, you’re one of the first people they reach out to.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. And we’ll talk through, like, ways to be able to track some of this stuff. Like, I remember back before I started working at cgn, there was a. I used to work for a website company, and I was, like, helping out with, like, their marketing for their clients. I was, like, brand new and all this stuff. But basically, there was, like, this big IT company that they had as a client, and the IT company said, logan, we’re going to be running radio ads. I want you to monitor the analytics on the website to let us know how effective the ads are. And I Was like, okay, are people going to the website? And they’re like, well, no, it’s just a radio ad. So I was like, basically just told, hey, based off of this radio, you.

Aaron Horner
Tell us look out for anything abnormal and then just assume it was the radio.

Logan Shinholser
Is that because the run times were also at, like, 3 in the morning sometimes? So it was just like. So basically what I was doing was just like, all right, I will look at, like, your Google Analytics to see if people immediately went to your website at, you know, within 15 minutes of that ad being run. And it was like, you know, I didn’t know enough back then to be like, hey, that’s not a good way. What we should actually do is this other thing instead. Or like, here’s how you can track it. But basically, it was just a kind of like saying, like, hey, we’re gonna put up a billboard. Do you tell us if that works or not? Yeah, with no rhyme or reason.

Aaron Horner
The assumption with that, like, measurement is somebody will listen to the ad and then immediately be like, well, I guess, you know, I’m ready to hire them. Or at least I’ll research them. I’ll look them up now.

Logan Shinholser
And that’s. And that’s the whole point of branding, is not to approach it that way. Because if that’s your goal is like, I want them to do this and then hire me. Yeah, immediately. Basically, what you then have to do is present what’s called, like, an offer or like a promotion or a sale, where basically you’re trying to force them into. Into moving forward on your schedule, not theirs.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
And that’s what’s called, like, direct response, which is a response immediately. This is what infomercials are, where it’s, yeah, if you want slap chop, we give you two for one, but you got to call in the next 10 minutes. That’s. That’s an approach to take, and that works in all the methods that we’re going to talk through today. However, in the remodeling space, you then have to be able to give them some sort of promotion. And it needs to be sticky and juicy enough that it’s not like, 5% off. If you are a combat veteran over the age of 75.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
You know, with. So it’s like, if that’s. If it’s too hard to do that, then it’s just not worth it to people, and there’s no point to even do it. So it needs to be appealing enough. But at the same time, if it’s so appealing to somebody that you’re giving so much money off, then you may be running it at very thin margins, which also is not a good thing. So because a lot of today is less about intent based, which is all the Google AI like people actively seeking you out today is basically you saying, hey, I know that you are not actively seeking me out. However, I know that my ideal client demographic is on this platform or drives by this billboard or does this thing.

Logan Shinholser
So I just want to get my face in front of them and hope at some point it’s going to work. If you want to make it work now, that’s when you run the promotion. But what we’re talking about today is not like an actual, like here’s how to run a special or a sale. Today is really all about when you are doing it on certain platforms or places, what should you be focused on? And like potentially how could you measure it?

Aaron Horner
Yeah, just creating a good reputation for yourself in your service area.

Logan Shinholser
That’s all it is.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. Cool. So then we’ll go through, we have a list of methods here that we can go through and talk about the different ways to do them, how to measure the effects and then how useful they are. The first one we have very common that everybody should be doing probably is truck wraps.

Logan Shinholser
So truck wraps, yard signs, company clothing, basically it’s like if you think about what is the homeowner gonna think when you show up? Let’s just say you have to do it. You’re gonna go do the in home estimate. What is the homeowner gonna think when you show up? That is like the way to approach the truck wrap, the yard sign, all that kind of stuff. So truck wraps. You know, we’ve had Dan Antonelli from Kick Charge on here. He works, he’s a big branding guy, does really well, really good at branding. Primarily focuses on like home services. Where the big difference is you still want brand. But with a lot of his clients, they have as a home service company several, like multiple vehicles that are vans that are basically driving billboards.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
And the whole idea around that is you want your truck to stand out. He calls it white truck syndrome or.

Aaron Horner
Right.

Logan Shinholser
Van syndrome, which when you think about it makes total sense of what it is. And basically the idea is that you just want people to see you over and over. Kind of like, you know, if I said, hey, there’s a delivery truck out front and it’s a big brown truck, what would you think?

Aaron Horner
Ups, Right.

Logan Shinholser
It’s the same idea, but when it comes to this stuff. The difference here though is when it comes to like, for those things, usually they are like in the style of like a maximalist meaning. There’s a lot of stuff going on. It’s very loud, it’s very bright, it’s very. It doesn’t have to be, but a lot of times that’s what makes it pop. Even in the remodeling space, especially as you go more luxury, there’s a whole element of like exclusivity and subtlety and minimalism and things like that you don’t want a truck that just has a bunch of photos on it as you’re driving around. You still want it to have like a higher end brand feel. Kind of like how, you know how like a Ritz Carlton would actually have their logo and their branding.

Logan Shinholser
That’s a very similar feel to what you want to do with the truck. So the truck is not meant to be as much of like a, hey, we’re going to be driving all over town and you’re going to see this over and over and then you’re ready to go. Because in home service, a lot of times you’re not hiring home service because you’re like, man, I cannot wait to get like an AC unit today. You’re hiring them because you need them and you’re basically going back in your brain into like recall. While with remodeling, you’re not hiring them because like you absolutely need them. You’re then going like, okay, let me go through some brand recall, but I’m still gonna do my research online to see are they legit or not.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. So it’s like thinking about it from the lens of that, like thinking about it from that perspective of what’s the goal of the truck wrap changes a lot of them. How you would design the truck wrap. Like now having a massive CTA of your phone number or something like that. Or like, you know, a lot of truck wraps will still say free estimate. Something that’s designed to like put somebody on the hook to call now. Yeah, you don’t have to emphasize that stuff as much or list out all your services more. More. So the idea is make sure that you stand out and you leave a good impression in people’s minds.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. Like we have a client of ours, like Vought Construction, and with Vought they do high end custom homes and larger remodels out in like the north San Francisco Bay area. So like, you know, think on a custom home, like 1200 bucks a square foot on an addition, $2,000 a square foot. So, like, pretty expensive St. And were going back and forth on, like, what their truck should be. And, you know, they have, like, a nice truck, like, nice pickup.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
And I was like, look, you should. My suggestion would be, like, because of they’re a little bit younger, they want to appeal to a little bit more younger people, but they also want to be seen as, like, higher end, but also, like, luxurious, but also innovative, which is, like, a bunch of different things together. I was like, go with, like, a matte finish for the paint. Like, they have a cool teal color. I was like, you should go matte finish on that. Have your logo on the side where it’s, like, large that you can see it. The logo obviously also says vault construction. And then just like your website, and that’s about it. Like, you don’t need to then list out, like, you know, here’s all these things that we do.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Here’s how to do all this crazy stuff. Make it subtle enough where. I’m sorry. Subtle enough where it doesn’t feel chaotic. And I think that’s the one thing that I want to get across is, like, with the maximalist stuff. Like what. Like these home service branding companies do, if they do a good job, it doesn’t feel. Feel chaotic, but it still is very loud and bright and bold. And in this case, we’re trying to go for a little bit more subtle because it’s not meant to, like, stand out in a huge way. It’s just supposed to, like, look nice and maybe a way that people can like, oh, I think I’ve seen your trucks around.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. Like, if your remodels are appealing to luxury and kind of like a refined design sense, then you shouldn’t have very tacky, bright colors on the. On the van. Like, it should be in line with the design sense. Like. Yeah. Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
A lot of times, like, what. What I think would actually. What actually works best here is it’s not necessarily about the wrap that makes a big difference in this space. It’s the vehicle itself. So, like, if you want to be seen as innovative and futuristic and stuff like that, instead of, you know, making that on the wrap, just go buy a cyber truck and then put your, you know, wrap that, like, my. Like, the painting company use here in Charlotte is very, like, tech forward. They had, like, a whole custom portal built out, and, like, it was really cool. Well, they. Their truck they came and did an estimate in was in a Rivian.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So, like, they don’t have to list out and bullet point on their truck. Like, hey, we’re tech forward and we’re innovative. They just drove something that is that.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
I remember when I used to live in San Diego, there was like this lifestyle management. There’s a lifestyle management company. And basically you would just reach out and go, hey, I need somebody to come clean my house tomorrow. Can you find them? But also I want to take my family to Paris for three weeks starting on Monday.

