Should I call?In part one of this post, we took a look at the challenges a home remodeler or contractor might have at getting prospects to contact them and fill out a form from their landing pages. Before I go through the process and list all the questions our Persona might have, I want to ask you who do you think is the most successful SEM advertiser of all time? If you answer Amazon,  then I would have to agree with you. In fact, Amazon was so successful in their SEM campaigns that Google had to create PLAs just to claw back some market share. Many people switched from searching on Google for products and now start their searches on Amazon instead. How did they do it?

Amazon started by building pages that were designed to help people buy their product not just to sell products.  Let’s start with reviews. a huge majority of people today will head to Amazon to read through the helpful reviews before they complete any purpose online or offline. As you scroll through the rest of the Amazon’s product pages, you will find numerous features to persuade you that the product you’re looking at is the right one for you. Once they have the landing page, then they can create an ad to drive you to the page and then look at the keywords and queries that are relevant for that ad.

So how would we create a buyers legend for an SEM campaign, especially for a complex sale. As we wrote in part 1:

To build a buyer legend for search you must perform a pre-mortem. We begin by having your team imagine that the customer has completed her (or his) buying journey and either didn’t buy at all, didn’t buy what you sell (in favor of an alternative solution), or bought from a competitor.

Now ask yourselves:

What went wrong that led to these outcomes? Think of Murphy’s law. Now think up fixes, resolutions, and workarounds for each failure point.

We can assume from what we know of Don that if people hire him, they will love him and tell others and that will drive people to go back online and search for him after the recommendation and continue this positive circle of business. The part that is not clear is:

  • What questions do you think Samantha might have before she even calls or completes an online form for a contractor to come to her house? Might she not call if she does not get some critical ones answered? It’s possible.

Now we start to outline our experience from the end moving forward, step by step, to the first step.

Here is a list of the questions our persona, Samantha, might have before contacting any particular contractor.

  • What parts of the area do you work in (for example do you work in the south part of the city or north part).
  • Before and After Images – What is quality of work and design? It’s easy to show pretty after results what people want to get a sense of what you started with.
  • Show me multiple color schemes, styles. Not everyone wants black and white kitchens they may want some extreme colors for example.
  • What does the remodeling process look like, possible timelines, pricing, financing. 
  • Explanation of process – each part of the jobs possibility…. IE- counters, backsplash, etc.
  • Are you trustworthy? Insured, bonded? What about reviews and recommendations?
  • How to get started – should I do something first?
  • When I call for appointment what will happen later? Will you show up and have samples and ideas discussed in the house?
  • Vendors to start with…. If I should start shopping, who do you recommend?
  • When you fill out an inquiry, what should I expect. How long will it be till you respond? who will be responding?

Go ahead and do a search for four kitchen remodelers in your town.  Click through on some of the ads and organic listings. Did you find any vendor who answered at least 80% of these questions effectively? There are lots of opportunities out there, even in your category.

So what question do your personas need answered before they buy from you? Contact us if you need help answering this question. 

Please share if you think others would benefit.