Category Archives: Marketing

Image Tags Work Behind the Scene to Market Decorative Concrete

Posted on by
1

Texas Star engraved and stained into a bad section of a Boston driveway

Reviewing the latest activity across the web, it appears you have become believers about posting  images of your decorative concrete jobs on your Facebook Fan pages and websites, blogs, plus the photo display/storage resources such as Flickr. Photos on your website and public pages are indexed by Google and can be found most easily by searching Google Images and using keywords which are part of the description, title, Alt text or URL for specific photos.

Visually minded people turn to Google Images to get a picture of what they want.  They know good decorative concrete engraving when they see it and will use those images to check out a contractor.

The images are sorted by data (key or important words) that can be found in the webpage or blog post surrounding the area where the picture is used. In particular, the Alt Text, which is a Meta Tag used by Google for search engine indexing, is important for ensuring your images show up when people search for decorative concrete using keywords.  I know that’s kind of technical, but just think of “Meta” as “Data about data.” Keywords, captions, titles, descriptions and Alt Text are all various forms of data about what the image your posting is all about.

As an example, let’s say you’re a decorative concrete contractor in Boston, and you installed a Texas star on a customer’s driveway and you took a picture of it and are now posting it to your blog… we’ll title this picture the Texas Star Driveway in Boston. Start by saving the picture as texasstarboston.jpg. Most blogging software allows you to upload and insert pertinent pictures directly from your computer to the article that you are currently working on… use this feature, and you will notice that you are asked to fill in the Title, Alternate Text (Alt Text), Caption and Description of the image.   Special thank you to David Larson of Advanced Concrete Staining in New Braunfels, TX for letting us work with his unique rendering of a Texas Star pattern on a concrete repair project.  David has a special affinity for the Texas star and works it into many of his artistic designs. The image has tags that imply the engraving is located in Boston, Texas, but that is only for ‘pretend’ and my literary license so you can see how tags and descriptions work.

Keywords that people might use when searching for these images could be Boston, decorative concrete engraving, or Texas Star.

What we can take away:  Contractors are doing a good job of putting photos in their internet marketing. Your next customer could find you using Google images, especially if you put your key words in the file name, image title box and either blog or complete the extended description boxes that are part of the upload system.

You can learn more about marketing your decorative concrete services by clicking on the Marketing category in the right hand sidebar of this blog.  Or you can come to the Discovery and Training Seminar at Engrave-A-Crete.  In the state of the art Missouri facility, a lively session on marketing is part of the training.  Call 800-884-2114 today for more information or request information at Engraveacrete.com, available 24/7 for your convenience.

Add Professional Glossy Brochures to your Decorative Concrete Marketing Strategy

Posted on by
Reply

Custom Promotional Brochures

You can have a beautiful tri-fold brochure with a theme that showcases your business while being clear about decorative concrete.

We’ve worked up a package that lets you have economical marketing brochures without stress and strain of creating the layout.

With 3 great themes to choose from you won’t have to worry about cookie cutter designs. Working with Sherry, the graphics designer at Engrave-A-Crete, your brochures can be set up to represent your business. Your logos and tag lines can be included while the text can be personalized for your services.

Once you’re happy with the final design they will be professionally printed and shipped to your door, all for one low price.

You can stay focused on engraving.

Engrave s.r.o Brochure

Engrave s.r.o Brochure

The example brochure features Engrave s.r.o, (Vladimir Hanzi, Czechoslavia). The specifics were worked out in Missouri and emailed to Vladimir who had them translated and printed there. We were excited to see the results of this international project. We love to work with engravers in any country.

Call 1-800–884-2114 with questions about the brochures. Ask for Sherry, extension 111. Get yourself a quality tool to use in your marketing strategy.

One Way to Use the Decorative Concrete Idea Book from Engrave-A-Crete

Posted on by
Reply

The Concrete Engraving Idea Book is full to the brim with examples of beautiful decorative concrete. There is a wealth of information about the colors and techniques used. The Idea Book, in pdf download format, is a gift to you and customers from Engrave-A-Crete.

Use The Idea Book to help your customers get a vision for their own concrete.

When your customers want brick, they can see pages of projects using brick in every imaginable design along with examples of popular brick colors. The same is true for borders, cobblestone, Ashlar slate, flagstones and more.

Engravers can print out The Idea Book and use it as a portfolio of possibilities, and change pages in their portfolio when updates are entered, add their contact information on the closing page.

When you have a visual marketing tool as vital as The Idea Book, your credibility with customers increases. They know that you’ve seen what they want; that you understand.

In some markets, decorative concrete engraving is an unknown concept. Customers just do not understand how their project will look when it is finished. The Idea Book helps them bridge the gap of the unknown. You and the customer get on the same page earlier in the planning and stay on the same page using the examples in The Idea Book.