Aaron Horner
So.

Logan Shinholser
So they would do all this stuff and they were a whole concierge service. They used to drive like an Audi R8 that just had their logo on the side, but the car itself would stand out. And then you would like associate that with the brand. So like that’s a different way to look at that. We had another client of ours that they had a one of those trucks that had like the utility boxes in the back, like bunch of toolboxes. And it looked very service based. But they were like, no, we’re like a trendy, you know, remodeling company.

Aaron Horner
Doesn’t matter what wrap you put on it.

Logan Shinholser
That’s what I said. So I was like, look like it’s a kind of old, you know, very utility looking thing and you’re trying to go more design, make that thing matte. So I like really was all in on like the matte finish because that’s like cool. And basically I remember back in like the navy, they had a saying that’s like abc that was just like always be cool. It was just like the silliest thing. But basically it just meant like, don’t look dumb, like don’t have your stuff out of order. Yeah, but that’s kind of like the way that I look at some of these truck wraps is like, make sure that it’s cool because that will stand out on itself. So that’s how I would do truck wraps. You definitely need to get that done. Yard sign, same idea, very simplistic.

Logan Shinholser
Kind of along the lines like the truck wrap. Most yard signs, people put a lot of stuff on it. As far as like they list out every service, they show a bunch of photos, they do all these things. In reality, most people are going to be driving by your yard sign. So it’s not like they’re going to stop and go, oh, I can’t wait to go over there and scan it. Like it’s really just a branding play to associate your brand and your company with their neighbor. Yeah, that’s getting work done. Which then positions you as like the neighborhood builder or remodeling company. Same thing with shirts you don’t need to like, I would not suggest on the back of like your people’s shirts, like, hey, ask me how to get a free estimate as like the tagline on the back of the shirt.

Logan Shinholser
They’re working. People are not going to walk up and say, hey, how do I get a free estimate? They’ll just see it and go to the website.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. Think about the usability. Yeah. I mean one of the things I like about both of those things, the truck wraps and yard signs is like rather than just being a billboard that anybody can put up, it actually shows that you have work in the area, they’re seeing you in the area. It’s an immediate trust signal that like, okay, well somebody’s hiring them. And if they see the yard sign in their neighborhood, it’s not just somebody, it’s somebody in my neighborhood, somebody more like me. It’s proof.

Logan Shinholser
And the way that I know that this stuff works is that I’ve brought this up before. Where my neighbor had his basement was getting done and he was all about this Gantt chart where he could not. He was an engineer. He actually was a server engineer for Pokemon Go when it first started. So did really well. Yeah. But he had this Gantt chart would show everybody the scant chart and then lo and behold, as soon as his project is like nearing the finish and I know the yard signs out front, right across the street from him, there’s that same yard sign because they’re doing work on that other person’s home. Well, that was because I do like larger projects.

Logan Shinholser
That project actually just finished, I’m guessing is around a four month project right next to my original neighbor last week, guess what I see another yard sign of that exact same builder. So it’s like now that you’ve seen it basically, and that’s, you know, at three different places there, it’s almost like.

Aaron Horner
You own the neighborhood.

Logan Shinholser
You own at that point our territory. You are the Cumberland Avenue. Yeah. Like, yeah, I mean it’s like, you know, like, this is your corner, this is your spot. Like, don’t mess with my spot. Like that is now their thing.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So it’s like that makes it so much easier to then have, you know, that recognition. So now if I go online, let’s say I’ve seen it, but I don’t really know that neighbor that well. And I like Google, like who’s a good, you know, remodeler that can handle larger projects? And I see that same brand name. I’m like, oh, well, I don’t really know my neighbor up there. I mean, I do, but like, I don’t really. If I didn’t know my neighbor up there, I’m like, oh, I see their yard sign up there. That’s a good connection point. That’s what I’m looking for.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. Yeah, it’s great. Yeah. Okay. I feel good on truck reps. You want to move on?

Logan Shinholser
Yep, let’s do it.

Aaron Horner
Okay, so next one on the list is going into social media marketing. Both organic ads or sorry, both organic and paid ads.

Logan Shinholser
So social media is a huge underutilized thing. I mean it’s getting. It’s a very visual world. The remodeling space is unbelievably visual. It’s very hard to sell very expensive, very luxurious things without having visuals. Social media was built for this exact thing. You have a huge leg up as a remodeling company. Especially if you are higher end, you do design over, let’s say like a plumber. Because like if you were running, I don’t know, a social media account for a plumbing company, what is the most visually attractive thing that you could post in your mind?

Aaron Horner
Oh, gee, right.

Logan Shinholser
It’s hard, right?

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So that’s the issue with some of those industries, however, they had to take a different approach. Social media was meant for entertainment. So you want things that are. They drive emotion and visually appealing spaces is one of those things that helps to drive emotion. So your final photos, that or in final walkthrough videos that is meant for social media, make sure you’re using it.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, I mean by this point in the process, ideally you’ve gone through the other steps in the process and you have that high quality media that to me would make coming to social so much easier, like having the professional photography and everything like that. I mean, would you say that’s a requirement for doing. Yeah, yeah.

