Your customers use credit cards to purchase almost everything, so most will expect you to accept them as well. While disaster mitigation and restoration isn’t the same as going out to dinner or getting a haircut, your customers will see it as just another expense. Accepting credit cards will likely lead to more customers and more business in the long term.

Think about your own personal shopping habits. Even if you choose to pay in cash, what store, restaurant, or gas station doesn’t accept credit cards? And that doesn’t even include the number of businesses that also accept electronic payments like Apple Pay, Google Pay, or PayPal.

We are extremely excited to announce that we have hired Corey Hammond as our new Chief Marketing Officer. Corey has an extensive background in digital marketing, client acquisition, and scaling teams.

We are committed to you – our customers – and Corey’s addition to the team will allow us to grow our lead generation network, improve coverage areas, and generate more water damage, fire restoration, mold removal, biohazard cleanup, and carpet cleaning leads.

The average person spends two hours a day on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites. If you aren’t marketing your disaster mitigation or restoration business on social media, you are missing out on a huge audience. A common misconception is that you need to use every single social media platform or post every second of the day to be successful. Armed with these social media basics, you can improve your brand awareness and get more jobs with just a few minutes of work each day.

We spend a lot of time talking to restoration contractors and one of the most frequent questions get asked is: how do customers pick a contractor. While some customers may call the first company they find, others are likely to spend a few minutes researching contractors. In our experience, there are a few key things customers consider when picking a restoration contractor.

Paid search is a type of advertising where you create ads that target specific keywords on search engines like Google and Bing. Unlikely other advertising methods, you only pay when a customer clicks on your ad. For this reason, paid search is often called pay per click (PPC) or cost per click (CPC).

With paid search, you target your customers based on the keywords or phrases they are searching for. Your text ads appear above the organic search results for those search terms and link to a landing page. On mobile devices, click to call ads allow customers to call you directly without visiting your landing page.

 
Whether you’re buying our disaster mitigation, restoration, or home services leads or generating your own leads, you need to know how to convert those jobs. In order to help you close more calls, we asked our good friend Lisa Lavender to share some of her called handling wisdom with us.

As Chief Operating Officer and Co-owner of both Restoration Technical Institute and Berks, Fire, Water Restorations,

You probably use several different marketing channels to generate leads, but do you really know if they are successful? Connecting contractors with customers is our business, so we understand the value of every phone call. With our new call tracking system, you can now track the performance of your marketing and advertising campaigns.

As a business owner, you can choose to pass on jobs at your discretion. However, turning down too many jobs can negatively affect your business. Obviously, you don’t get paid when turning away calls, but it could also result in negative referrals, like “Don’t bother calling Rudy’s Restoration, he always passes on jobs.” If you’re using our lead generation system, you could be billed for turning away calls if they fit the right conditions.

Search engine optimization – better know as SEO – is one of the hottest marketing buzzwords in the last decade. Despite its popularity, SEO is still a mystery for many people, including a lot of contractors. While SEO is a complex topic, our high-level overview will help contractors learn how they can use SEO to increase leads and get more jobs.

Success is based on building good relationships with your customers. Your technicians are the instrument, but also the face of your company. While they likely take a practical approach to restoration and cleanup, they also need good communication and customer service skills to interact with your customers. Developing a restoration training plan is the easiest way to develop their skills.