I had the pleasure of meeting a very nice gentleman recently. The owner of his own mid-sized residential construction firm, he self-admittedly had never marketed in more than twenty years of business. Our conversation progressed well and he mentioned that he was actually quite interested in discussing marketing and marketing strategy with me because his business suffered this past year, as did many firms. Although he was interested in marketing he very quickly dismissed the word branding…he knew for sure that wasn’t what he needed.

He continued to list a few things he’d done to market himself.

• He launched his first ever website last year. It didn’t “bring in enough sales” so he decided there was definitely a problem with the design and therefore redesigned it.
• He signed up with a few local referral services that pre-qualify leads for him and take a cut off the top of the contract amount if a job works out.
• Last but not least, he’s been purchasing pay-per-click advertising, such as Google AdWords and the likes.

The overarching theme in our conversation was that he wasn’t very pleased with any of his results. He then told me a few things that he knew he needed – Search Engine Optimization was at the top of list. He was determined that Search Engine Optimization was the key to unlock the hidden potential in his contracting company’s website.

SEO will not do the trick.

His missing ingredient is not a tactic, it’s a strategy. For the first time in more than twenty years, he is marketing his company out of necessity, but with no clear direction. He has decided to focus on all of the things that people tell him he should be doing because they are important ingredients to marketing success…but he’s missing the one major ingredient that makes things stick together – eggs.

Marketing strategy and brand strategy are the ingredient that hold your “dish” together. With no clear message, brand platform, unique value, established goals/metrics, etc. his marketing efforts are scattering around the area without reaching the right clients or telling them why he’s the right choice for them.

I hope to have a chance to partner with this company sometime in the future. I think for now though, he is busy shopping for other ingredients.