Logan Shinholser
I’m sorry, not 100%. Because there’s other things that you want. You don’t want just final photos. Yeah, but the way that I look at this is you’re going to have, let’s say, video and images.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
And what the video is really going to do is videos typically are things that are going to draw in more people to your social media. The first thing I want to kind of highlight is a lot of people when they do social media, they post it and they go, look, I only got, I don’t know, a few hundred views. You know, like unless you’re trying to go super viral, like basically there’s no need if you are here in Charlotte, for somebody in Buffalo, New York to see your stuff.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Like, it doesn’t. They can’t hire you. There’s a benefit to understanding when stuff does blow up. But for the sake of what we’re talking about, like, you’re not really going for virality because you don’t sell nationwide. You don’t have an online product to sell. You can only really do it here. So your goal would be to get known just around your, like, target locations that you work in. That’s ideal. So that’s really what we’re trying to go for as a whole.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
When it comes to video versus images, videos typically do better. They get seen by a lot more people. Instagram’s always been, it changes a lot. But Instagram’s really big on shares. So like, if somebody is sharing a video to somebody else, Instagram likes that because they see, all right, this must be good enough that somebody’s like actively posting it to somebody else. So we want to start to show that to more people over and over video. It’s not like that. It’s not like they actively push video more. It’s just that video naturally does that more. So they just coincidentally, in quotes, show more video to people because it’s easier for it to get shared.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. When, when I’ve talked with remodelers, whether I’m out there like shooting for them, media and things like that, it’s not that nobody, like every single person knows they need to be on socials, but I don’t think they have a plan really outside of that. Outside of, hey, we need to be posting consistently. What would you say to the people that are like, they come in and they’re just like, hey, we just need to get somebody posting, you know, once a day. And I think that will probably help out in the vague sense of like, you know, I think that’s a good thing to do.

Logan Shinholser
So here’s like basically the full funnel and then we could talk about what this looks like.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Basically the idea on social media is when it comes to the free stuff, the organic stuff, you’re not really going to make much money off that. Like, there’s just not. You’re going to get some people that come in the door or they see you and that’s like very beneficial. However, social media, they don’t typically, like, you’re not going to post a video and they’re just going to show it or within like a 10 mile radius of Charlotte, which is where I’m located, they’re gonna show it to people that they think are gonna come to the platform naturally. So with that, you wanna post a variety of things, whether it’s very high end video, more walkthrough video, more FAQ style, which is like, hey, let me walk you through this project and tell you what it costs and why it costs that much.

Logan Shinholser
But you also then want photos where these are gonna be photos that are final professionally shot photos that you can like swipe through that actually show like a full project, all of that stuff. And basically when you are posting that, Instagram and Facebook will tell you is this a good post or not? Because they’re going to show it to more and more people if it is.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Once you identify what are the posts that do well, there’s clearly a reason that they’re doing well. You can then take those and actually run them as ads around your just target geographical location. So for example, let’s say I’m posting a bunch of, I’m doing a bunch of kitchens around Charlotte, but I’m just posting videos of me walking through it or explaining design or explaining features or this or that. And I see that one that I had that is basically, I don’t know, let’s say me explaining this really intricate backsplash that we just did for this client. And it goes, you know, it gets 10, 20,000 views. Why look at that and go, okay, I’m probably getting the views from all over. However, there’s like something valid here.

Logan Shinholser
So let me go ahead and take this video and now run it as an ad within a 2 to 5 mile radius around the home that I’m actually working in. Because I know that if I’m working in this home on 123 Main Street. The likelihood that there’s other people that are very similar to them in very similar stages of life and similar values, all that stuff lives also within like that, you know, five mile radius. Then I wanna run this ad. Cause I’ve already seen that whatever that video is effective enough to get people to stop and watch. Well, now I’m just saying I’m gonna spend some money and put it in my local area. Because I already know that the video works.

Logan Shinholser
Now it’s just time to take that, run it as an ad and then try to get people to come back to my website. And that’s typically the missing piece that a lot of people have is they run these ads, but there’s no strategy, there’s no rhyme, there’s no reason to it. They’re just boosting it and hoping that people, like, see it and reach out. But in reality, what we want to do is actually drive them back to the website. So on that same backsplash video, if we actually then have one of those feature project pages that we talked about on the website podcast a few episodes ago, we want to then like, basically say, here’s this backsplash that we did.

Logan Shinholser
If you want to see the rest of this project plus how it all came together, click the link down below and go back to that page. And now they’re on your website looking through the full walkthrough of that project with before, the design, the afters, the price points, the timelines, the customer testimonial, all of those things. But you’re using video that you already know works as an ad to drive people back to the specific thing on the website that you want them to see, which is your projects.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
How does that, like, conceptually.

Aaron Horner
What are you asking?

Logan Shinholser
Does that make sense?

Aaron Horner
Yeah, it definitely makes sense. I think it’s as far as seeing what is performing well, then boosting that in the local areas, all of that definitely makes more sense than what a lot of people would do is just guess or just vaguely boost a post, which I think that’s the other most common thing when people are doing this. Have you seen, like, from our clients or other people that we’ve seen, like, common mistakes that they’re making with social media?

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, I mean, in general, doing it very inconsistently, doing it with bad photos, meaning just like iPhone photos. And like, it’s not that an iPhone photo is bad, but you got to know what you’re doing. Yeah, went back to that photography, you know, like the media podcast where, you know, it’s. Aaron with an iPhone is going to have a much better video than their typical remodeling company owner that has like a $6,000 camera. Just because, like, you know, story and what to look for, they don’t. So it’s just making sure that the stuff still looks good. But usually like an iPhone photo is not going to be good enough, you know, so it’s just very, like amateurish looking.

Logan Shinholser
And ultimately you want to be real and be authentic, but you don’t want to look amateurish because, like, if you’re social media, which is a big representation of your business, still looks bad or looks dated, like, let’s say, same with your website. If you show a bunch of photos where your fingers in front of it or it’s smudged or it’s 15 years old and it has A timestamp on it. What is the public perception gonna be? Social media is the exact same thing. So make sure that you are putting out stuff that is representative of your brand and paints you in a good light. Not, you know, makes you look like Joe Schmo or like that Chuck in the truck that you’re trying to actively get people to understand that is not you at all.

Aaron Horner
And when you talk about, like, running these ads, like, I know Facebook has recently had updates making this stuff all easier to target and things. Or meta, specifically Facebook and Instagram making it easier to target people, would your recommendation be for most people to do this kind of stuff themselves or look at people that specifically run Facebook ads? How easy is it for somebody to get into at this point?

Logan Shinholser
So we’ll walk it back, because we used to do a lot more Facebook ads for clients where we’d basically fly out, do all the video stuff for them, and then we’d come back, chop it up into ads, and then run them as a bunch of ads. The big thing when it comes to ads is really the expectation of what’s it meant to do. Back to that idea of social media, Unless you have an offer or some sort of promotion, it’s not gonna drive leads. It’s not meant to drive leads. It’s meant to. In this case, we’re just trying to get more eyeballs onto your projects to get people to go, oh, okay, like, maybe in the future I could do.

