This is why getting machine maintenance and heavy equipment repair leads isn’t as hard as before: over the past few years, online searches for heavy machinery have increased exponentially. And with them, searches for services about maintenance and repair have gone up as well since you have people interested in the services. But the number of competitors has increased whatsoever.
This is why it has become critically important to prioritize digital marketing to differentiate yourself from the rest.
There are always new ways to reach potential heavy-equipment customers. How do you determine if the new methods are worth your time?
First, trust your business’s lead generation process if you want to get a piece of this cake. You need to test new programs and approaches and measure your results. This is the only way you will know what works and what doesn’t.
Although heavy equipment companies can employ many digital lead generation strategies, it can be challenging to choose the right ones. Also, the Internet is big today, but it doesn’t mean you should forget about your traditional marketing options considering you’re a company with local services.
The idea here is to go over the lead generation strategies that work for your niche and company to reduce the amount of time you need to find the ones you should try and test.
Thus, stay with us, and let’s go over the essential ones.
A Responsive, Robust Website is Essential
Potential clients will first look at your website when researching your services and how you can help them.
Your website must be responsive, robust, and comprehensive for this to work to ensure that potential clients find all the information they need and take the next step to contact you.
To make it seamless for prospects to locate your website, you should optimize it. Your website should include the following elements to do so:
- Straightforward navigation: A strong homepage should give viewers an overview of your offerings and provide clear links to other pages. People skim the text on web pages. To make it easy to understand, add bullets and call-out boxes. Use responsive design to ensure your navigation is easy to use on all devices.
- Comprehensive listing: A prospect interested in your services should be able to find the ones you offer in a list that makes it easier, and each service should lead to another page with more info about the one they are interested in.
- Photos: Images can speak louder than words and add clarity and visual appeal to text. You can invest in professional, high-quality images and add them to your website.
- Information about requesting services: It is crucial to clearly explain how your process works. Are you able to accept online appointments? Do you do more than maintenance and repairs? Do you deal with businesses directly? Site visitors will be more likely to click the next step if your services’ process is clear.
- Mobile-friendliness is a must. In 2021, 60% of all industry-related searches were done on mobile devices. Google’s mobile-first indexing means that sites that are not mobile-friendly have little or no chance of ranking.
Optimize Your Website for Search Engine Optimization
SEO (search engine optimization) refers to organizing your website for search engines and ensuring people can find you easily when using keywords related to your niche.
Once search engines have read your site, they will be able to show it to prospects who are interested and help you generate leads.
SEO is complex. We cannot go into all the details as you will learn it; it somehow keeps changing as well as new parameters and search engines’ algorithms tend to change. The basics, however, involve including keywords and previous optimization for your website and ensuring people stay in it.
Make sure your website’s technical aspects are optimized so that search engine bots can crawl it and understand what you have to say.
Take some time to look at your site from the client’s perspective. Is it easy for you to find what you need? Is it easy to find the nearest location? Does the website load slowly and take too long to navigate?
Google wants searchers to find the most relevant and valuable results. This is why interactions with your website by customers will have an impact on your ranking.
Complement It with PPC Campaigns
You might also consider PPC campaigns to attract sales-qualified leads to your website. Heavy machinery is competitive, and thus, local results can be hard to surpass when it comes to rankings.
PPC advertising allows your best prospects to find you online through online lead generation. PPC advertising is quick and easy, and it is quite cost-effective since you only pay when someone clicks on the ad.
PPC is an excellent option to increase your website traffic, improve lead quality, and increase your revenue. However, keep in mind it should not be the only strategy you use.
It is required to work in your SEO during this process, so your company monopolizes the top results for both. Also, being able to show at the top of the paid results will depend on how much you bill for a keyword.
Use Content Marketing
Content marketing refers to creating blogs, articles, files to download, photos, videos, graphics, and more content for your website.
Your content should be based on keywords you have identified in your research to get as many leads every day and ensure people can find you without much effort.
A blog is the best way to create content. You can use it to answer common questions and share industry news and other relevant information.
