Jay Diamond, Vice President of Sales for Home Technology and Home Goods Division, Netsertive, chatted with CE Pro about the advantages of locally targeted digital marketing. The company originated because a North Carolina dealer wanted greater local presence, and says integrators could be wasting more than half of their digital budgets these days.
Why is digital marketing so important for home systems integrators, in particular?
Diamond: The customer path to installation has changed dramatically, even in the past five years. Today’s clients are much more tech-savvy than ever before. Many integrators’ businesses were built on referrals but to attract the next generation of clients, integrators must be found online.
Eight-seven percent of clients will use search engines and websites during their path to installation. Put yourself in your clients’ shoes. What do they see when they go online and start researching your products and services? Do they see your business or your competition?
If you are not found at the top of the search results, you are giving business away to competitors.
Netsertive’s Home Systems Integrator Digital Marketing Program targets local customers. Why is this the best game plan rather than a broader reach?
Diamond: Every integrator is unique, which is why Netsertive’s digital campaigns are custom-tailored to each business so they can be found first online in their local markets for the products and services that matter most. Our goal is to generate awareness of their services and products, drive install-ready clients to their website, and capture more leads.
Localization is important, with every asset shouting the name and location of the integrator to nearby clients.
Selecting an audience for a campaign based on a given target market is a key part of our business and helps reduce wasted marketing spend.
For instance, we draw circles around businesses to geographically target potential clients within a given radius. This is important because you don’t want to be paying for clicks from people that will never become clients.
Chasing the wrong keywords, audiences, or running ineffective ads can quickly cut into advertising dollars and your ROI. On average, we found that clients that switched to Netsertive from the DIY route or another digital provider were wasting up to 50 percent or more of their digital budgets.
Do you narrow the reach even more? If so, what are the parameters (household income, etc.)?
Diamond: Depending on the advertising channel and goals of the business, we have a number of different targeting capabilities that include keyword matching, demographics, topical placements, affinity targeting and more.
These audiences go beyond keywords, so we can put the right ads in front of high-intent clients even if they haven’t looked for your business previously but would be interested in your products and services.
What specific services are included in the Netsertive program?
Diamond: Our current product offering includes Search Engine Marketing, Display Advertising, Social Media Advertising and Video Advertising. All of these channels work together to drive higher-quality, bottom-of-the-funnel local traffic using data-driven industry insights.
Our digital marketing intelligence technology leverages the collective wisdom of the custom A/V industry and helps create collaborative campaigns that drive new clients on the phone and in your doors.
How does the message reach an integrator’s potential customers?
Diamond: Through our targeting efforts, we are able to deliver the right messages, to the right clients, at the right time online as they go through the different stages in the path to installation.
For considered purchases like a home theater or custom lighting installations, it can take two months or longer from when a client recognizes they have a need to when they make the actual purchase. During this time, they will consult more than 24 sources of information – friends and family, search engines, social networks, and related websites, etc.
Related: 3 Key Trends to Turn Clicks into Clients
Reaching them in the early stages of their decision process and establishing a relationship as an integrator they can trust is a crucial way to move early stage leads through the sales funnel and toward selecting your business for the installation.
Reaching clients earlier in this process will likely shorten your sales cycle, improve your sales team’s efficiency and increase revenue.
After the target market has been identified, what tools does Netsertive offer integrators to follow through with potential customers?
Diamond: Once a potential client clicks on a digital ad, they are sent to a relevant place on the integrator's website. Landing pages are important because they provide a single area of focus for prospective clients and a clear call-to-action for specific content or offers in the digital ad.
To help improve conversions, Netsertive can also create custom landing pages for offers and campaigns that help convert digital traffic into qualified leads.
Additionally, all of our digital ads contain a trackable phone number, so we can deliver reporting on how many calls were generated by a digital campaign.
With call tracking, conversion tracking, real-time lead alerts and access to our reporting platform, integrators have high visibility into which campaigns are bringing in the most leads, calls, emails, and form fills so they can invest more into what is working.
How is this program different from other digital marketing programs?
Diamond: We’ve helped hundreds of integrators achieve greater levels of success through the power of digital advertising. Each client receives a dedicated client success expert that provides one-on-one attention to drive results.
That expert is backed by a team of product specialists, analysts, strategists, and technical teams, ensuring you have comprehensive support at all times, whether you choose to use existing brand campaign templates or build your own local campaign.
What sort of background/knowledge of the home systems integration market does Netsertive have that makes it a good choice for integrators?
Diamond: We’ve served integrators for more than nine years, and originally started because of a local integrator in the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., area that wanted a better online presence. Our digital marketing solution is unrivaled in the home technology space, validated by our customer retention rate and a team of dedicated experts.
We work with top-tier brands and all the key trade/buying groups in the four major industries that we support.
What is the cost to use the Netsertive program?
Diamond: We offer flexible pricing that unlocks one or more digital marketing channels for each integrator. Every campaign is tailored to each client based on their business goals, what they’re advertising, the size of their market, and more.
The best way to start is to have a no-obligation consultation with one of our audio video experts at (800) 940-4351 or visit Netsertive.com to learn more.
What is the dealer success rate?
Diamond: Due to our technology and collective learnings from the campaigns we run, our clients' search ads on Google and Bing get 4X the clicks versus the industry average of 1 percent. Additionally, 53 percent of our integrators paid $50 or less for a conversion (form fill or phone call) in 2017.
Dealers can learn more about our audio video campaign performance by getting a copy of our 2017 digital marketing intelligence inside a single, simple infographic here.