Aaron Horner
That, or build up public trust.

Logan Shinholser
That’s really what it is. But what happens is you start to get antsy and go, look, like, I keep seeing, you know, the same set of ads. I’m not getting leads from it. What’s up? And it’s like, well, look, remember we talked about what the expectation is? It’s like a billboard. It’s like you driving up and down the bill, you know, the highway every day, seeing your billboard and going, man, I keep seeing the same billboard of mine. I’m not getting leads from it. That’s not the goal. The goal in this case is basically you’re creating with these ads, mini billboards to show something that’s beautiful and engaging to somebody in their area, and then basically getting them to then go to your website to check out that corresponding project.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
When we would do them. So there was that expectation piece was part of it, but the other side of it was Facebook was a lot more. Or meta was a lot more intricate when it came to running ads, the way that the ads used to work. And it’s changed a bunch over the years was basically there’s something called audiences. And typically that’s just like, who are you going to show this ad to? And what most people do is if they’re going to boost a post, they’re just going to say, hey, I want to show this to everybody. And there was no rhyme or reason and it didn’t really help. So when you would run these audiences, you could say, all right, I just want to show it to you. Maybe you upload like your past customer list.

Logan Shinholser
I just want to show it to my past customers. Or maybe you could do interest targeting so you can say, I only want people that are between the age of 40 years old and 50 years old that own a house, that live in these specific areas that are interested in remodeling. So you had interest based things. So you had all these different. And you would. Basically what you would do is you would like say, all right, I want to test to see if is this like actually an effective ad? Yeah, you would run the exact same ad to different audiences to see, okay, which audience would be a good audience that’s most likely to want to check my stuff out or maybe even buy.

Logan Shinholser
Then once you identify that audience and maybe what you found is you, it was the audience of people that live in this one specific neighborhood that you had like between the age of 40 and 50 that are interested in this, then you would stick on that audience and then you would create a bunch of other ads to see, okay, what else will resonate with them. So it’s kind of intricate on how you would need to set it up. And that’s where a lot of people would either get confused or not know what to do and it wouldn’t have the same impact that you want. Yeah, well, now what MET has done is and we’re running our own ads, so we’ve seen it. It’s way easier.

Logan Shinholser
Is basically they’re now they almost a year ago they linked up with Nvidia and said, we’re going to use your AI and you’re going to help us. Because the issue is that there were so many ads that people were creating that Meta was having a tough time of just like being able to like scan through the ad and decipher. Okay, based off of this, who should we show this over to? So basically it just wasn’t powerful enough. Well, since they linked up with Nvidia and got these like super chips that they’re able to do now, what it’s able to do is actually scan through the photos or the videos that you’re running as ads and say, okay, we now have a good understanding of who we’re going to link this up over to.

Logan Shinholser
So now it’s come less of, like, specific audiences and more about, like Facebook and meta, you know, getting smart enough that they can like scan through your video. That is maybe, let’s say that backsplash walkthrough in this certain area because you’re talking about the backsplash in the video, you’re showing it. And now they’re like, okay, we’re going to show this to people that probably live in that area that also enjoy kitchens. They, you know, we’ve seen that. They, you know, if we show them like a tile shop ad, they stop and look at that. So this backsplash would be really good for them. So it’s getting smart enough that it’s gonna, it’s already knowing who to show it to. So instead of having picked all these different audiences, now it’s just gonna pick it for you.

Logan Shinholser
And crazy enough, the more that you let Facebook do its thing and don’t add restrictions to it, the better that it’s gonna be.

Aaron Horner
It seems similar in the shift that all the social media platforms made a while ago from like a follower based, like, you’re deciding like, hey, I wanna follow this person, I want all their stuff to the algorithm now, finding the best audience for the best content. But this is, it’s different, but it’s a similar switch for ads. Is that.

Logan Shinholser
Yes. So what I think you’re saying is it used to be that if I’m as contractor, growth network, if I’m making a post and I have a thousand followers, this post is going to be shown to my thousand followers. Or it really would only be shown to like maybe 100 of them. And if it was a good post, then it would show to the rest of them. But now what it’s done is it doesn’t matter how many followers I have. What it wants to show this post to is people that are likely to engage with it whether they follow me or not.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, that’s basically the same thing here where it used to be like, I only want to show it to these people, but now it’s saying, hey, we actually have a really good understanding of who’s going to like this more than you probably do. So let us do our thing. You still want to show it in, like, that geographical location of like, hey, I don’t want it to be, you know, all over the country to show this ad to because that doesn’t make sense. However, you want to make sure that you’re like letting. And then what’s a bunch of different, like, types of media. So when you start these ads, you would want.

Logan Shinholser
Unless it is that if your goal is to get people to go check out that new kitchen, you’re going to have the backsplash video, you’re going to have a full walkthrough video, you’re going to have the customer testimonial video, you’re.

Aaron Horner
Going to have image of the testimonial.

Logan Shinholser
Just an image. You’re gonna have a, you know, scrollable image. So it’s all these different things and you’re basically taking all the media from that one project and kind of saying, hey, Facebook, you do your thing. Like, and this is basically a gist of where I want you to run this and then let Facebook do it. And then basically all you’re telling it to do is like, I want you to optimize it around this end result.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
And the end result that we’re going for is not necessarily leads, because if we’re just trying to get people to actually, from a branding perspective, check out the project, then that would be either, you know, I want people, I want you to show this ad to people that are most likely to actually go check out that page, or go check out the page and stay there for a certain amount of time. Which shows me that they’re actually engaged.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, just people to spend time with your. Your brand, learning about what you do, whether or not they’re going to reach out at the end or not.

Logan Shinholser
Correct. So that is how we want to really approach the social media side of things. And is, it’s not. If you want it to be leads, you can do that. But then you gotta make sure that you’re saying, this is what I’m gonna give you to move forward right now. Cause otherwise people are gonna move forward when they wanna move forward. Or you’re usually gonna get like bottom of the barrel people anyway. So use it as a branding tool, not so much as a direct response advertising piece, unless you know what you’re doing and you’re ready for it. Okay, is that enough?

Aaron Horner
Yeah, that sounds great. Cool. I’m gonna move to the next one. Yep. Okay, so next on the list, then we go to email.

Logan Shinholser
Yep. So email is another like email is just kind of like when it comes to ads or social media, it could be direct response. You send out an email to either your customer list or a prospect list and you’re basically like, hey, we’ve got availability. Move forward now we’ll give you 10% off. So there’s a reason to move out. Move forward or you’re using it basically as like a branding play which is just staying top of mind to people.