You can use articles to provide solutions. Articles can often be used to address questions that are more complex than simple ones. These pages can be used as pricing or category pages, equipment pages, and many other ways to enhance your website.
You can also provide specification sheets, usage histories, preventive maintenance manuals, user manuals, and condition reports to potential clients interested in repairing small details by themselves.
Videos can be a great lead generation strategy or addition to showing off your services and how you handle everything. Even if you only have the opportunity to take a video, you should go for it and then add more when you have time. Just make sure it is well-done and provides value.
Photos are another option people know about, and they are used to show equipment you have repaired, performed maintenance on, or just worked with.
After your equipment is cleaned and inspected, you can take photos to show it off from all angles. You can jump into the cockpit and under the hood to ensure prospects see all details.
Graphics allow you to discuss statistics, ideas, and other concepts engaging.
Just be creative with the content and remember how crucial it is for scaling your business.
Keep Social Media Profiles Up to Date
You are wrong to think social media is just for B2C businesses. Maintaining a presence on social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook can help you connect with potential customers in today’s digital world.
Whether your company works in heavy equipment, it is crucial to be active as clients can be found on those platforms, and considering they spend a lot of their time there, you want to be seen and found.
These are the social networks that can be most beneficial to your company:
- Facebook: it allows you to connect with almost two billion people worldwide. In the United States, its use is quite large, and you are bound to connect with a community with potential clients if you search for related groups in the niche.
You can use Facebook to connect with potential customers by sharing content on your site, answering their questions, and building relationships. This allows you to engage your primary customer group and get them on board with your website.
- Twitter: it allows you to promote your site’s content quickly. You can also share it with other Twitter users by liking it, retweeting it, and responding.
It does not matter what type of content you share. It is always good to give them useful or interesting information. This allows you to have a conversation about your business and what you offer.
- LinkedIn: it is the broadest professional social network in the world. LinkedIn is so large that many of its users are decision-makers in their homes or businesses. This means that you can reach people who have the power within an industry.
This makes LinkedIn extremely valuable for your heavy equipment and machinery business. LinkedIn allows you to post content relevant to their interests and encourages them to interact with your company. This will eventually lead to them visiting your website or contacting you requesting more info.
This converts them into leads, which means you have another customer through your digital marketing strategy. You are not done after turning those social media followers into leads.
You should be posting on your social media channels regularly. This can be done by sharing information from other websites that might interest your target audience, including testimonials, links to your services, and articles. You can delegate this task to a sales team in your company if you don’t have the time or energy to update your social media accounts.
Contribute to Relevant Publications
Each industry has its professional publication or more like a channel where they often make them.
Many people consider them a reliable resource to keep up with industry news and trends as a result since sources are considered carefully, and admins ensure they won’t distract people from what is actually true.
Make connections with these publications and contact the editorial staff to see if they are interested in guest articles or columns.
It may surprise you that they are open to this type of arrangement. Although you cannot talk about your service is superior to another, it will at least give your company and name some exposure.
If the publication is on the Internet, it can be an excellent opportunity to create high-authority links back to your site.
Expertise and Participating in Conventions and Conferences
You may be considered an expert in your field if your company is well-known. If this is the case, make sure you are open to interview requests.
Industry publications might be interested in speaking with you about your company and the field. Be prepared to share your knowledge if asked. Nobody wants to read a boring or unhelpful article. Therefore, you should be ready to share valuable, informative details.
Are you a regular attendee at significant industry conventions? This is a costly endeavor; therefore, heavy equipment service providers may be reluctant to pay the extra expense. It is worth putting aside some of your marketing budgets whatsoever.
These events can be a great way to connect with buyers or dealers and provide valuable content for your website and social media accounts.
Stay in Touch With Your Leads by Using Email
Heavy equipment has a long sales cycle even when it involves services since most people don’t need them on a daily basis. It is crucial to keep in touch with your leads throughout this process. You can do this via email marketing campaigns.
