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This week in home building news! Catch up with Az and a colourful array of guests, to hear about who's killing it, who's innovating, and who's getting into strife in the world of new home construction.
Az (00:00)
Builders, trades, and suppliers always ask us who's the best in the marketing game. Well, in our opinion, it is vivadigital.com. And you are just about to be joined on this episode by Paul from Viva Digital. He's the type of guy that doesn't put pressure on sales, and if you don't need him, he will send you on your way with the right advice to go and do the stuff yourself.
But other than that, he's an absolute genius. He's the reason for some of the success of Osmar Holmes becoming the biggest builder on the Sunshine Coast here. He's also behind Stonewood Holmes coming across the ditch and laying a really good foundation here in Australia. Go and check out his website and tune into this episode because there is some great practical marketing advice for all you builders, suppliers, and tradies out there. Other than that, go show your support, viva digital.com.
Az (01:07)
Well, good morning and welcome to the Good Builder Podcast. This is a new little series I think I'm gonna do with a gentleman that's sitting right beside me. And I'm gonna do a bit of an intro because
everyone talks about how I talk about marketing, and and you guys out there and some of the audience think I'm pretty good. This is the guy that was behind the scenes of Primal, really, and he has his own business. But I used to contract him because he was so good. And I knew when I did that any builder we worked with would flourish. the gentleman I have on the couch today, his name is Paul. He's from Viva Digital, he's down the road here at the Sunny Coast, but works across Australia.
And he's been responsible for a few very interesting things. Number one, helping make AUSMAR here on the Sunshine Coast the number one biggest builder by a long shot, and their reputation is wild. A lot of that came from Paul.
and also if you don't know, and you've probably heard about these guys who are pretty cool. Stonewood Holmes have come over to Australia and they vastly improved their business over in New Zealand. And you hear me talking about them about what we did. Well, when I talk, we it is this bloke here as well, Paul from Viva Digital. He was behind the scenes doing a lot of the work, and that is the reason that they're over here flourishing right now.
We're gonna talk about, you know, if you're kicking off a building business, what should you do in terms of marketing? Because I think everyone's confused out there. But as far as we see it, the good builder and and the survey we ran, a lot of you builders out there want to know more about marketing and haven't even scratched the surface. So I think this is an episode for everybody and I'm so pumped to have this legend sitting right beside me because I owe him so much. Paul, how are you mate? Thanks Aaron. Yeah I think you're a bit generous there but never mind. You had to sit through about five minutes.
Mate, but I I I genuinely mean everything, Paul. Like honestly, do you remember that conversation we had, mate, when I first started Primal? Primal's no longer. and
You and I had met, I met up with you, we didn't know each other, went to a meeting, you started working on a few of the businesses and partners that we had at Primal, and I said to you, mate, if I met you in GJ Gardner, you would have been our digital agency and we were, you know, paying these big digital agencies and and mate, the results you were getting, your understanding was pretty wild.
Yeah. So I remember meeting you and my impression of you was who is this guy? Why is he so reasonable and normal to deal with? When most marketing industry people suffer from either imposter syndrome, don't know what they're doing, are just faking it until you make it. very rarely do you find people who are kind of humble or have humility willing admit when they made a mistake or when they're wrong. I think that's where we're probably
Quite similar. Yeah. and we don't have to Yeah, we don't really have to prove anything in a sense. No. You know? No, I remember yeah, I know we'll we'll get into what we're gonna talk about, but one thing that highly impressed me was a few things actually. You know, you you work with Skin Kandy for all you guys and girls out there. Skin candy, the biggest piercing brand in Australia, just hit the stock market and went public. Paul was behind that.
He's also helping me through right now a an issue with MITA 10, which is pretty cool and stuff like that. So you've got a vast array of experience across websites and digital and and brand strategy and marketing. And that's what I want to talk to you today, Paul, about mate.
You know, a lot as I said in the intro, a lot of building businesses aren't really scratching the surface with marketing. And then there's a lot of new businesses that are popping up in the construction industry. So I wanted to talk to you today about where would you actually start with marketing because there is a lot of information out there. So we've seen a funny few years recently. So if you go back to maybe start two thousand and ten. Two thousand and ten, we still were very much in the crossover of traditional media and advertising and digital advertising.
Yeah. Digital marketing. we got towards sort of maybe 2015. Digital marketing was seeing a much bigger spend than traditional marketing. And traditional marketing we're talking about is your local magazines, property magazines, bus advertising, radio advertising. Yeah. a lot of up until COVID, I think a lot of ad spend was going towards that. Yeah. But then we had COVID, we had a big bubble, we had a lot of
buyers come to the market, we didn't need marketing. not really, because we were kind of spoilt in the industry very true. by shifts of wealth, and that's slowed, slowed down. So now I think is an interesting time where people have seen traditional marketing. they've done it for 20 years maybe as a big builder. They don't see the ROI or they can't track it as readily as digital marketing. So
Yeah, digital marketing, not a new thing, of course, but I feel just in the last couple of years, builders are looking at that again and going, Yeah, we've spent a lot of money on traditional
is it really got a place versus digital? I think I would separate it into three buckets. Traditional, yeah, digital, and then more social and content. Those those are probably the yeah, they're the three pillars I think people are looking at. Yeah. I think digital is actually the last one everyone's looking at because in traditional, it's led by sales environments and salespeople. I've been in meetings with Channel Seven, with the Sunshine Coast Daily.
who they employ salespeople to sell you ads. Yeah. That's what they do. Yeah. So you buy ads from them. You're compelled to to do that. Digital marketing, you've kind of got to come at it with a realistic realistic e expectation. social media, very low barrier to entry. Yeah.
You can ha you can just pick up your phone and start and you can be a content creator, you can put stuff out into the market. Like we did. Yeah, exactly. You're a good you're a great case study for that. Yeah. so it's how where do we spend our money? How does it all tie together? Yeah, wow. who's responsible for doing it? Yeah. Is it an agency? Do we do it in-house? yeah. Yeah, well well, y the digital side of things, Paul, do you think
You know, that's starting to come to the forefront 'cause people were starting after ten or so years, as you said, they're starting to get more comfortable with it. There's a bit more understanding about it as well. I found when I was working in building businesses is we chose traditional media. It's funny as they sound at GJ Gardner, for example, T V ads, so the builder would see their own face. Yeah. It's not about who sees the ad, it's about, hey, we're out there. But they see it with their own eyeballs. And it's like Facebook ads. I think there's a massive confusion with that. And maybe
I'm going off too early and pull me back, Paul, because I want to, you know, set the foundation right. But Facebook ads, for example, people are like, I don't see the ad, it's not on our page. Yes. We get that all the time. Why? So we get clients saying, I don't see my Google ads. Yeah. Which is quite funny. yeah, you don't want to see your Google ads. And you and we we actually had a client, this is quite a funny story, in the solar industry who we ran Google Google Ads.
