How to properly use a lead vendor for your Window Company

When is it the agency’s fault

As I mentioned earlier sometimes the agency / vendor is 100% at fault and there’s a couple situations where you can spot their mistake and here’s when it’s the agencies fault:

1. They just aren’t generating the Volume of leads they set as an expectation

Ah, the good ole overpromise & underdeliver

It’s very important that you have your discernment on high when you speak with any vendor since there is unfortunately a lot of agencies that promise the moon + the stars in a buy 1 get 2 deal but then they may miss the mark on lead price, volume, etc.

This is 100% the agency’s fault & you should blame them in this situation & move on with another home improvement marketing agency.

2. They are missing the mark on Cost Per Lead

Now it’s important that you get a lot more context before you drop the agency for this,

If you have just started, have little / no conversion history in your ad account, or have entered into a slow season normally for business (i.e Winter & Holidays)

Of course they’re not going to get a good CPL then, they should of course set that expectation but you should also expect that when marketing to homeowners you’re not marketing to just numbers on the screen

I’m sure it can seem like that at some point, but they’re real homeowners with real buying cycles, & real trust levels so it’s important to note you can’t just make magic happen during winter & get the same amount of customers as you do in Fall.

3. The leads come in expecting some crazy deal like “Free Windows” or “Government Grants” 

This is a big red flag when testing a new lead vendor for your window company on a pay-per-lead basis or really anything

If you see that the leads are coming in expecting some crazy deal;

(Now there has always been a handful of people who come in wanting free service since they’re [insert person])

But if that’s the majority of people then thats a big red flag that they’re running very aggressive angles (Meaning basically illegal & borderline non-compliant)

So if you see that the leads are mentioning a crazy deal (and it’s more than 10% of the people who come in) then there’s something fishy to ask them about.

4. The agency just isn’t bringing any leads

Now this one is very self explanatory but I wanted to add them in for the person who’s like “Hey this agency has spent $5,000 on our behalf and I haven’t heard a peep, is that still my fault”

No.

Unless it’s a brand new ad account or you’re still under 90 days then you’ll definitely be on the lower end of lead volume but there should at least be something within a week if you’re running Meta Ads.

PPC is totally different and I made a different blog about Meta Ads vs Google Ads

When is it your fault (And how to fix it)

Now lets cover when it’s your fault and lets get tactical about how to fix it, a couple situations where it’s your fault as the company & how to fix it are:

1. The leads just aren’t booking

Now it’s important to distinguish are you getting on the phone with them & they’re saying they don’t remember submitting their information or are you just not getting a hold of them, lets dive into both

a. They are saying they don’t remember submitting their information

If this is happening it’s something in your following up process

If as soon as the lead comes in you aren’t calling within 1 minute since calling (leads within 5 minutes is outdated);

The average person doesn’t have a long enough attention span to remember submitting so if this is happening it’s 100% your follow up & speed-to-lead that’s at play here causing people to not know who you are.

This isn’t fixed by changing platforms (For the most part), it’s your speed-to-lead and I cover that in-depth in the article above.

Pro: This at least shows your phone numbers aren’t showing up as “Spam Likely” which is a different issue some companies fall into without ever noticing.

b. You’re not even getting them on the phone

This issue is also caused by speed-to-lead but here’s where you differentiate between calling later than 5 minutes, which if you aren’t calling within 5 minutes the easiest lever to pull to get more appointments is call within 30 seconds – 1 minute, and your phone system

• You may not be calling the leads within 1 minute which you need to heavily focus on for every single lead
  • If it’s out of hours then setup automated texts + possibly an AI outbound dialer to catch up with these leads
  • Also you need to ruthlessly follow up, not everyone answers the phone right away but if you call & text a minimum of 6-7 times in the first day you increase the chances of getting in touch with them later down the line
• The other issue is that your phone system may be flagged
  • When the big phone carriers see that your phone has been making a lot of outbound calls that last a short amount of time your phones can get flagged as a potential telemarketer which you can’t really control but you need to have multiple phone numbers + if you have the budget for it a software for the phone number health so you know where you’re being flagged.

2. The leads aren’t turning into jobs

Another huge issue we see and it’s mainly due to a lack of sales process

If your salesman aren’t being trained on how to sell projects, learning a framework / outline for selling, & implementing this out in the field we’ve literally seen companies waste $$,$$$ consistently simply not having sales down

This isn’t an issue the agency can control since at the end of the day, the marketing department only gets people in the door but it’s up to you to convert them into money for the company so it’s SUPER important that you train sales reps to actually sell

If you don’t have a sales process currently consider this your sign to hire a sales trainer since you’ll save more money learning how to sell full priced projects than discounting every project just to close it

I honestly can’t give any advice on closing projects since we’re the marketers who get people in the door but one thing I notice little of when it comes to any sale is the quoting process

If you aren’t able to quote in person you’re automatically losing deals due to people not wanting to buy a $10,000 window replacement over text / email

And if you are only sending your quotes via email, you’re losing EVEN MORE sales simply sending the quote to a place that might not even get to their inbox let alone be noticed

I just want you to ask yourself the question of, ‘Would you buy a car if the salesman said “Sure thing, i’ll send over the papers & pricing over email” then they call you a couple days later to ask why you haven’t signed & paid over email?’

You aren’t selling much further than that when it comes to price and even worse they won’t enjoy it like they would enjoy the car so it’s so important that you actually have a salesman book another appointment if you can’t give them a price right there and then and close the deal in-person

Next Steps

So after reading this you’re set on the agency being in the wrong the best thing to do is have a conversation with them, be reasonable with the current circumstances you’re in since as I mentioned marketing efforts won’t be as strong as they are in Winter as they are in Fall,

Then if it’s not the agency’s fault in terms of ad account or seasonality; put the agency / vendor on a 30-60-90 window where they either need to get it together or you hire another.

If it’s your fault all along then for your sake just do whatever you can to patch the hole in your funnel so that you can actually get what you’re paying these agencies for and from there you can scale up with affiliates, adding on more agencies, etc.

 

If you’re interested in hearing about new options or even jumping on a call with us to hear more about what Stoymedia offers for window companies like yourself book a call with us to learn more about stoymedia.