Google and Facebook are continuously evolving with new and improved advertising strategies. So, marketers and brands need to not only keep up with these changes, but more importantly, they need to know how to use these strategies and changes to their advantage.

Having said that, as a marketer I can tell you this: there are times when these strategies deliver fantastic results; there are also times when some of the strategies we test fail and they don’t deliver the expected results.

Now, for clients who keep a portion of their marketing spend aside for testing marketing strategies, it is not such a bad deal. But there are brands and local businesses that run a tight ship and just cannot afford to be generous with their marketing spend.

Most of these small and local businesses operate in markets that are highly competitive. In some markets, their competitors are big brands with even bigger marketing budgets and specialized teams to manage every aspect of their advertising campaigns.

So what do these businesses do?

The Right System for Your Business

“Ninety-four percent of all failures are a result of the systems.” —  Marshal Thurber. 

As a business, you obviously have your own system set in place. Now for some of you that system might have worked with varying degrees of success while for others the system might have failed to deliver on desired results.

I have of course developed my own system for consistently generating sales and profits for your business. But I will elaborate on that a little later.

Now in most cases, business owners discover lead generation the hard way which often includes launching a website with thin content and low quality content and either having in-house paid digital marketing or contracting a non-industry specific agency.

Nothing wrong with this system of course. In fact, I am sure some of you might have tasted success with this system.

However, what I want to highlight is something different – the cost-per-click in the water restoration industry has sky-rocketed. So it is important that you partner with the right person or agency – preferably an insider who knows how the industry works and has experience working with other clients within the same market space.

Why do I say this?

Well, I have audited and analyzed campaigns for our clients when they partnered with other marketing agencies. And what I discovered was that these agencies would run the campaigns under search phrases such as “basement waterproofing” and similar other search phrases which simply are not the right search phrases.

And the reason for doing this is because they just don’t understand the water damage restoration industry or the disaster restoration industry.

Here’s another thing. When I speak with business owners and I ask them, “What is bringing you leads right now?” Or if I ask them “What campaigns are working for you, or what search phrases, or what zip codes?”  When I ask them about “which areas, and what landing pages on your websites are generating leads?” most of them really have no idea.

They have no idea because they don’t have the right system in place.

This could be you and it is probably the No. 1 reason why you end up losing a lot of money. It is also the reason why your campaigns won’t work.

But here’s the thing — you don’t have to struggle to generate leads. And more importantly, you don’t have to spend money that you don’t have in the first place to generate customers on demand for your business.

Yes, generating customers on demand does not have to be budget and business breaking. I know, because I have helped hundreds of cleaning and restoration companies increase their revenue and profits.

My success formula for business includes 3 secrets that can transform any business and help it grow predictably. Bear in mind that the operative word here is “predictably.”

Here are my 3 Secrets:

Secret No. 1: Maximize Lead Generation Without Increasing Website Traffic

The most common questions that I get asked all the time by business owners are, how can they generate more traffic? What can they do on Google, on Yahoo, or on Facebook?

But these are not the right questions. The most important question that you should be asking is this: “How can I maximize lead generation with traffic that I am already getting on my site?”

Of course, every business generates some amount of traffic, but most don’t get the volume of traffic they want for increasing business sales and profits.

Most business owners assume that in order to get more leads, they naturally need to boost their traffic.

I will say, “No.” My No. 1 advice would be to find ways in which you can generate more leads without spending more money on marketing first and without increasing your traffic.  

Secret No. 2: Monitor and Consistently Reduce Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

As a business owner you must have a fair idea of what CPA means. However, most business owners either don't have a number on what they are paying for each lead or they just don’t monitor or work on lowering their cost per lead. But monitoring and lowering your CPA makes a big difference to your business bottom-line.

So how do you monitor and focus on lowering your CPA?

Start by tracking your CPA by calls. Monitor the calls coming from Google Organic, Google Ads, Bing Organic, and so on. Now if you spend $500 a month on Google and $500 on Bing, it is important that you know which one produced more calls for you. Which one brought you more leads? This way you will know where to direct your marketing spend and increase your marketing budget wisely.

To give you a quick example – if you are running Google ads, track your cost per acquisition in Google ads down to the keyword level.

Suppose you have two top keywords, “professional couch cleaning” with a CPA at $24 and “upholstery cleaning services” with a CPA at $55. You can use this information to decide where you should put your money for better returns based on which keyword helps you generate good customers.