For a local solar company, he had two young sons. he was paying his young sons five bucks a night to s sit there and click on his ads, thinking that would boost his rankings up organically, something like that. When he told me that, I was like, You're paying your sons five dollars a night, but you're probably losing two dollars a click until your budget's gone. He had a complete misunderstanding of what Google Ads was and and why it exists.
So I think what you're talking about is sort of vanity ads. And I like it when business owners see their own ads in Facebook ads because it it shows them like the TV ads that they are in the marketplace, they are relevant, they're in front of people. Google ads is different because you only see them when you go to search in Google search. So yeah, it it's interesting. But I think traditional ads still sell a lot on the fact of
my ad was on during the bachelor. Wow. You know, like I'm a local builder and I can get onto this
Like a rugby game or The Bachelor married at first sight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They love it. Yeah, but is it bringing you any business? That's the that's the problem. And that is the problem, Paul. You know, and I I think that's why I wanted to do this episode because there is so much confusion out there about, especially, as I said, our industry is pretty amateur when it comes to marketing. We haven't needed to. As you said, with COVID, it was almost like when we talked to builders, they're talking about
They were just order takers. Yeah. Orders were coming in, they didn't need to market, but the market's tightening up and there is a lot of competition. For instance, Sunny Coast, we've got Stonewood homes here now. There's another franchise, David Reed homes, which have just popped in. You know, more market shares getting taken away. So if you were kicking off O'Brien from the start, you talked about those three pillars, Paul, like I think it was social and content, digital marketing and then traditional marketing. Yeah.
Where do you start, Mike? Like I th what would be your advice in building a brand? So I think it dep it well depends on how big you want to go, the investment you have, the team you have behind you. If you were just a small builder doing single figure builds a year, and you wanted to get out into the market to get the average price of a build up through building bit of trust.
of ex expertise or you wanted higher volume of inquiry, I think social media probably is the place to start because the barrier to entry is very low. Yeah. Picking up your iPhone, filming content about different parts of build, if you've got a custom build on that's particularly interesting, covering that off, keeping it local, calling out different trades or partners or supply partners, bringing everyone into your business in that way, I think is good.
That's where I would start because I think there's a very there's very little cost to that. Yeah to getting out there. And I've seen businesses do really well just with that. And they look at digital marketing years later when they're looking to go up to a different level. Wow. but I think you can complement that really well with ads. Yeah.
Yeah, cool. And pushing that content out there a bit more. Is that where you can kick off? Yeah, I love the way you talk too, mate, because one thing I want to say to everyone out there is that I've been in so many meetings with Paul and you know, the first few mates, just being honest with you, I was like, you know, I'm not the business, get the business, no matter what. You know, and that's me, you know, and and you're much more experienced than me. You you know the game better than me, you know the marketing game better than me. But I remember sitting in with F forty five. no, it was Fit Stop.
I remember sitting in with FitStop and you know one of the fastest growing health style debt brands in Australia. You sit in there with this guy, I'm like, we're on, we got him. And you go, This is what you should do. This, this, this and this.
Don't need to pay me. And I remember seeing the email and just going, my God. Wonderful. Like I had my respect went from here to here. And I think their business just with your little thing went from here to here without having to pay an agency. And then I see other agencies. Sorry that I'm going on a rant, but I do see other agencies put out social content and like, it's a holistic thing. You need to do social content through us. You need to do pay ads through us all at the same time. You need to build a website with us.
And so I think builders out there really get overwhelmed and they're like, God, what does what and which does which and where do I start and all that sort of thing. But you are always that logical guy that just goes, get your Google Maps, business listing up properly. Yeah. And this is how you do it, and that's a good start. Keep it simple. I'm personally I'm not gonna tell someone to do something unless I think it's gonna have a good result. Yeah, I know.
I'm not gonna compare myself to a surgeon, of course, but I think any surgeon will only operate if he thinks there's a good chance of success. That's how you operate your business, man. And I think that's the way to do it because I don't want anyone coming back to me in a year and it's never really happened where they say what you suggested didn't work. If I think it's not gonna work, I'll tell you that. And I can sit in a meeting and tell you what you wanna hear if you want, but that's not gonna help you. yeah, we've been in some I guess some silly meetings of people who
misunderstand digital marketing or they really inflate it up and they see maybe what really big brands are doing. Yeah. They follow huge American business and and brands and and they think that applies to them. Yeah. A lot of the time it doesn't. Really it's just the fundamental things. And the F 45 example from memory, I think he didn't actually need I thought he wasn't in a position where he needed my help.
And a lot of what he needed to do he could do himself. And he volunteered that he could do that himself. Yeah. You know. And I'm a terrible salesman in that respect because I really should have just given him a price for us to do what he wanted and and taken some money off him. But I don't know why I think whenever
I think that's always paid me dividends in the long run, is trying to do the right thing, of course. I'm not posting. But yeah, I guess we have been around for a long time. We've seen them drop off. Yeah, I've seen a lot. On the Sunshine Coast, we've seen a lot of agencies that have fizzled and burned in like two, three years, maybe. Putting problem. Well, I don't think that was a fizzle and a burn.
Really? Anyway. That was a limp home, I think. It was a limp home, mate. Yeah. So I would always give people and anyone who speaks to me, I'm happy to talk to them and just see if you are actually ready to be operated on yet. Or you just need to go for a good walk. That's a great analogy. I love it, mate. Well, okay, so if a business what about websites?