Aaron Horner
In their email separate. One of the things my first question would because I haven’t done a lot with email marketing here. The other ones make sense. Like there’s a clear audience for truck reps. Like that has a built in audience. Social media has a built in audience, email doesn’t. I’m thinking from a remodeler’s perspective, outside of my personal email list of past clients, is how can I have an email campaign for awareness? Like how do I build an email list if I don’t currently have one of clients?

Logan Shinholser
You know, I mean, so basically let’s say you don’t have past clients. You’re gonna have maybe people that have filled out the contact form that never move forward for whatever reason. Yeah, so you now have maybe a prospect did not move forward list. So that could be people that at some point have raised their hand to say, I want to talk about remodeling my space, but I didn’t move forward for whatever reason. So that’s another list that you would want to be able to work with. The other thing is you could also build your list, build your email list, which is like right now we have that AI webinar coming up. We’re running ads that basically say, hey, we have a webinar coming up if you want to, you know, if you want to attend it.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, give us your name email and we’ll give you the link to it. So now we’re collecting those emails to be able to then come back and market to them and say, hey, here’s like case studies of how we do the SEO and the AI stuff for clients. If you want us to do it for you know, so like, okay.

Aaron Horner
So that’s where you’d have things like the webinar, like events that they can sign up for and they’ll have their email or lead magnets.

Logan Shinholser
It could be a lead magnet is basically just a way to say, hey, you give us your information and we will give you this thing in return. A common one historically has always been like pricing guides of like, hey, you give us your information and we’ll send you a guide on what a kitchen remodel costs.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, I’ve seen design guides as well. Like, hey, if you’re looking to remodel your space or something like that, then like here’s some of the common trends right now. Design ideas, things like that.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. And basically the way that I view this stuff, because we used to do that for clients as well, now there’s so much information out there now that unless this is, like, something that people are, like, willing to. Because, like, basically people know, like, if I give you my name and my email and even if you ask for, let’s say, phone number on that, like, it’s not. There’s, like, no such thing as a free lunch. You’re going to get sold, too.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. What’s going to happen with my information? What are you going to do with it? Are you going to call me and try to sell me something? So basically, it needs to be something that is juicy enough that somebody’s willing to give up with their personal information for.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So just having, like, at this point, like a price guide, could it work? Yes. Does it work for some people? Yes. But there’s so many blogs and content out there.

Aaron Horner
You can typically just Google it.

Logan Shinholser
You just Google that at that point. So now this seems to be something that’s more like, what could they not get? And that could be something that’s, like, stickier, that, like. Let me give you an example. Like, this is. It’s a marketing one, and then I’ll flip it back into the other world. But, like, last night, I saw an ad for. There’s a really famous, like, ad agency. Chamber.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Travis Chamber Media. He was running it for 47 bucks. I paid for it, so it wasn’t free, but it’s 47 bucks. A whole chatgpt.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
For I saw how to run ads.

Aaron Horner
Yep.

Logan Shinholser
So I was like, great. And his whole thing was like, look, I’ve done this. I’ve. I have so many banger ads. There’s a formula to it. I have so many ones that are duds. I didn’t follow the formula. So I’ll tell you about that. But basically, for 47 bucks, I have a chatgpt that I can type into and go, all right, I want to run an ad around this. How do It? And it’s going to ask you all these questions. And then basically, this chatgpt was trained on this exact thing.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. So, okay, so I see what you’re saying. That’s a good example of you can’t just Google it. It’s a resource that only he could provide you something about his individual expertise. That’s the only way you’re gonna get that. So in that case, why wouldn’t you yeah, correct.

Logan Shinholser
So in the remodeling space, this could now be something that’s more proprietary to the individual remodeling company. So that could be like, hey, we will mail you our design book. Or like, hey, you know, top projects in the Charlotte area from 2025.

Aaron Horner
Yeah. So things that are like design trends in your area. Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
More specific. That they can’t get otherwise without giving up their information.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
That is the idea of like, how do you then build up that list? That’s what you want.

Aaron Horner
Okay. Okay.

Logan Shinholser
It’s easier said than done, to be honest with you.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, yeah. So then once you have that list, then your email marketing is tailored towards that basically. Like the media that you would put in the emails, like, the messaging would be the same as your general billboards and stuff. Is it just brand awareness?

Logan Shinholser
It depends on what it is. So let’s say, for example, like, we’re going to go through three different lists of people. If your past customers.

Aaron Horner
Yep.

Logan Shinholser
Then you’ve got your prospects that filled out a contact form but didn’t move forward. And then you’ve got your people that download the say it’s a design trends in your area guide.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Past customers already know you already like you already trust you. So what you’re sending out to them is going to be a different message than what you’re sending out to somebody that doesn’t really even know you whatsoever.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So you can be a little bit more informal with it. You could talk about like, hey, you can even segment that list of saying, like, basically, hey, everybody who only got a kitchen with us, we want to do more bathrooms. So now we’re going to send out a email to everybody saying, hey, we know you got a kitchen with us. If you want us to do a bathroom. We actually have some slots open for that. Here’s a couple examples of bathrooms that we’ve done that could look really good in your space. Check it out. Because, you know, let’s say you’re trying to do the same thing, but for like, you know, sell more kitchens.

Aaron Horner
You.

Logan Shinholser
You probably wouldn’t reach out to past customers that have remodeled their kitchen with you in the past three years, because then it’s gonna go on deaf ears.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, exactly. They have no need.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. So from a customer perspective, you wanna be able to send out things that are still valuable to them. Easiest thing across the board on all this stuff is send out projects that you’ve done. Hey, we just finished this really cool project in this area. Basically what you’re doing is you’re taking a truncated version of your featured project page, sending it out in an email saying, hey, if you want to check this out, go here and go look more at it. So basically it’s still entertainment. You know, people get inundated with emails. What we want to avoid is the like generic, like I’m sending an email to send an email. Which is the, hey, here’s top 10 barbecue recipes that you can do today. Yeah, nobody likes those, nobody wants those.

Logan Shinholser
But we do it because we feel like we have to get an email out there. The biggest thing is just make sure that it’s valuable to them or entertaining because basically if you’re gonna send it out and they’re gonna go, eh, this just feels like a waste or like they’re pestering me, they’re out.

Aaron Horner
That seems to be a trend I’m seeing with all of these is instead of trying to check the box with anything because when like people hear the words marketing, they’re thinking like, maybe I’m slow on leads or I need to build up the foundation of the branding. Here’s some buzzwords, marketing buzzwords. I just need to check the box for it sounds like with all of these, an easy thing you can just do is take a step back and think about what actually is the purpose of this activity. How is this message going to be received by the audience?

