Which Marketing Investment Delivers the Highest ROI in the Consumer Service Industry

In a service consumer industry quality leads propel the business and the chase for more inquiries is an instant challenge for marketers.  With 20+ years of working in this sector – from remodeling companies to real estate, dentists, and CPAs, we had an opportunity to change the scale of operations for many. It is the most rewarding part of our business.  It allows us, and most importantly our customers, to grow and expand their markets or offerings.  You came to read this article looking for actual answers and we promise to deliver it, to the best of our experience and knowledge.  Whether you are an owner with limited advertising resources or a large corporation with a solid marketing budget that may just not be delivering results, you are most likely looking for fresh avenues to generate more leads.

How to generate more leads for your business?

It doesn’t always mean to spend more.  It all comes down to where you place your investments, how well you are tracking the results and what your overall cost per lead per source is. You possibly are not doing exactly the above, but since we have for many years, we can generally predict an average cost per lead per advertising source. Our observations will vary based on a location and service offered, but in the last 5 years, this source has been #1 lead generator with the lowest ROI across all of the channels for our clients.

Your Web & Digital Presence

It’s safe to say that the vast majority of your leads come though your website unless your web presence is nonexistent.  In that case, you can skip reading the remaining part of this article and invest in a well-designed website as a first step in improving your business.  That part of your digital presence does not mean that the site is just a vessel to deliver the lead, it most often defines how a consumer sees your company, forms an initial opinion about you business and makes a decision to engage with your organization. Just a website is also not a guarantee that your inquires will improve.  You have to assure that it performs organically, and if you’re just starting our with SEO, that you support it with Google and social ads.

SEO Performance Trumps all Other Efforts

If your Google search result for the local area you are serving ranks in the top 3 for the services you are offering, you are winning the SEO game. That is amazing and the best way to continue your success is to keep your site fresh, up to date and accurate. This is not the case for many. The SEO (Search Engine Optimization) area is difficult, very highly competitive, especially in the consumer service industry. Partner up with an SEO company that is knowledgeable, honest, and can show you actual results of their success.  There are many unreliable options so do your due diligence before hiring an expert. Improving your organic SEO can ultimately change your entire business.  This is an investment well worth making.

Google Ads

No matter how amazing your organic presence on search engine results page is, investing in Google Ads is always a good decision. You don’t need to spend your entire budget here, but even when ranking organically at #1, there might be 3 search results that display in front of you. Well-built search ads will generate legitimate leads so there’s no reason not to invest.  And the additional traffic generated to your site just delivers more local exposure. Display ads on the other hand can generate a good amount of traffic at a lower cost, but the conversions are generally much lower.

Social Ads

Find a platform that works for you.  Remember that your ads should lead back to your site.  Make the contact form easily accessible. Social advertising is a great way to improve the traffic volume on your website so an investment into ads give you benefits beyond branding and lead generation.

At the end, all the marketing efforts lead to your website and that is most often when the actual conversion happens. Web leads can be produced at a much lower ROI than radio or TV advertising based-leads.  Invest into your website and you are guaranteed to see the results.  Don’t expect SEO improvements to happen overnight, but the sooner you start the better chance of improving lead generation yet this year.