All right, we talked about social. So maybe social content, you're starting out, you just want to single figure jobs a year, social content's good. I love how you talked about social content too, Paul. Because I've talked about in the past. As I said, I'm not as good as Paul at the digital marketing side, but I love how you just, you know, that authentic content about what they're seeing on site, all that sort of thing, introducing themselves, building trust that way, and showing their experience and knowledge, I think is a a great way to kick off. I I think the a lot of people shy away from a camera, don't want to be
Creating video and content. And I don't want to sound like Gary V here, but con content is kind of the economy that we're in at the minute. Yeah. so just do it. Just do it. Get yourself out there. I'm this go actually goes against what I do as a business. I don't know. In terms of we would we run ads, we do SEO, we do conversion rate optimization. We don't typically do content and video and stuff like that. Do you help with
the content strategy they bought. We get a lot of so one thing we do get a lot of I put out a little podcast and my little thoughts on social and I got a bunch of messages, probably about like 40, 50 messages people sort of talking about like where do you start with content? And I, you know, I'm not as good as you was I said I didn't want to get involved and start advising people. But do you do that as a business? If someone came to you and said like what should my month calendar look like?
Could you help out with that sort of stuff? Because think that's where they get stuff, mate. Yeah. And again, keep it simple and don't you don't need to saturate things. we'd refer you to a good videographer. Yeah. Pull it together. There's people that specialize in social social media management. Really, if you've got someone willing in the business, I always think that's the better way to do it because they're just on the pulse of what's happening. They don't have to relay ideas and stuff. If you've got just someone who's like an admin assistant or
Even the partner of the builder a lot of the time will do that. Yeah. I think that's a lot better better approach than paying an agency. If you're gonna pay an agency to do anything, I personally think you should be paying for something that's high skill, not low barrier to entry, really. I love it. Unless you're time poor, unless you're scaling and and all that. But really, if you're spending if you had a five grand a month budget for marketing, for example, as a builder starting out.
I would be trying to put most of that into some expertise or ads. One of the two. I love it. Yeah. I love it. All right. No, that's that's cool. Paul. What about websites, mate? What what what what function does a website act for a builder? Like I I think we've got to break it down from the basics, mate. Yeah. you don't mind. Yeah, yeah. So it's interesting because a a website is the one digital asset that you own.
You have control over. There's no third party that sits in Silicon Valley with control over it. You keep it, you retain the intellectual property of it. And it's often the last thing people think about. They do. They're really, it's an afterthought. There's a couple of builders I've spoken to recently that you actually referred to me. They were both in the market for a new website. They'd started in the last two or three years and they were only just looking at getting their website sorted. And it kind of blows my mind in a way of
they'll they'll buy the right ute, they'll buy the right tools, they'll maybe even get a small office to run out of. They'll of course, when they get bigger, they'll build a display home if they're a a project builder. But a website they don't think about. And the investment of in a website is quite minimal really, when you look at it in the big scheme. we've done websites that are still out there from ten years ago that have paid themselves off years ago.
In the value they've delivered. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm all for that. It's like if something's working, keep it going. Yeah. so yeah, building trust is definitely the so within people and I'm not a psychologist, but people arrive on your website within about two or three seconds of that page loading, they've made their mind up whether you're gonna be a candidate to deal with. Yeah, wow. Just all the subconscious signaling of trust.
fills their mind. Yeah. Yeah. So it won't go that's another whole discussion around websites, mate. But sorry. Keep going, Paul. Just the trust signals that you want to show people. So reviews, huge. and Google reviews I'll come to in a second. But that's another thing that people often neglect. Yeah. Compared to
Other things they focus on. Google reviews should be the number one thing. And we'll come to that in a second. Yeah. So yeah, just good reviews, any accreditations that you have, any promises that you may may want to make around build times or costs or whatever it may be. Yeah. Communicate your point of difference or points of difference or your unique selling point very clearly. If you're a custom home builder in Brisbane, you want to say that. That's what we are. So immediately.
It speaks to that audience. you want to then have a very easy way for people to get in touch through a contact form, a phone number in the top right is another good trust signal. it's an 07 number, they must be Queensland, it's a 02, they must be New South Wales. It really localizes, yeah, defines their area they're in. good point. Yeah, there's a lot.
That can go into a good website, but also just keep it quite simple. Keep it visual, good images, good storytelling if you can. If you've got a story, if not, that's fine. Yeah. You need to and I hate this sort of thing of you need to be different. Of course you need to be different. You don't really need to be different. You just need to highlight what you're good at. That's probably what it is. Yeah. That's really cool.
Now, this is a curly one, mate, because when I used to have the agency, me and you did very I feel well when when your websites are better than my websites, but you did very good websites at a fairly affordable price. And this one's a bit of a curveball. What should a bill to pay for a website? Because we have seen remember when you know we were doing stuff, you'd pitch and someone's like,
Like I remember doing a website for a supplier and I think I did it for two and a half grand and got the job like in the first meeting. Walked out of there and later on got a call and the guy was like, Man, we're so happy we met you like two and a half great and I'm like, okay, what was the other quote? Twenty-five. Yeah. And I'm like, what? Yeah. I should have charged five grand, you know, or I should have anyway, and I I shouldn't say rip off, but we did it too cheap. But what what is a like
A decent local builder's website, what would be the range of budget that you looked So I think there's two factors. There's the actual market rate of this website you're paying for in the same way there's a market rate for building a house or buying a car. That so that's one factor. This is very cool. The other thing is perception. So what you just said there, I had a similar experience where we quoted too little. So we did a quote for a corporate
Brand, not in building or construction. And we didn't get the job. I actually thought we'd quoted it quite high, and I was worried that we were going to be too expensive. And down the track, we didn't get the job. And we found out later that we were about a fifth of the cost of the agency in Sydney that did get the job. The difference is the agency in Sydney have this great perception of.
Of being high high value people, great polished LinkedIn profiles. Put it on the website with a thousand people, they're all subcontractors. In India, yeah. All of that. and they would schmooze people. Yeah. They would mix in the right networks and social social settings like golf courses, all that kind of thing. We were just too cheap. And I think they also fundamentally thought they were getting a lesser product because they were paying a lesser cost. Wow.
Which wasn't going to be the case. No. They probably would have got something better. So a big agency will charge you more because they have more costs and overheads and staff, of course. A smaller agency you may get a better deal with. But then there's that perception thing of, am I going to get a a better job? Do you know what? It actually
It's cool how you described it, Paul, like the the base cost of a house and what a website would cost. And there's those costs that are factored in. And it actually reminds me of like builders. This is gonna sound really bad for our community out there, but I'm gonna say it. You got your volume builders, like I won't name them. They're very flashy.