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, like the big thing here along those lines is like you get, you know, well, we don’t want to email our list too many times. We don’t want to bother them. And it’s like, well, first off, if you feel like you are bothering your customer list with what you’re sending out to them, then don’t send it. Yeah, like that’s like the first thing of like, you know it. Cause basically if I sent you, if every joke that I sent you was really funny.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
What is the most amount of times that I could send you an email with a funny joke before you got annoyed?

Aaron Horner
As long as it’s not like I’m at a funeral, I guess, like there.

Logan Shinholser
Is no limit, right?

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. So that’s the idea is that it’s not that it’s necessarily like, you know, hey, I don’t want more than one joke per week and that’s the criteria. It’s just that if it’s a great joke.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Over and over.

Aaron Horner
As long as I’m consistently getting value.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah.

Aaron Horner
I’m not going to get worn out.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, exactly. Like three times a day. Like I would love a good pick me up. Like I’m down with that. But once the joke starts to suck, then it goes down to, like, well, maybe you just do once a week, because, like, then it’s hit or miss. So that’s the idea when it comes to the email marketing side, is that if you’re just overdoing it because you’re checking that box, that’s when it becomes frustrating. Yeah, that’s when it becomes, like, no longer, like, an effective medium.

Aaron Horner
Okay. Okay.

Logan Shinholser
So that’s like, how you kind of want to approach, you know, past customers. Could be, like, projects that you’ve done. Prospects are the same thing. You could always run like a, you know, hey, we noticed, you know, we know that it didn’t work out. Can we have another shot? Could we? You know, you want to, like, reschedule something so you could go that way with, like, a prospect list. It’s kind of like what, like, a lot of online stores do where it’s like the abandoned cart of, like, hey, we saw that you added this into your Amazon cart, but you never checked out.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Do you want to actually check out? So it’s like either a reminder or. Or maybe they give you, like, a discount to, like, actually check out. So you have that. And then like, on the free download or like, the design trend side of things, that could then be education, where it’s now more helpful tips around how to approach design and then showing off again, projects that maybe align with some of those design trends that you’ve done. So basically, that last one’s more of, like, a nurture piece that’s just simply like, same way that you want to do with social media or billboards. We just want to keep getting in front of them with something that’s helpful.

Logan Shinholser
But the biggest thing that you have is, like, if you just continuously show off pretty stuff, that’s going to be, like, the best way to not get put into the spam or unsubscribe.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, that makes sense. Continuing continuously, showing people what they want to see, providing value.

Logan Shinholser
Exactly.

Aaron Horner
Yep. Cool. Okay, you want to move on?

Logan Shinholser
Let’s do it.

Aaron Horner
Direct mail.

Logan Shinholser
Direct mail. Kind of like email on that first one. But basically, you know, you either give out a promotional offer, which they get a piece in the mail, and they go, great, I can get 50% off a kitchen. I’m gonna move forward with it. Or again, you’re using it simply as a branding play. Yeah, we’ve done direct mail in the past for clients where it was, you know, like, hey, we’re gonna do it around the local area. So you can do it where they have, like, I know dope marketing does like this, these neighborhood blitzes, where basically, if you’re at 123 Main street, they can say, Hey, I want to hit 50 houses with, like, the closest 50 houses to that exact house with a piece of mail that maybe a week out goes, hey, we’re going to be in your neighborhood.

Logan Shinholser
If our stuff’s in the way, pardon our dust. Check us out. Like that kind of stuff. So you just have different ways. But basically, direct mail is meant to just be. You can send out information into people’s mailboxes that whatever you want them to know about you can do it. I would not suggest doing, like, a bunch of sales stuff unless you want to do sales stuff. I get all those, like, Anderson windows, you know, like, hey, your house specifically. All these windows would cost 150 grand. But, you know, we marked it down to 99amonth for 72 months. Like, you know, that’s an approach to go. But it usually doesn’t work out really well in, like, the remodeling space. So just think about. Direct mail is like, you.

Logan Shinholser
You need to do it over and over, because it’s just like a billboard, where you’re basically just mailing a billboard into their mailbox. So just stick on things that are gonna help you stand out. You get the messaging across. But again, it’s really just meant to be like a branding play. Unless you have some sort of promotion, which is like, hey, give this to a neighbor for them to get 10% off their next project, things like that. So just different ways of doing it.

Aaron Horner
Unlike email marketing, you can continuously send out emails, and it’s not costing anything other than just the hours it’s taken to do it. How would you prioritize direct mail, especially given the fact that there’s a direct cost every single time you have to print out the stuff, you have to mail them out to everybody. How would you weigh that? Pros and cons.

Logan Shinholser
It’s a segmenting of who you’re sending it out to. So I think there’s a stat that’s like 60% of people remodel their space within the first two years of moving in. So you could then go on Zillow and say, hey, I want you to pull a list. And this is like we did for my dad’s pond company, which was, we’re gonna go on Zillow. And everybody who has a house in this area that has the keyword pond in it, let’s collect their address. Then we would just send them out Zillow mailers and basically say, do you want us to come out there and clean your pond? Yeah, in the remodeling space, you know, you wouldn’t want to send out to everybody, but you know, based off that number of 60% of people remodeling the first two years of moving in.

Aaron Horner
Great.

Logan Shinholser
Let’s pull up a list where for those two years within when somebody moved in, we’re just going to hit that house and say, hey, you know, do you want a project done? Hey, this is who we are. So basically you could go about it that way. So you already have a list of people that you know are more likely to move forward compared to the rest of the market. Yeah. You have those neighborhood blitzes where just like with my neighbor’s house, let’s say I know that I’m that remodeling company and my neighbor loves Gantt charts. Maybe I create a postcard that’s like sent out to all the neighbors. It’s like, hey, you know, are you thinking about getting a remodel done? But you’re nervous about blown up timelines. We do Gantt charts.

Logan Shinholser
And then now my neighbor would be like, oh my gosh, like, this is my company that does Gantt Chart. Like so yeah, you know, there’s ways about going or ways to go about it, but I would just pick the spots that you’re already known in. That’s going to be easiest. Then you can go to the like, neighborhoods that maybe you’re not known in, but you want to get known in there. That’s like a way to break in. But again, it’s still going to be a long term play. I would not look at direct mail in the more modeling spaces. Like I’m going to send out one postcard to 5,000 people and get a bunch of leads back. I would, if you’re going to do it, send out to 500 people 10 times over the span of, I don’t know, six months maybe.

Logan Shinholser
Maybe you start off a little bit heavier at first and then you like slow it down so you’re still like just popping up. But ultimately it becomes like a numbers game with direct mail. If you really want to make it direct response, then you do an offer. You could put a QR code on there that you can track the scans. You can do a special, you know, dot com forward slash mailer to then track how many people are coming to the dot com forward slash mailer.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So there’s ways to track it, but Direct mail is basically a billboard, but just in people’s mailboxes.