Newsletters, drip campaigns, and lead nurturing emails can be used to ensure that leads are not forgotten about your business and view your brand as a valuable source of information.
Regularly, send emails to remind customers that you are available for service and help with any equipment they have. Include information about your equipment and what you do in the email. Also, showcase anything unusual or new.
Although not everyone opens every email in a given period, over six months, at least 80 percent of contacts will have opened at most one email. Even if they do not open the email, they will still see your company’s name, which can be a reminder to them for the next time they need it.
A good email contains relevant information and is written well and carefully designed. It is also programmed and tested to work in email systems and mobile devices.
When sending emails, be sure to comply with the Anti-Spam Laws.
Anti-spam laws apply to any commercial message sent electronically, including emails and text messages. The law allows you only to send emails to recipients who have consented.
If a customer has requested a service from your company within the past 24 months, it is presumed that they have impliedly consented to receive emails. It is good to hire a sales team to avoid costly errors to ensure your emails look professional.
Identify Your Online Visitors
Website tracking software is now available, and you should utilize it.
It provides information about who visited your site and what pages they viewed. You can contact the person who visited your website after being notified.
Visitors should be able to fill out a form on every page to request information. You can send automated messages at predetermined times. The content is based on what pages visitors visited.
These messages can be sent as text messages, personal emails from salespeople or managers, or preprogrammed emails to go out on a set schedule. You can check who opened them and then follow up by calling.
Digital Advertising Branded
Paid search is a cost-effective way to generate quality leads, as we discussed earlier. It fills your sales funnel and brings equipment leads directly to you. It would also help run branded campaigns that show up in searches for your name and whom you represent.
It would help if you always paired your company’s name with another keyword. You do not want to spend much money on searches only for your company’s name, which no one knows about yet.
Advertise your brand name to ensure you occupy as much space as possible in search results for your brand name.
Paid search traffic should make up between twenty and thirty-five percent of all traffic to your site (brand, used, and new).
These results may not be returning in your lead generation strategy. It could be that you are missing branded campaigns. You can audit your process and make adjustments if necessary.
Customer Satisfaction Surveys and Prospect Lists
You should have a system to monitor your customer service and identify issues quickly.
A third party can conduct phone surveys to gather feedback from customers about their experience with your company. What you do to resolve any problems is more important than collecting customer surveys.
A solution can often turn a dissatisfied customer into a loyal one.
Ask for basic information such as name, company, number, and email address when they call for a quote. Online forms must include an email address as a mandatory field.
If your staff is not working, they can call the people who are prospects so far. You should establish a process for adding new prospects and customers to your email list and contact details.
Google My Business Is a Must
Optimizing your Google My Business (GMB) profile is essential for appearing in branded and organic searches.
You can display your GMB profile information on the right-hand side for searches. This is also known as the Knowledge Graph and Google Maps. Customers can find your website quickly, view customer reviews, get directions, click to call your business, and see your location details.
Claim your GMB profile and set each location you visit if you have not done so. You must ensure that your company name, address, and phone number are correct.
You will need to verify your address with Google to validate your claim. This is usually done by calling or sending a postcard.
Geotargeting Works
Knowing your customers and where they are coming from will help you target your ads more effectively and give you more income per buck. You can use your OEM territory boundaries and sales data to create geotargeting maps.
You can use these maps to inform your digital advertising strategies and even help you optimize your website.
Geotargeting is especially important if you offer services across states and have multiple locations. It allows Google to find you and ensure you show in those areas. To improve your Google Map and organic search rankings, include geographical areas in website copy.
It is an excellent time to review your digital strategy for heavy equipment when doing this. It is not easy to create a marketing strategy for heavy equipment to drive clients. Sometimes, it is essential to find a strong marketing partner and some assistance.
Just make sure you also take the time to learn things yourself, as you shouldn’t just outsource every detail in which you are making it easier for people to scam you.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Machine Maintenance & Heavy Equipment Repair Business
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Machine Maintenance & Heavy Equipment Repair Business Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Machine Maintenance Leads & Heavy Equipment Repair Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.