But the end product you get isn't as good as the smaller custom building down the road who provides you better service. yeah, I know you don't, but they might cost a little bit more, but you get a far superior product that'll last a hundred years versus seven. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a bit of the difference as well. And and what I got from you, and I've worked in both sides because I used to c I come from corporate. So I dealt with the biggest agency. I remember dealing with the old Cummins and partners in Sydney.
And man, just to talk to was like freaking five hundred bucks. Like it was like a lawyer. Yeah. But what I see you produce is like for like work without the price tag and the bullshit. To be honest with you, the suit and tie, which we never wore. No. As you can see. Never would. Well, to answer your question, I think a
Mid-range website. Yeah. And mid mid-range, I mean there's a quite a bit of content gone into it. Yep. A bit of conversion rate optimization. Hundred percent. Set it up right. I I think the true market rate of that is somewhere between ten and fifteen grand. Yeah. Really? That's what you should be looking at. That's that's it. Now, a lot of agencies will also price based on the client. So if you have a big corporate builder come to you versus Jim Smith down the road.
They're both looking for something similar, but the cost is going to be different because the corporate person's probably going to be a higher touch client that might require some more time, will expect more of a customer service experience, I guess. We'd we would never build that in. We're kind of a bit more nuts and bolts about it, but I can see why that could be the case. So then you're probably up at like your twenty five thousand. Easy.
But then it's a real it's a funny one because I see things that we quote against that are in six figures. and and I think, well, where do you derive the value from in that? I I don't unless it's a buying house. Yeah, it c it could be. Unless it's something where you're developing a platform that has like extra value in terms of I see some of the big builders, some of the big two or three builders in the country, they've obviously spent
A lot of money on their websites and they're very good from a conversion rate optimization point of view. The usability of searching for house designs is good. That's different to what we're talking about here. We're talking about maybe a custom home builder, an acreage builder in a regional area or a city, yeah. That wants
To get a website up and running that will bring him new business and new leads, build his authority, help get deals over the line as well. when someone comes in from another source that hasn't even looked at the website, you can confidently say to them, Go onto our website and have a look. And it builds that trust factor. 100%. And you know the other thing, Paul, we're seeing in the market that a lot of as you know, a lot of
Customers right now have never been researching so hard. Now they look at everything. And if you don't have a website, you're out of it. You are out of the running. And for me, Paul, I feel and and I'm probably talking to some people that you've already talked to, but I feel the website allows you to tell your story and how you do things. Yes. And I think that's a big thing that you really need to do out there. A social platform really can't, unless they're gonna doom scroll through all your stuff. How much can you possibly put in a post to tell them?
of
about who you are, I think a website fills that gap more professionally. yeah. I don't know if you agree or disagree. And I'm trying to get to the point of, if you don't mind Paul, what would you kick off with then? Social or a website? Do you think a builder can build a business purely on social without a website or a trade? I I I know there are some out there that do, but what what's your point of view view on that mate? Yeah, it's an that's an interesting one. I think with a website, again, you control everything.
you remove the distractions of social media. So you're just So that's the benefits of having a website. I think so. I think I think it's the signal versus the noise scenario. You know, like where the signal is the website and the noise is the social media. And you're just in the mix of all the other things that people see on social media every day. Yeah. I would personally go for a website first. I think it's quite foundational that you need that. It just
You can start appearing for searches in Google Search. Yeah. Get your Google My Business up and running as quick as you possibly can. Those two things should get you some leads through the door in the first two or three months. I love it. I guess then the benefit with social media is if you've got proof of what you're doing that you can put out there. So if you've done a really nice custom home, for example, and put that into people's feeds, I think that could be.
way to do it as well. Now on social, dispel one myth, or maybe I don't know if it's myth. If people start interacting with your content, do other builders pop up? Yes, definitely. So is that the importance of a website too? So you're you've got that. Is that what you're saying, Paul? Like so you've got that separation as well. You've got that place there. I th that you don't have the distraction. I think it's an ecosystem, isn't it? So you bring people in through social media, they end up on your website.
That's where you'll I how you describe it. When all ads we ever run, the aim is it's never to really engage on social media, it's to get them to the website. Get them off social media. Yeah, get them off as quick as you can. We have a lot of clients actually asking us to link from their website to social media. And I always have the conversation of what's the real benefit of that? Because we've already captured them. They're already in in our ecosystem. They've triggered our Google tag, our meta tag. They're on all our audiences now.
So we've we've got good retention of that person online. We send them social media, they're probably gonna see a message they've got from their auntie on Messenger. They're gonna go down that rabbit hole and they don't come back. Yeah. So I'm actually, yeah, I'm kind of against linking to as weird as it might sound, linking to social media from websites. Yeah. Thank you for your opinion.
I'd rather have the traffic coming into the website than going out of it. Really? I I'll give you sorry, I'll give you one good analogy. Would be if you had a a retail shop and someone was in your real say you had a Mac store where you sell expensive Macs and they were in your store browsing. Would you then say to them, Come outside, there's a hot dog stand outside. Come and buy a hot dog outside. Let's forget about the Mac.
For example for now. Yeah. Come and get a hot dog. Yeah. We don't make any money from the hot dog. No. We'll go have a look. We're going to have look. There'd be absolutely no point. That would be worthless to our business. We would never do it. So it's the same with a website and social media. Well, one thing, I don't want to talk about myself, but one thing in when I worked for GJ Gardner, we cut our spending by I think 75% on realestate.com.au. I made the call.
And try to and we did end up doing it, but boost our website so we didn't have other builders, you know, that people were considering. Yeah. And it was exactly to your point, and I know you've had this philosophy for years, mate. It was take offline where they can be exposed to other builders and other opportunity that is not ours and bring them to the website so they're all ours. And then take them offline totally by selling them. Exactly. Yeah, get them on the phone, get them into a display village. And that's when you talk about
All
the conversion rights stuff. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I th I think to your point before of do they then see other builders? So when any builder puts the Metapixel onto their website or the conversion API as it is now, they give that information to go to Google or Facebook to say this user here is in the market for a new home. So use that information to market to them on the different platforms. There you go, guys.
