In case you missed it, running a business costs money. You pay for tools and platforms, supplies, employee salaries, and more. While you can't always reduce those costs, there are things you can do to get more out of what you are spending.
Lots of things.
So in this post, I'm going to share 12 ways to increase your ROI so you can get more mileage from your existing budget and grow your revenue.
Here are some ways to get more out of what you're spending on marketing efforts like ads, lead aggregators, your website, email platforms, and more.
There are zillions of marketing strategies out there, but the core marketing strategies are core for a reason: they will give you the most bang for your buck. If you're looking to increase your marketing ROI, make sure you're employing all of these low-cost, high-return strategies:
Google Business Profile = free marketing on the world's most popular search engine. Aka an ROI machine.
Lead aggregators are a popular strategy among contractors, but they don't come cheap. And they all offer something a little different. It's important to do your research to find the right service and pricing model for your business needs.
Here are some questions to ask:
Getting fully informed will ensure that you're only paying for what you need and won't fall victim to unexpected charges. For more help choosing a lead aggregator, check out our list of the best lead generation websites.
For more ways to improve your ROI on your lead aggregator, download our free guide: 8 Mistakes You're Making with Your Lead Aggregator.
Google Ads is the most popular paid advertising strategy out there, and for good reason. It has an average 200% ROI. But you don't want to be average, do you? If you create above-average ads, you'll get an above-average ROI.
So how do you create better quality ads?
Take this search ad that came up when I searched "bathroom remodeling near me."
When I click on it, instead of going to this company's homepage, they send me to a landing page specific to their bathroom remodeling services:
This makes the landing page super relevant to the ad, which helps its Quality Score and ranking, and also makes it more conversion friendly—both of which improve the success (and ROI) of the ad.
The way you group your keywords, ads, ad groups, and campaigns directly impacts the relevance of your ads, and therefore the cost per click. Image source
These are just a few ways to improve your ROI in Google Ads. I cover more ways to lower your cost per lead in Google Ads here.
Content for any marketing strategy is like water for plants. It can't live without it! But content takes time and money to create. The key is to repurpose your content so you can get lots more mileage out of each piece you generate.
For example:
Even better? This creates more consistency in your content and reinforces your key messaging points, which will help the content to convert at a higher clip.
Pro tip: Keep a content library spreadsheet that can be sorted different ways so everyone on your team can have visibility into what exists. This will prevent duplication of efforts and make it easier to see what can be repurposed.
With sales, you invest time and money into tools, team members, training, and more. Here are some insider tips on getting a higher ROI.
Home improvement businesses spend hundreds to thousands of dollars each month on ads and lead aggregators, only to connect with about 20-30% of those leads. Why? Because they’re either (a) calling only (and calling a LOT), (b) sending super long emails, or (c) Reaching out once or twice before giving up.
Data shows that effective lead outreach has four requirements:
Setting these standards can take those 20-30% response rates and turn them into 70-80%. Now that’s a boatload more leads and a much higher ROI into your lead aggregators.
Setting those standards is one thing, following them is another. Download our free guide on increasing your speed to lead below:
Prospects cancel or go MIA for a number of reasons—it’s not always because they found someone better. Take a look through your database and build a list of leads or prospects that you haven’t heard from in a month or so and check in.
Here's a 10-second template you can use:
Hey
[Name] from [Company] here. We were in touch a while back—are you still looking for [service you provide]?
Boom.
You'd be surprised at how much additional revenue an effective rehash program can bring in. If you don't mind me tooting our horn here:
You’ve already paid for that lead, so it’s like finding money in the couch cushions.
A CRM is a platform that collects all of your contacts—leads, prospects, customers, churned customers—and all of their interactions with your business, all in one place.
How does this increase ROI? In many ways.
Check out our list of the best CRMs for home improvement companies here.
If you're thinking that automation means canned and/or complicated, hear me out: today’s sales and marketing tools are designed to be non-tech-whiz-friendly and to help aid in personalization rather than hinder it.
Well, at least Hatch is. With Hatch, you create outreach sequences for different scenarios—new leads, quoted prospects, canceled prospects, existing customers, and more.
Then you set rules so that Hatch will automatically enroll contacts into those sequences. Once the contact responds, you can jump in and engage in real time.
Now you’re saving hours that would have been spent building lists and reaching out to crickets, and all you have left to do is engage with the people who are responding.
More responses and more engagement leads to more appointments, sales, and retention, which improves your ROI on all your marketing, sales, and customer service investments.
One of the biggest barriers to effective follow up and rehash is that no one owns it, so it falls through the cracks. There are three main sales team structures that can help prevent this:
There is no right or wrong answer here. The right team structure for you will depend on your business size and the skill sets of your team members. What's important is that you have a clear owner of follow-up.
We've covered ways to increase your ROI on marketing and sales, specifically. Now for some bonus tips that can really be applied anywhere in your business.
This is effective for any process, whether internal (like creating content or reporting on results) or external (like onboarding, booking appointments, following up on quotes, and engaging customers).
When everyone’s following the same process, you experience:
This maximizes the returns on investments you make into hiring and training, lead generation, and customer service. It also makes it easier to identify what can be automated.
Creating rinse and repeat processes saves time and reduces errors. The only thing better than that is automating those repeat processes. Now you're putting in even less time and money, while getting even more output. It's ROI on a rocket ship, basically.
Here are some ways to automate daily and/or repetitive tasks, so you can free up your time to do the manual ones.
10 outreach attempts, 3 channels, over 10 days—without you lifting a finger
It may take a little learning at first, but with the execution part on autopilot, you can focus your energy on optimization and growth.
Whether it's a software, service provider, or both, schedule monthly or quarterly check-ins with your vendors to go over questions you have and any new features and offerings they have.
This will ensure you're getting the most out of your software/service. You'd be surprised at what opportunities you can surface through these ongoing conversations.
If you’re not reporting on the results of your sales and marketing efforts, you may as well be throwing (very expensive) spaghetti at the wall. Use the numbers to identify and harness what’s working, and to weed out what’s not.
Rhythm Systems has a master KPI list for every aspect of running your business, but here are some sales and marketing KPIs to start with:
If this feels overwhelming, here are some tips:
What gets measured gets improved. Image source
Nothing is cheap these days, but with the right strategies in place, you can make sure that you're getting the most out of every dollar you spend—whether on marketing, growing, or running your business. And the higher your ROI, the more you can grow revenue. Use the tips in this post and you'll be seeing higher returns on your investments into marketing, sales, operations, and more.
Here's a recap of how to increase ROI for your business: