Marketing

It’s getting increasingly hard to see a reasonable return from conventional meta and google advertising. I am paying close to $4 a click and probably only convert one in 50 clicks. Its just so competitive and becoming harder and harder to stand out. I’ve gotten almost nothing from every mail campaign I’ve done. I chalk the mailers and internet ads up to brand recognition. I want to be seen in my market even if its not always converting to sales. 

We are growing mostly from word of mouth customer referrals. I am offering a referral credit to customers and though most customers who are going to refer us aren't doing it for the credit, I have a few customers who dead set on earning those credits and remind me often. 

Personally, I would never work with a marketing company based on my past experiences with them. No offense to the ones on this platform as I have no experience directly with them. 

Hey ​@mfaust20 I’m one of Skimmer’s marketing partners, we handle marketing for local service businesses all over the country. We’ve also started our own lighting company here in NY, and the same tactics I have planned for this company apply to you as well. 

- Website with every service you offer listed and every service area you work in. FAQ-style blog posts answering customers most common questions.

- Google Business Profile setup. The key here is getting consistent new reviews on a weekly basis and having your customers mention the service they used you for. Taking this a step further, I have 1 GBP up now but will be setting up additional ones in other service areas i want to target so i can generate calls in other areas. Its a lot easier to show up in the maps in the immediate area vs having to stretch your visibility across an entire service area with just 1 google profile. Prominence and Proximity are key here.

- Google Local Service Ads - an extra spot to display your brand and pay per lead. The key to getting more leads here is never missing a phone call and rating the quality of the leads as you get them in. 

- Creating a profile for every main social Google allows you to connect to your google listing. Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Tik Tok, Pinterest. On top of that you should have claimed/verified profiles on Nextdoor, Patch, BBB, Yelp, Thumbtack, Houzz. All relevant for the pool industry. Try to send a few 5 star reviews to some of these profiles as well, not just Google. When someone prompts a Gemini or ChatGPT asking for a pool service, AI is looking at your company reputation across the board, not just google. 

- post on social a few times a week. The plan for me will be posting on Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok to start. Facebook and Instagram are the main ones. Tik Tok has become a search engine for people so its important to get content there. Those short form videos also index on Google search so they can be found by people here too. Everything home-related my wife goes to tik tok for.

- Facebook Ad - simple video ads running on Facebook and instagram talking about who we are, what we do + an offer. Start by testing 1 ad set, and minimum 3-5 creatives at $10/day to gather data and see what people resonate with before scaling. 

- Lead Handling - I built a Voice AI Agent to handle all inbound/outbound calls for me, 24/7. As soon as calls or leads come in the agent answers the call or calls/texts the lead right away to qualify and schedule them so we don’t miss out. The other benefit of handling calls 24/7 is so we can be open 24/7 on Google. If someone’s searching for a pool service at 9pm and your hours on Google say you’re closed but a competitor is open, that will help them show up higher because Google will prioritize companies that are open. 


These are some of the main pillars I plan on getting started with and suggest to our clients, among other things. Any questions feel free to reach out!