For a lot we get a lot of that question, Paul. Thank you for breaking that down. We get a lot of that question because I've talked to so many builders and they're like, you know, we jump on social media and we see all the other builders. Yeah. It's an echo chamber. That's why. And that is the importance of a website. All right. So I think website first. Potentially well not potentially website first, social.
Where do where do paid ads and SEO fit in then, Paul? Like where do they fit into the mix and when do you implement them? So I think again, if you you you've got a budget at the start of your business and it's quite modest, where are you more likely to reach your target audience? Okay. So if you were an emergency plumber and you had a leak.
Where you're gonna get your business from? It's not gonna be Facebook ads. People aren't gonna get Thank goodness you didn't ask me, Matt. Yeah. I was gonna give you an answer, but not anymore. Keep going. Well it's not Facebook ads, is it? Because in that moment you're gonna go to Google and put emergency plumber into Google. True. So for an emergency plumber, for an emergency dentist, for a locksmith, anything where people need it now, Google Ads.
For for more consideration based stuff, Facebook and awareness, Facebook and Instagram is probably where you want be. And I use them, they complement each other really well. I use we use both for most clients. And then so you wanna so I always think the analogy, I'll give you an another analogy if you like. No, this is how I learned from you, man. So the analogies you've given me over the years have have nailed things in my brain. So I think everyone will appreciate it. So you've got an apple tree. Yep.
And this apple tree has started to drop apples because they become ripe. Now Google Ads is you holding a bucket under the apple tree and catching the apples as they fall. Facebook ads giving that tree a little bit of a shake, so more apples. Apples fall drop. I think that's basically what it is. There's a bit of a nuance in there. No. but you can use them both equally well. There's some clients that would
Just have a preference for Facebook ads because they like that vanity form of advertising. They like to see their face. Yeah. They will be down in the pub on a Sunday and their mates will have seen their ads. That's all great. Does it bring you new business? Maybe, maybe not. It also depends on what kind of media you've got. So if you don't have any decent videos, imagery, maybe Google search ads is where you need to be. So another consideration. Hmm. Yeah.
Especially for budget kicking off. That's a good point. Yeah. Like where do you put it? You know, like do you pay for extra photos and videos for your new website which go on your social? So g a good video, one good video that's that tells the story of your brand, what you do, who you are, I think is very valuable. It can be used on your website, YouTube ads, meta ads. You're very good at those too. I'm not saying over the years I've watched you, mate. And if I hope
Gary doesn't mind me saying a few things, but it for everyone out there,
Go and check out How Coal Sol Solar, How Coal Energy, sorry. they're a company based up here on the Sunshine Coast, but Paul has been part of their significant growth. And that's the honest truth. And Gary, we love you. We're gonna have you on the podcast, mate. So you'll see him soon. But if you look at the content on the page and the ads that you're putting out there, they're very storytelling and they are really engaging and really kind of they really hit home really well. And I can see how that shakes that tree, it builds that trust.
For someone to go and check out who they really are, and then jump on the website. And if you have a look at the execution of the website on Halco Energy, I'll put all the links below actually. phenomenal the way you've done that, and have a look at how it ranks and which we'll get into. So all that sort of stuff. But I know that's a business you've worked on for years now. Yeah, we do a lot of solar well, a lot of different kinds of solar companies, not just solar installers, solar products. Yeah. solar's an interesting one because it is an everyman, what I call
an everyman product. If you own a house or a business, solar's an option for you. Yeah. Building is slightly different to that because not every person will build. Yeah. They might buy. So solar, you've got to get in the awareness fairly early, in the same way that Commonwealth Bank do with their platypus savings thing. It's the same with Solar to a degree. We we actually, or or a couple of the solar companies, well Halcol in particular,
They market in like the nippers. Yeah. Not market, they support the nippers. Yeah. But of course there's a trickle down effect that good point. Another good point. Yeah. These kids one day will be adults. They'll they we just want them to be front of mind when they want to buy a sword.
That's cool. That's cool. So that's even we won't go too far into that, but another consideration for building a brand in your local area is supporting the community. And I know you drive a lot of that with the How guys and there's some really cool stuff. But Westpac Helicopter, for example. Yeah. What an execution of So I think when Yeah, when it's so it's good for content. Yeah. But it's also good for if you're a consumer thinking, Who am I gonna go with? Company A or B?
Company B does a lot in the community and the the pricing is the same, similar. Company B, every time. I love it. Again, trust A. Yeah. So sorry, I think I cut your pull. when would you implement the paid ad then? You've talked about how, you know, meta Facebook and Instagram's like shaking the tree.
And Google's like the bucket underneath catching the apples because they're searching for it kind of thing. Yeah. When would you implement them for a new business poll or so it really does, I guess, depend on your budget. Ideally, I like to do both, see what runs the best and adjust the budget between the two. Yeah. There's a lot more intent in Google search. So you'll get the longer the search, the more the intent. So that the search might be best acreage homes builder.
hinterland of the Gold Coast. That's very long tail. That's a really good one for better. Yeah, right. Yeah. Good builder. Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, well they that would benefit them. You can have that one for free, Raymond. That long tail chose intent. The shorter the search, the lesser the intent. So i in in a nutshell. But yeah I would like yeah and I would really
i again, if you can ha have an agency managing things, if you have a budget for that, I would have them managing Google ads. Meta has a lot more AI and is a the the barrier to entry for Meta and w when we talk about Meta, that's essentially Facebook, Instagram, shortly Messenger and even WhatsApp. wow. Yeah, yeah. Which is coming soon. Very cool.
The barrier to entry to that is quite a bit lower than Google Ads. Google Ads still requires there's a lot of AI baked into Google Ads now, but you really want a good manager taking care of it. And it'll a good manager. Yeah. In the same way as a good accountant will save you money, a good Google Ads manager will make your ads more efficiently run. Yeah. Having good ad tracking is essential. Conversion tracking, having a relationship with whoever does the website management.
making sure that the data is reliable so we know and this is the advantage I think it has over traditional media. Yeah. That we spent X amount this month, we got X amount of leads. It's e X amount per lead. Yeah. That's quite nice information to have at your fingertips to scale your budget up. Yeah. But in terms of which would you go for first, I think realistically it would be meta ads, simply because you can reach a much bigger audience
at much reduced cost compared to Google ads, really. YouTube ads is pr as well actually is good. YouTube ads can be cheaper than meta ads. The problem with YouTube ads is actually it's it can be a bit of an interruption to people's experience on YouTube. C so it can sometimes have a bit of a negative impact.
You know when you're sitting there Yeah I I've got premium so I don't see the ads. Ironically. You're sitting there waiting for those five minutes. Yeah, I know, I know. Well it's the same way it's a good one. Well it's the same way I'm not on any social media as you know. I know. And it's it's a bit like the butcher looking at his own sausages, you know. You don't I just don't wanna do it. I I I retain my focus for clients. Yeah. And that's it. I love it. but YouTube ads is good and inexpensive compared to everything else. Wow, okay.
But I also think that it may all may create a negative brand perception sometimes. Because people have people shows. Yeah. They're either waiting to see a show or some cat memes or something. And you put an advert in there. Yeah. The same thing happens on Meta, but I feel that the way that Meta does it isn't quite as intrusive. Yeah. Yeah. It's not meta's normally
An ad they'll show you after a video or alongside a video. Yeah, yeah. Not not the skippable ad you see in YouTube, which can be quite annoying, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, it's about I'm not sure I've answered your question well enough there with paid ads. I think we need to explain it first. Yeah, yeah. So I reckon do where go where your audience is and and everyone's on social media really. Yeah. Ultimately.
I'd I would start with with meta ads. All right. But that's relying on you having good images and video. Yeah. Okay. Well, I've heard this question before. Instagram or Facebook? Yeah. So you got two There's lot of context that you probably need from that, but a few people, a few builders have asked, Do I go Facebook or do I go
Instagram. So I see a lot of analytics come across my desk every month. You do. And y you can roughly break it down into the the age that they diverge is forty five. So if there you go really if you want to target people over forty five, Facebook, under forty five, Instagram, that's really generalizing. No. Of course you've you've got pretty right.
Yeah, I think forty five is the cutoff. So if you were a custom home builder, you wanna be in that plus forty five, potentially. If it's for first homes in that minus forty five. I reckon you're completely right, mate. We look at our audience at the good builder. And that's true. Yeah. I d I also think though that that as time goes on
That age gets older. In Facebook. Yeah. So that so that forty-five is probably forty ten years ago. It's just as everyone's growing up with social media, that bar keeps going up. And now with the people that are. Exactly. Yeah. So you've got bar, I can tell you've got TikTok now at twenty-five and under. That's the other bracket. Yeah. Snapchat TikTok under twenty-five. Instagram is really twenty-five, forty-five, forty-five plus is Facebook.
Yeah, probably I'm generalizing a bit there. I think it's all when we run ads, we run them on all on all the platforms. I think it's very close. yeah. Obvious I I think it's good to run on because you never know. You never know. but I I I reckon your breakdown was pretty good, Paul. I reckon that was spot on, mate. I think so. Yeah. I think TikTok ads as well has a place or TikTok content really for if you were a new first home owner's brand.
Or a developer, maybe, TikTok would be I'd definitely be looking at TikTok. Because that so TikTok's been around what seven years in the mainstream really. Yeah. So those peop those kids who were like 15 to 18, seven years ago are now, you know, twenty-three, twenty-five, they're the exact market we should be talking to. Yeah. I reckon you're right, mate. And Brighton Holmes use it very well for first-time buyers, by the way. Yeah, mate. Awesome.
What about AEO and SEO? I know we've we've kind of gone through those three things. So everyone right now, we'll maybe we'll do a quick breakdown, Paul. So you think someone who is kicking off a business or kicking off a building business, or as most of you out there don't do much marketing, number one, get your website right, find someone who can do it, and preferably look for a custom builder is my advice. Like I've seen it all, Paul. And I've built websites when I was in corporate for
brands like that and I've dealt with people like you. Yeah. And you always produce the better result, even results-wise and cost-wise, et cetera, et cetera. next maybe focus on your social content. you know.
If you're having trouble with it, grab a phone, you know, you can do that sort of stuff. If you're having trouble with it, you can help with strategy and that's probably where might be cool. You might go, Hey, here's four posts for the week, go do those. That sort of thing. You just need a bit of a plan to make sure you execute it and be fairly consistent with it. So consistency beats how regular you do. Doesn't it? I think if you were just once a week over a year, that's better than three times a week for a month. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm with you. I I reckon that's one of the reason we've grown Paul Yeah. I am just six AM, two PM
Every day. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And some hits, some doesn't. But you kind of get it after a while. And yeah. If you're consistent, you just keep you keep showing up. People want to know that you are gonna stick around. They do. So if you're consistent and you provide some sort of continuity, that's a that's a trust signal in itself. Yeah. It's an unseen one. It is. I love it, Paul. all right, so then you can move into social, potentially pay it ads if you've got the budget, I
kind of recommends if you don't mind me saying this, Paul. And you we can have a bit of a debate over this if you want. But I reckon if you start a website and you've got a bit of budget, why not kick off some Google ads? just to drive some traffic into it and see how it's performing for you as well. 'Cause I think you've got a that conversion rate optimization part's quite
important and you can kind of see how many visitors you got, how many are coming through the contact form and things like that. Just be really clear. If you do Google Ads, be very clear on keep your targeting and your keywords quite tight. So Google Ads in particular has sneakily brought more AI and broader targeting. So even more than when I was doing it all. Yeah. Of course. Not that there was any AI then, but you know what I mean? You could get some broad shit going on. So yeah, y indeed. So a lot of it is now opt out.
So a Google Ads Manager, a good one, will be in there every month, opting out of a lot of AI enhancements that aren't appropriate. And then keep keeping the targeting tight. So if you're on a small budget, you want your targeting to be very so if you're very defined within your location, of course. Very defined by who what your ideal customer client might be searching for. Yeah. You could go broad and say,
You could run ads on the Google search network and be broad and let AI do the targeting. They promise that your cost per conversion will be lower, but I'm not convinced by that. I think there's a lot of if you look through actually the terms and conditions on both Meta and Google, they say that a lot of their conversion tracking is modeled. Modeled is a is a word for we are guessing. Yeah. Because a lot of people
denied ad tracking on their phone in 2021. There was an update. Remember you telling me about that. That affected things. So didn't it so as well. Facebook and Google use a lot of averaging out to build your conversion data. We found the yeah, they call it modeling. But you get the real
stuff if you're monitoring the website and saying it all. Exactly. So that's important, man. So the other benefit of your own website and not relying on any Facebook forms and the quality of lead will be better and more qualified because people have come to the website and seen what you do. They've gone to the little bit of friction of reading your website and then if they've still made an inquiry, that inquiry is a lot more valuable than a Facebook form, a meta
Messenger lead that comes through. We get a lot of those actually where people do it by mistake. Yeah, where that's very low quality. We want the high quality stuff coming through the website. But most importantly, and something we didn't discuss earlier, and this is really key. And I see every business I deal with fail at this. Track your leads and your channel of leads in a spreadsheet, in a really in a Google sheet.