In addition, track your CPA in Google Ads, track your CPA for devices, and do area wise tracking as well. You will want to do the same with your Facebook Ads, too.

So what I am really saying is that you should track your CPA for everything.

You can also reduce your CPA by updating negative keywords. Negative keywords are the words in which your ads should not show up in Google.

Another strategy that you don’t want to miss is running remarketing campaigns. Here's why. All big companies do it. They appear in all the places your customers are on the Internet. So when they do need a service you provide, your business will be at the top of their minds.

You also want to consistently test bid strategies, maximize clicks, conversions, target impression share, and so on. Google has model strategies that you can work with.

Secret No. 3: Set Up a Proven and Predictable Lead Generation System

I mentioned this earlier. Instead of increasing your marketing budget for generating more traffic, you should focus on maximizing lead generation without increasing traffic. How? You do it by focusing on conversion rate optimization (CRO).

Every marketing and sales activity you pursue has one simple end goal — it should result in conversions. Let's say you get a hundred visitors a month and you get five leads a month. So your conversion rate is 5%. But if you can increase that conversion rate to 20%, it translates into 20 leads from same hundred visitors a month.

Let me explain with an example. Let’s take call volume. With a predictable lead generation system, you can maintain a steady call volume, and at a rate that you prefer. As a business owner, you will definitely want a steady call volume on a weekly or monthly basis and as per your preference.

But for this to happen you need a predictable, reliable, and sustainable lead generation system. I know my clients sleep better and vacation in peace because we help them manage a steady call volume through the year.

In addition to these three steps, you also need to focus on other key areas that can drive your lead generation and help boost sales and profits.

 Consider the following:

Optimize your Google Business Profile for Conversions

Google Business Profile, previously known as Google My Business, is a free tool, so use it for your business. Your Google Business Profile matters more than ever now because local searches and mobile searches are the real drivers for attracting and converting leads.

Optimize your Social Media Presence for Conversions

Make sure you fill out your business information on your Facebook page. This is a critical step to make it more conversion friendly. When people visit your FB page, they want information about your business, they want easy and quick ways to contact you and interact with your business.

Unless you do this, having a FB page for your business really won’t matter.

Optimize your Business Website for Conversions

Make sure every single page of you website, right from the homepage to the services page, your blogs, the testimonials section, your contact page is optimized for conversions. The reasoning is simple — if your website pages work great, then it can boost user experience and this in turn can help drive traffic to the desired destination on your site and encourage the exact customer action you want for your business.

So for example, if you want more phone calls, then one way to encourage this action from visitors is by adding “click to call button” on your website. FYI, we were the first ones to introduce a “click to call button” about six or seven years ago in this industry. And guess what, for some of our clients, this one single step has resulted in boosting conversion rates by about 50%.

You can do this with other customer contact options as well. So add a chat button or a texting button, or even an email option – what matters here is that customers are able to easily connect with your business.

To give you another example, business owners often tell me that they don’t get many online bookings. Why? Because they don’t have an online booking button. Or even if they do, then it’s only on the “Contact Us” page.

What you need to do is put it in the header of your website. It’s now in a place that visitors will immediately see when they land on your website. And just with that one adjustment, you can boost your online bookings.

A prime example of optimized website conversion is Amazon. Think why you keep going back to Amazon and you will know why they totally dominate the ecommerce space.

Why is CRO So Important?

I feel it is necessary to highlight the role of CRO in driving lead generation for businesses.

First things first, CRO is important because it can boost your Google organic rankings. How? CRO requires that you do a few things. It requires you to redesign your website as per Google’s guidelines. This makes your site more user friendly. When your site is user friendly, visitors will want to spend more time on your site compared to, say, a competitor’s site. In turn, Google will rank you higher in SERPs.

The higher your conversion rate, the better your ROI on your marketing spend and you can market anywhere you want, including offline marketing. You can market on several social media platforms. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and so on.

The best part is CRO is a one-time investment. Once your website, your Google My Business page, and your Facebook pages are optimized for conversions, then you don’t have to worry. Unlike Google Ads and SEO where you make payments every month, with CRO you just make that one-time investment.

To Wrap Up

The most important question before any business owner is this, “How can I boost revenue profits without increasing marketing dollars?

Is it possible? Yes, absolutely!

The strategies I have discussed here have one simple objective — to show you that you that you don’t have to waste a fortune on pay-per-click ads to drive sales and profits for your business.

There are just a few things to bear in mind. What I have discussed above is not rocket science so you can crack this easily. It will require some time and effort. Start today, start now!