Aaron Horner
Okay. Okay. And then. Well, I have a question for that, but I think it will apply to everything. So I’m ready to go to the next one if you’re good. So then we have kind of community advertising sponsorships. We have kind of like a few. A ton of these, like, random ones here at the end. Maybe we’ll talk about trade shows next.

Logan Shinholser
Okay, so trade shows, you’re gonna have good trade shows. You’re bad trade shows. You’re in the trade shows where most people are coming through just to collect the trinkets, and they’re doing it because it’s rainy out, and then it’s the middle of spring and they can’t go outside. So they’re just kind of like, well, we might as well go to the trade show then. You have good ones, and it all depends on. You need to know your market and things like that. Trade shows are a great way where that is. Like, if you have people that are on that prospect email list or on that design guide email list, you could say, hey, do you want to come check us out, like, or talk to us? We’ll actually be at this trade show. That’s a good way to get in front of people.

Logan Shinholser
So it’s not necessarily like you’re setting up a booth and just sitting back and waiting. If you are good at the branding stuff. And then people know that you’re going to be at that trade show. I mean, we do this. We go to, like, the next trade show that we’re going to is like, jobtrad Connect. Yeah, we go there. And every year we have a couple dozen people that come up and go, I knew you guys were going to be at this conference, so I was just waiting to talk to you. But because they follow this podcast or our social media or our email, whatever it is.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, it’s just a place to meet people in person.

Logan Shinholser
It’s a catalyst. So that’s how I look at. I would look at these trade shows as you want to go there, you still want to have it be a good job. Like, my dad used to do a ton of. Not a ton of these, but, like, he. At first he did a ton of these. And as time went on, we realized that, you know, because basically they would build like, an entire pond at this trade show that would be set up. So, like, it would be like a week and a half of, like, from the build to the actual trade show to the tear down. I mean, it costs, like, 15 grand for him to do this stuff for 15 grand, we could do a lot more in other places.

Aaron Horner
You could run a lot of ads.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, you do a ton of stuff with 1500 or 15 grand.

Aaron Horner
So.

Logan Shinholser
So he slowly went from like a bunch a year down to like, just one a year down to like, none. However, if it works, do it. But just make sure you use, like a funnel to get people to it as a way for them to be like, hey, I know you’ve been following us, but, you know, this is where we’re gonna be. That’s how I do the trade shows.

Aaron Horner
Okay, cool. And then our last section here, the thing that started off the entire discussion, I mean, way back, what was it we Talked about? Episode 466, first one, large scale print advertising. So billboards, magazines, golf carts. How would you go around kind of theory for those?

Logan Shinholser
That would probably be the very last thing that I’m going to, like, do stuff for, because billboards, you’re just going to be driving by them. Again, it works if you need, like, it works really well for home service, works really well for law firms because basically, you know, nobody wakes up and wants to hire a lawyer. But, like, if you get a car accident, you want to have that brand recall to go, okay. Oh, Morgan and Morgan. Okay, got it. I’ve seen their billboard so many times.

Aaron Horner
Now, I suddenly have a need to call somebody.

Logan Shinholser
Home service, my. Not my Internet. My H VAC blew up. I need to call somebody. Who do I go to? Oh, it’s that, you know, that company remodeling doesn’t really have that very much. Yeah.

Aaron Horner
So again, I have an emergency remodel.

Logan Shinholser
It’s the same thing with, like, the golf cards. Golf card people are not going to play golf to then hire a modeling company. It’s the same thing where it’s just like, okay, that’s a good country club. We already have some clients that belong there. Maybe we put our name on there. And then somebody at the country club asks their friend and says, hey, I want to remodel my kitchen. Who do you recommend? And they go, oh, you should use Aaron’s remodeling. They’re like, oh, is that the people on the golf cart?

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Or they go to Google and they go, oh, that’s the people on the golf cart. Like, it’s that same idea. Magazine ads, very similar. It’s, you know, you’re basically just saying, okay, like, my. My neighborhood, Dilworth here in Charlotte is a pretty affluent neighborhood. You can run ads in that. In that Magazine. And it’s basically I’m not picking up that magazine and reading it, seeking out a remodeling company. But now I start to associate. Okay, this remodeling company is running an ad in this magazine. If I ever want to move, you know, look at remodeling company. Maybe I put that in like my brand recall in the back of my brain and it’s there. So that’s how I look at this stuff where it’s. And you want to do it long term. Like there’s like this whole.

Logan Shinholser
It changes, but it’s like the, you know, rule of seven in marketing used to be a thing where it’s like you want to get in front of people seven times for them to remember you. Now I saw it the other day, but like Google, I think it was Google that came out with it that was like, I don’t know, like a 743 where it was like, they need to like see your stuff like seven times on four different platforms with three different types of messages before they. So it was like it starts to change and all this stuff. But basically people need to see you a ton of times.

Logan Shinholser
So if you put up a billboard for one month and that’s it, you’re not going to get much, but you want to be like, if you’re going to do a billboard, stick with it for the long term. Same thing with anything that’s branding related. You don’t want to keep switching it up because the whole point of the top of the funnel branding is that they just see you so much. Like if ups change the colors of their trucks every single year, you would no longer remember what you. Yeah, same idea. So that’s how you want to view that stuff. I would put that at the back of my list. As far as like branding goes, I would start with the basic trucks, yard signs, shirts, door hangers, things that you’re already in the local neighborhood.

Logan Shinholser
Then going into the social media side, then going into the email and then going from there.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, with. So with all of this, I mean there’s attribution for some of these things, like social media advertising. There’s some attribution you could get from that, the email, the direct mail, depending on if you put QR codes, like you can get some attribution. A lot of these are very vague though. Like it’s just going to be a sense of people know you in the area. How do you recommend companies approach seeking returns on this attribution? How do they know if this is working for them? In their area. Is it just word of mouth asking people, or is there a better method?

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, a lot of times, like when we’re looking at this, you’re not doing it because you need it to work right now. Like, if you filled out a, a form on Geico’s website and they said, how’d you hear about us? What would your answer be?

Aaron Horner
Tv I get right. Maybe that’s where I first heard about.

Logan Shinholser
But you don’t know because there’s so many things. So basically, like, Geico doesn’t. I don’t think Geico looks at their, like billboards is like, oh, how do we actually, like, measure this stuff?

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Like, I’ve talked to people that do, like, advertising for like, NASCAR or sports, where it’s like, you can actually measure the amount of times that, like a golfer, you know, your brand is shown on the golfer. Like when it’s like sliding through the actual, like, you know, golf tournament on tv where they have like, okay, if you want to be on the hat, it’s going to cost twice as much as on the shoulder versus, like the back, stuff like that. So you’re looking at this less as like a, this has to work and more about, like, hey, I need to get my brand out there even more.

Aaron Horner
So it’s something that when you’re doing the budgeting for the year, things like that, putting a portion of money to it when you’re at that point in business. But it’s not a, hey, let’s try this out. Let’s run an experiment on this and see what returns we get.