Do it very in a really basic way. If you've not got Zoho or whatever up and running, a CRM or build a CRM up and running, just create a sheet where every week you put in, we had a lead, it came from this source and really ask the person when you speak to them, where did you hear about us? They'll probably see up say something really generic on the internet. We want to know exactly where. Was it a Facebook ad? Was it a Google ad? Track that your own on your own website.
not don't rely on Meta and Google, really. I love it. You know why, Paul? We did a survey. You remind me of a survey. We did a survey about a month ago, put it out in our EDM, and I reckon we had some really impressive buildings. but
Nobody they spend significant amount of money, no one could know where their leads came from. Yeah. Do you know that? Big to small builders. See, so I reckon that honestly, you should talk to a bloke like you, man. They're spending a lot of money on ads and they do not have an idea. They're growing fast, but they're just like just
Keep going. So I think that's interesting. The the bigger people the bigger guys who've got a CRM, they even f fall down here because they lose them. Yeah. They have an idea of what a lead channel looks like. So you've got two things. You got you've really got channel and medium. and they can be and they can be also multi-channel. So saw Facebook ad, looked at it, saw Google ad.
Then converted. So there's lots of different pathways to a conversion or a lead, but they can be from different mediums and different channels. the medium might be website. We had a website form or a phone call, but actually, what was the channel that created that on the website? Was it Facebook ads? Was it Google Ads? So it it the channel is more important than the medium to me, because that's where you spend your money. I love it. If you can get those separated out efficiently, that's really worthwhile because you can say,
This radio ad that we did, we've had four leads. Facebook ad had twenty leads. So we can work out a return on investment there. No one's doing it. Yeah, no one's doing it, Paul. It's it's wild to me. So again, great point, mate.
I might have to finish this one up pr pretty soon, unfortunately. And we're gonna do a few as I said in the beginning, we're gonna do Monday marketing series and I'm gonna drop a few episodes with you, mate, because I I love ya and I like the knowledge that you give. And I learn something every day and mate, as I said at the beginning of the podcast, you know, our success when I had my other business and even to the day of the good builder came from lessons of talking to you, man. And I really say that I reckon you're the best marketer in Australia, mate. Like I really love what you do.
I want to talk about there's a lot of chatter around AI and AEO and SEO. Could I know it's a left field question, but could you like define what they are and where does AI get the information from anyway? Yeah, right. Okay. So let's talk about because there's a lot of AI platforms out there and models. Let's talk about Google and Gemini.
Chat GPT kind of behaves in a similar way, but they're the two, I think Chat GPT, Gemini, the two freely available models that people will use for research. Yeah. So researching a builder, for example. So they'll go to Chat GPT. They will trust it because it's very contextually aware of who they are. Like Google search isn't. So they'll know everything you've ever said to it, it's remembered. And so on that basis.
You think that it's going to give you a more personalized response based on your situation. So if you go to ChatGPT and put in who's the best or the best-rated or best reviewed builder on Sunshine Coast, for example, you're gonna get a series of results that will be quite reliable. And they use signals from other websites to build that information.
Actually, a a good example of this is on Gemini or generative search on Google. So if you put in the same search query into Google, you will get an AI box pop-up. I've seen that. And on the right hand side, you'll get the citations of where it forms its its opinion. So it might be from the Good Builder website, HIA, et cetera, et cetera. Anything if you if it's a what what is the best or best rated, it's going to use a lot of signals.
But it's gonna use citations primarily, other websites, really. But where we've seen it's really interesting, and it it's moving so fast at the minute that the SEO industry is kind of struggling to keep up with where it's going next, I guess. So we're dealing with what's in front of us. So what's in front of us at the minute, what what was in front of us 10 years ago, people would go to Google, do a search.
get two to three ads in go in the Google Ads pack. On the right, they may get local listings. And then underneath organic. So depending on what you're searching for, if it's a question like how long does it take to boil an egg, you're not going to get Google ads for that. Really. You're going to get an AI response that's very helpful. If you're going to ask a trivia question, same thing. If if it's got a commercial intent behind it, if Google thinks you your your search is based on you spending money.
It will trigger a Google ad. Wow. And then you'll see four Google ads. At particular times when I'm searching for different things. Hmm. So organically. So our shift from SEOs. SEO is actually what we've done the longest and you'll probably the best at in in what we do, really. Like thank it, El Smart the number one in organic for
No reason, mate. It's a big reason why they became the Sunshine Case builder. Everyone can find them. Yeah. Just being top. So in the building industry, people will open they'll do their research. They will Google what they want and where they want it. They will open the first three to five listings they see in a new new window. And then they will quickly start and par down what they don't like based on perceptions, like that three second rule we talked about before. And they'll get down to probably two.
get down their final two and then they'll go and look at homes, have conversations. That's kind of how it works. So so SEO is important, of course, but being in the top five for for construction is probably good enough. being top is brilliant, of course. You are the first guy that has ever said that. I love it. Yeah. And you're completely right. So the the distribution of clicks between one and five in the building industry
There's not a big differen there's not a huge difference. If it was emergency plumber, that top guy is gonna get ninety percent of the clicks. In the building industry and call. Yeah, that's right. good in the building industry, number one to five, it will will not be grossly different. Number one sorry, two to five won't be gross. Number one's always gonna be yeah, fifty percent. But then between two and five, it might just be a very small percentage difference. Wow.
So you are completely right, Paul. You're completely right. Sorry. Keep going. So SEO, very important. It's a longer term for an agency to to work with an agency with SEO, there's got to be a lot of trust between the client and the agency. Yeah. Most business owners will say, We tried SEO and we got burned. That's what I hear so many times. And normally the agency didn't set expectations properly.
