5 Red Flags Contractors Should Look Out For When Hiring A SMMA For Your Contractor Business

 

Hey there contractor community! My Name is Reggie from The Contractor Social Media Guru & in today’s blog post we’re going to be taking a look at 5 red flags contractors should be on the lookout for when signing up with a Social Media Marketing Agency ( SMMA )

With 2023 approaching there are 100’s of fly-by-night agencies out trying to get their hands on your hard earned $$$. There’s a great chance they’re already in your DM’s promising 15 - 20 more leads a month or in your comments section telling you to check your message requests.

Without wasting any time further, here are our top 5 red flags to look out for.

#1 Your Contractor Social Media Marketing agency has no experience working with your niche.

Social media can prove to be a tricky game, especially in a niche as competitive as what contracting is. Another hard pill to swallow is that the generic “Our Services” type content just doesn’t do the trick anymore.

What happens more often than not when recruiting a SMMA that has no experience in your niche is the following:

• Your social media gets flooded with irrelevant, filler-type content that absolutely nobody wants to engage with.

• Misinformation often finds its way to the public through your brand due to a lack of knowledge & understanding of your niche. This destroys rapport within your local service area.

• Your marketing efforts become fruitless leading to a waste of marketing budget which could have been allocated to other avenues of marketing such as OOH Marketing ( Out Of House ) or Ads.

Making sure you find an agency that understands you specific niche in contractors is vital to ensuring the success of your efforts. Becoming irrelevant is the last thing you want in the social media space for you or your business so make sure your SMMA know their stuff!

#2 The Contractor Social Media Marketing agency doesn’t provide you with a report at the end of the month.

Marketing seems pointless without statistics doesn’t it? The truth is without analytics & metrics there is no way your contractor company can make informed decisions about its marketing efforts. Finding an agency that is 100% transparent with your results is key to building a stronger marketing campaign to carry your contractor business into the future. 

Many agencies aren’t open to sharing your results with you & some even forge results or deliver half reports, leaving analytics out which might make the contractor take his business elsewhere.

Below we’ve listed a few analytics for Facebook, Instagram & Google My Business that you should ask for at the end of every month!

Facebook

1. Reach ( The amount of people that saw your content over a specific timeframe )

2. Page Visits ( The amount of people who clicked on your Facebook page and scrolled through it. )

3. Page Likes ( The amount of people who liked or followed your page over a specific timeframe. )

Instagram

1. Reach ( The amount of people that saw your content over a specific timeframe )

2. 
   

3. Page Visits ( The amount of people who clicked on your Facebook page and scrolled through it. )

4. Page Likes ( The amount of people who liked or followed your page over a specific timeframe. )

Google My Business

1. What people searched to find you ( The top phrases prospects searched to find you. )

2. Profile interactions ( The amount of people who checked your profile. )

3. Calls ( The amount of times prospects called through your listing. )

4. Messages ( The amount of messages received from prospects. )

5. Bookings ( The amount of appointments that were booked through your listing

6. Directions ( The amount of times people clicked on the “Directions” button on your profile. )

7. Website Clicks ( The amount of times people clicked on your website through your profile. )

Find an agency that is transparent & willing to go through your results with you on a monthly basis to recap & improve.

#3 They don’t meet with you on a regular basis to discuss goals.

As mentioned at the top of the blog, “there are 100’s of fly-by-night agencies out trying to get their hands on your hard earned $$$.”

Before committing to a long term business relationship with any SMMA you need to make sure that you have the opportunity to jump on a video call with them to discuss your business at any time.

An agency that truly cares about its clients won’t think twice about scheduling a Zoom call with you to discuss your problems or goals. The secret sauce to successful social media is authenticity and this is best represented by SMMA’s that talk to their clients more than once a month.

Things change and that applies to your business goals too! Find an agency that is open to working with you on them at your pace.

#4 The Contractor Social Media Marketing agency has turned off their reviews tab on their Facebook page.

We all know how important reviews are to our business and we all know how a bad one can destroy your businesses rapport. SMMAs are the same and sadly there is a way around it for agencies that are doing bad work.

A while back Facebook brought in the option to remove your reviews tab from your business page. This allows pretty much anyone to hide bad reviews from potential clients. The plus side to this is that their good reviews ( Which were probably bought ) won't be seen anymore.

Before getting involved with an agency it's vitally important to check their reviews. It’s not often that you find someone taking the time to write a bad review for fun.

#5 The Social Media Marketing agency outsources their content creation on platforms like Fiverr.

Common practice in the marketing space for many agencies is to outsource their work to freelancers on Fiverr or other platforms. While this isn’t always a problem you do stand the chance of being misrepresented by a company that doesn't understand you as a business owner or your contractor business goals.

Working with an agency that keeps your content creation in house gives you the following advantages:

• Quick changes or adjustments to content

• Higher quality content ( No filler-type nonsense )

• Tailored content that resonates with your target market on multiple levels.

We strongly believe that having the above advantage over your competitors is the secret to sailing your social media in the right direction. Often last minute content needs to go out & waiting another week simply won’t. 

A fine example of this would be hyper targeted content to neighborhoods that got hit by hail or last minute competitions.

Before We Close Off……

Before I go I’d like to point out that none of the above was written with the intention of attacking agencies or freelancers. The intention of this blog was purely to ensure that contractors know what to look out for.

As most of you who read this blog already know, I am dedicated to making sure contractors win in the social media space & making sure they don’t waste money is a vital part of what I do.

On a closing note, I’m here to help. If you’d like to connect with me to talk about your contractor business’s social media, all you have to do is click the big “Book Now” button below.

Alternatively drop me a DM on “Facebook” Or “Linkedin”