“Ideas won’t keep: something must be done about them.”
- Alfred North Whitehead

The Idea Book isn’t going away. Nor is it going to ‘spoil’ — it will keep. You are the key to “something must be done.”– you must make use of the Concrete Engraving Idea Book to increase your business.

Three Secrets of Engrave-A-Creter, Super Hero | Decorative Concrete Engraving Success

Posted on by
Reply

Landing lightly on the patio, cape flowing over his shoulders, you see Engrave-A-Creter! A super hero who owns a successful and ‘off the charts’ decorative concrete engraving business.

How does he do it?

By treating customers and leads appropriately, connecting with them and building trust.

It’s not hard to be a decorative concrete superhero yourself.

Just be sure to follow through with three things in regards to those who’ve initiated contact with your business:

  •  Return phone calls.
  •  Follow-up on website contact forms.
  •  Answer emails.

A decorative concrete superhero doesn’t look at any of these actions as chores that get in the way of actual staining and engraving. He knows that the lifeblood of any successful business is a constant stream of new leads coming in.

Thankfully, these three tasks are easy to manage as part of your work day.

Returning calls is essential to good business. A decorative concrete superhero returns them as soon as possible to acknowledge the call and get the conversation started. He’s ready with some preliminary information that callers will want before they decide to become a customer.

He follows-up on submissions to the website contact form. This is made easier when the information goes directly to his cell phone so he has less risk of missing an inquiry. The forms are secure and often have a space for the user to leave a message or some questions. Better yet, the form could be connected to an auto-responder which takes care of immediate contact for him.

Answer email promptly. Be on the ball about checking email frequently so that messages don’t gather dust.

You know the secrets now, and you know that you could apply them to market your decorative concrete business, using online tools to provide greater service to prospects and customers. You had better begin thinking about what color you want your cape to be when you become an Engrave-A-Creter, super hero.

If you are at the prospective stage of a decorative concrete career, call 800-884-2114 today to learn how you can begin a your own business. Someone will answer your call. Or use the convenient online form available 24/7 on the Engrave-A-Crete website for your convenience. Someone will call you to get that information on the way.

Crowing Over Twitter Possibilities | Marketing Decorative Concrete

Posted on by
Reply

Don’t be chicken about using Twitter to market your decorative concrete business.

In the fast-paced, useful guerrilla marketing session included in the Engrave-A-Crete Discovery and Training Seminar, Paul (Our marketing and web development guy) tells students about the benefits of social media marketing.  Twitter is a valuable social media marketing tool. 

With only 140 characters to state your message, you will have to learn to write concisely, without rambling.  It helps to think in headlines instead of long descriptions.

There are tools to help you manage your Twitter use. Some services that are popular and work easily include:

  • Hootsuite.com.
  • SocialOomph.com.
  • TweetDeck;com.
  • Ping.fm.

All four have free versions geared to small businesses just like yours. Tutorials walk you through specific tools.  These services want you to win.

The greatest appeal of these Twitter tools lies in their capacity to let you schedule the update (tweet) into the future.  You might have 20 minutes in the evening when you could set up  posts for the next day.  The post would update automatically while you are engraving.

The people who follow you are invaluable — they talk about you offline.  Posting consistently with information about you and decorative concrete will attract followers. When followers “re-tweet” or repeat your post, it helps to expand your reach.  When you receive a re-tweet, you should reply with at least a thank you. From these exchanges, relationships grow.

But the Twitter benefit that impresses me most is the way search engines (Google) use the posts as content.  Suppose you work around Memphis, Tennessee. When a homeowner or business searches for “decorative concrete in Memphis Tennessee“, your Twitter post will join your other Internet activity, drawing attention to you.

Specific tweets on Twitter seem to be available for 4-5 days. Then they ‘fade’. But, they stay in the search engines’ for much longer.

How you work Twitter depends on your interest in marketing. A daily post about your business is very good; 10 posts per day spaced at least 15 minutes apart are effective. At Engrave-A-Crete, the statistics show that most of the response for our updates come in the later afternoon and evening. I like to schedule tweets every half hour, beginning no earlier than noon and going till midnight.

Start where everyone else does, with a Twitter account and no followers. Put “Engraveagcrete” in the search box.  Follow us and we will follow you back. After that — follow your heart. Putting ‘decorative concrete’ into the search box will let you know who else is thinking about what you think about all the time.

Remember recent politics —  President Obama used Twitter to positive advantage for his campaign while Congressman Weiner’s use brought him down.  Use Twitter and other social media wisely for business. Post to the benefit of your business and grow a decorative concrete career worth crowing about on Twitter.