Or or and they didn't give it long enough. Yeah. So if you think you're gonna rank in three months for for a really valuable term and knock off a builder who's been number one for years, that's gonna be very difficult. Yeah. So you've got to be realistic, especially new builders, new tradies. What can I actually viably do here on Google search? Google My Business is probably the shortcut in Google Reviews. So Google Reviews is a signal
For your organic listing. So I've seen I've tested this myself in in a different industry. No, I remember. And yeah, the more reviews is directly correlated to you the higher your rankings are. You did it for Stonewood Homes as well. Yeah. In New Zealand. Yes, that's right, yeah. You banged them up there. We were concentrating on reviews, you told us what to do. You were working in the background and and as the reviews went up more positive points, so did the ranking. Yeah.
It's quite predictable. So the main areas of SEO, and I I think this is a topic all in itself. But so if you were doing SEO yourself, the quick quick wins would be just a Google My Business profile with positive reviews, of course. Real cool. That's a great signal. Also just registering for directories that are out there, like local search, that would be a signal.
As of last year, any social media links and our signal as well? Which is pretty good. That's real cool. then some content. So with Chat GPT, anyone can spin content out. There's a benefit of that in terms of content marketing, not SEO, just providing valuable information for people. Yeah. sorry. But from an SEO point of view, Google very quickly
has a language model that knows what AI is. So it goes, that's AI, it's not really given any benefit. We're not gonna rank it. It wants truly unique content out there. Which is tricky because
what builder wants to sit down there and write content, you know, you you would know how how difficult it it's hard. It's hard. It it really is. And and for a builder I think too, Paul, they don't know what to write it for. Yeah. What are the right keywords? And this is where I think you slot in very well. You understand the industry, you know what they've got to look for, and then you know the type of content.
That needs to be put out there. So you're not flagged as a AI site. and you're providing the right information for the long longer keywords that clients are actually looking for. That's the thing. And describing whatever they're looking at. I think that's very that's key. What they're looking at are what they may be looking at next. So for example, we're already spinning out content that have 2027 in the title. so it's really relevant, like guides, like a solar guide, for example, that's 2027.
in the solar industry yesterday ahead of the game you've got to be with content the the more ahead that's your advantage I think being ahead of everyone else so there was an a solar announcement the day before yesterday and we've already got articles out there ranking pretty good ahead of all your news sites and stuff just scooping up that organic content. The other two things in SEO is a website that loads really quickly. You want to get it loading within a second if you can on mobile
And easy to use because Google does take note of that. It uses Google Analytics actually to inform the back end of Google search how quickly this website loads, how long people dwell on the site, all if that's in there. And the third thing is links. So getting links from other websites to yours is ver very important. Wow. Wow. And that's a hard task. I remember you finding
Maybe it was eighteen hundred or eighteen thousand links for Stonewood site. there's a lot of work that goes involved in SEO. And I think lots of builders out there hear it. They hear the term, they're hit by agencies. It's really cool how you break it down, Paul. Like I love how you break it down, mate, and where it fits. If you're speaking to any agency for SEO, the the question or y what you need to see is real improvements in non branded organic traffic. Love it.
So you can be a really noisy brand and your organic traffic is going up. But how has that happened? Has it been your social media that's propelled that? Yeah. What you want to do from an SEO point of view? So brand signaling is a thing. The bigger your noisier your brand is, typically your website will rank, your domain authority will improve. But you really want to pay more attention to the non-branded stuff, like Sunshine Coast Builder.
Best Sunshine Coast Builder, Custom Home, Sloping Block, Acreage, whatever it may be. That is so cool, boy. Well, mate, unfortunately we're gonna have to finish it off for now, but we are gonna have you back on. That was such a cool episode. I reckon that was the most practical episode we've done. That's good. And logical. Thank you so much.
So do you have any words before you wanna leave Paul? Like what would be your your last bit of advice for a builder looking into to marketing in terms maybe it's do you choose an agency, do you not? Or what's your what's your opinion on marketing for builders? Yeah, so choosing an agency or not, just spend a bit of extra time speaking to them, possibly phoning someone they're dealing with now, speaking to them if you can.
Think when you commit to an agency, it's a little bit like a marriage. You'd want to try and make it long term. Yeah. Because you don't wanna have to go back through the whole process of on onboarding people. Yeah. yeah, that that would be my advice. No, I love it. You know why? And I it's true to your nature, mate, because
I know a lot of agencies, I've seen a lot of agencies, I've had my own, and I would say that you are the one that has the most longest lasting clients. For sure, mate. Like look at your client list. I would say that the round man. Yeah. I would say our average engagement is now must be ten years. I know. I would say it's about ten years. How old?
Builders don't even stick with their trades for ten years, mate. Yeah. And you can be damn sure their sales reps don't last ten years. I shouldn't say that because there's a few salespeople that listen to us, but I would say when I see them at a builder, I'm like, I'll see you at the next one. Yeah. Then I go to the next display home two years later and they're there. Yep. I've seen that in solar a lot. So relationships, your performance of your work is outstanding. We're gonna I'll put all the links below. I I really, you know, I'm not trying to sell poor, but if you do need marketing help, he's on here just to provide advice and he offered it and I I couldn't
Couldn't turn it down because he's so good at what he does. But I'll put all the links below. I know a lot of you out there have asked us about marketing. we're gonna put a download out of this episode, so go and check it out. download it from this link. And if anyone out there wants to talk to someone around marketing, he's a kind of guy that's no obligation, but a very knowledgeable guy. And if you're looking for a good person to work with, mate, I've out for you over anyone in Australia. So hey, I reckon you know, we talk about being a good.
Builder. I think being a good builder is having good marketing, but having a good support by your side in your route, mate. Yeah, problem. If you look at our Google reviews, there's a lot in there actually of clients that we didn't end up taking on because we gave we gave them advice that actually you may not need us. You could do this yourself. would love you to be a good fit for us, but I don't really think you are. I don't think you need us. Yeah. So I'm always happy to have conversations. We never
pressure anyone or we don't have any salespeople. No. If yeah, I'll tell you what I think. and we can go go from there really. Legend. All right. Well I'll drop everything below. This is Paul. You'll see him back in the next Monday episode or maybe the episode after we'll we'll have to record another, but thank you so much for your time mate. No problem. You're a friggin' legend and you are the key to my success and our success and that sort of stuff. Thanks man. I can't thank you enough. No problem.