Logan Shinholser
You really want to go all in on this stuff. That’s why you want to have the other stuff dialed in first, which is ultimately, especially in the remodeling space, you have a really nice billboard that you’re going to commit to for five years. Then they go to the website and let’s say the website sucks.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Then the billboard’s kind of irrelevant and not needed. So that’s why went this whole thing in order. Because when it comes to the branding stuff, like I would say the thing that is the easiest to track is gonna be your social media ads or your social media because you actually have analytics and dashboards from it. Biggest thing that I can say, like, I saw like somebody Ramondeler pop up today and talk about, like, hey, we post a lot on Reddit and he was like, we don’t get traffic from it and we don’t really get leads from it. But, you know, a lot of people are viewing it. And my suggestion was like, look up like brand or branded searches, meaning you can actually see are people going to Google and typing in your company name.

Logan Shinholser
And that’s like when were running social media ads and saying, hey, we’re just doing this as branding. That’s what we would measure is basically, hey, since when we started running these ads, how many people are typing in Aaron’s remodeling into Google and being able to find you versus not. And that was a big part of how we actually would track this stuff. Because I mean, even like there’s like a guy that I know that when he was running ads, basically he would have like clients consent to like, if I run Facebook ads and then you coincidentally start to get website form fill outs, like, you know, and it lines up perfectly that you get double the amount the time that we start running these ads, like, just know that they probably saw the ad and then went to Google. And that’s kind of like.

Aaron Horner
Because what you could think is like, well, I don’t need these, right?

Logan Shinholser
Like, I don’t. People go to my website.

Aaron Horner
Things have just been picking up.

Logan Shinholser
And that’s the same thing as like when we talk to clients around, like in our analytics that like, it might show like, hey, these leads came in from organic, which is Google, and stuff like that. But a bunch of these came in from direct, meaning we don’t know where it necessarily came in from. That’s because the amount of time that it takes for people to actually like research and then come back and then actually fill out that form is so long that they know the website name pretty much by heart. Or it’s also like, if I’ve been looking up Aaron’s remodeling.com so much, then I’m going to go back to the, to my Internet browser search, type in aar and it’s going to auto fill and I hit enter and that’s going to be a direct search.

Logan Shinholser
So when I then, you know, fill out the contact form, it’s going to say, hey, this thing came in direct. And you’re like, well that wasn’t Google, that wasn’t Facebook. And you’re like, yeah, but the thing that brought them there was that. So that’s where some of this attribution stuff gets confusing.

Aaron Horner
So I mean, that makes sense though. I mean, I think that at the very least clears it up a lot for me is like in the long term, year over year or years over years, you’re then looking to see a change in the amount of people coming to my website, the percentage of people coming in, or the amount of people coming in directly looking for my brand name, that would be a good sign that, like, you’re. You’re building up a brand in that hundred percent. Yeah, that makes sense.

Logan Shinholser
That’s exactly it. So it’s the same thing that we want to focus on is, like, when you run those ads. Yeah. We want to see how many people are going to the page itself that you’re trying to send people over to. But we also then want to be able to see are people actually just going back to Google and searching for you specifically. And that’s kind of back to that radio example where what I should have done with her exactly was basically say, like, not like, all right, it’s 315 that you ran the ad between 318 and 325. Nobody else really went to your website. So it was a dud.

Logan Shinholser
But what I would say is, all right, let’s run the ad enough where over the span of, I don’t know, a month, we’re then going to start to look and see are you running it enough for it to really make sense? And on top of that, are more people then going to the website or. Or Googling your name specifically because they heard the jingle on the radio and then said, okay, now I’m ready to move forward. So that’s why I should have done it back then instead of just like, well, look at like the seven minutes after to see.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, it didn’t work.

Logan Shinholser
What that looked like. And this was all like, before, like, cell phones and like smartphones, like, they were just starting. I mean, this is like 2013. So it was just. Or 2014 was just starting to, like, kick in.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
So it was a little bit different as far as, like, what all that stuff. Like, you know, how do you. Are people like listening to this stuff and going to it?

Aaron Horner
So. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thinking about it from that perspective of changing it from. Are people generally looking up who should I hire to just. Are they looking up my brand name? Like, finding out which avenue are you getting found from? For people like, that is a really good way to kind of get a kind of like a. A baseline for how well known are you in your area.

Logan Shinholser
And the more people are looking up your brand, like, that stuff helps with, like, Google and AI because now Google’s like, all right, a lot of people are, like, in this area are looking up Aaron’s remodeling. Like, they must be onto something over Here. So they’re going to like, want to.

Aaron Horner
It weighs that in like your search rankings.

Logan Shinholser
Brand mentions are a thing, especially in AI. Like when people are like talking about you and stuff like that. Like, that is becoming more of a thing as well. So, like, you want people to be like, seeking you out and searching for you, because then you kind of put you more on Google and AI’s radar for them to be like, okay, there’s something going on now. I think if it’s like Aaron remodeling scam.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, yeah.

Logan Shinholser
Like, I don’t know if that’s gonna do the right thing that you want it to do.

Aaron Horner
Yeah.

Logan Shinholser
But yeah, I mean, that stuff’s beneficial not only from like the brand recall and like the journey side of things for the customer, but it’s also good for Google and AI and those sorts of things. So I’ve seen tricks that people are like, go to the Apple Store and go on every laptop and type in your company name into Google or type in kitchen remodeler near me and then find your link and click on it. And then that way that’s fine. But then it requires you to every time go to the Apple Store versus you can run an ad that people do that anyway.

Aaron Horner
That’s awesome. Yeah. Okay.

Logan Shinholser
When you look at this stuff, make sure you go in the right order because you don’t want to start running all these ads for the sake of running them. Then you have a bad website or you’re not actively, you know, getting found in Google and AI, because that’s how people are starting to really seek these things out. If your photos are bad, social media is going to be way harder anyway. The website’s going to be harder to build out in a beautiful way anyway. So make sure that, you know, if this is like the first episode that you’ve joined, go back to 466. That’s going to walk you through the six steps to actually get, you know, your remodeling strategy dialed in. And it goes in this order on purpose.

Logan Shinholser
There’s a reason that we didn’t start off with ads, because a lot of people, if we start off with ads, they would go out, they were on ads and go, it’s not working. We’re like, what about the photos? What about the website? What about the videos? How about Google? And then it’s like, okay, that makes sense. So do it in the right order.

Aaron Horner
Yeah, cool. So I mean, that ends our section of episodes on marketing. The next few in the series will be more focused on the sales process and production and taking people through your actual process. Once they know about you, they’ve reached out. So next episode is mostly about assignment selling and how do you get people in that way? All right.

Logan Shinholser
I love it. See you guys next time.

Aaron Horner
See ya.