Knowing Your Marketing

Yesterday I was given a PDF copy of a new marketing e-book, Marketing & Lead Generation, from Dave Blakeman from RPS RoofWright. Having given it a quick read through I've found that it could be of good use to a great many of you out there.

During these recession years, the industry has evolved to be an extremely competitive one, I think too competitive. But, as the introduction to the e-book explains, it's vitally important to get your marketing right, whether it's your direct marketing or even as simple as how to negotiate with customers. Each little move can be so decisive.

The e-book covers all sorts of areas, from valuing the customer, guarantees, quotations and negotiating discounts, to lead generation, internet marketing, AdWords and everything else to do with marketing online.

Some parts of the e-book will cover familiar ground, something which I found as I was reading it, some of it however provides a lot of useful tips and reminders. As companies and sales people generally, we all get a bit lax from time to time, so the whole book, new stuff and same stuff, should provide a good little refresher session to us all.


The one part of the book which struck a particular chord with me was the negotiating discount bit. Don't go thinking it's going to go revealing some special tricks because it's not. Happily it explains that most of the time you should be saying no to customers when they ask for money off, and then hitting back by asking them why. This is a breath of fresh air for me. Many of you will know how much of a gripe I have with sales and discounts and how phony they are. This e-book guide guides you down the path of honest, profitable selling without having to rely on discounts. The correct way of doing business.


Dave is taking part in the Cycle India charity ride in a couple of weeks for the charity Heal. If you would like to donate, then click here.


Until January 20th, Dave will send anyone a copy of the e-book if they make a £20 donation at: http://www.justgiving.com/Dave-Blakeman. Once you have confirmation of the donations, email that to dave.blakeman@rpssoftware.co.uk and he will forward you a copy of the book.

It's All About Google+

Google's new social media platform looks set to be the biggest threat to Twitter and Facebook since...well pretty much ever.


Up to the point of writing Google+ has a current following of over 10 million. That might not bowl you over straight away when you consider Facebook has passed 700 million users and Twitter 300+ million. But when you then take into account that Google+ is operating on invites ONLY, and they have only been available for the last two weeks, that is very impressive. According to some models, that actual number could be nearer the 18 million mark.


To try and give a brief overview of what Google+ is, it's like a colourful, more Googley version of Facebook. Groups of people can be added into 'circles', which are then broken down into different types depending on how you know them. It's a simple drag and drop operation, very easy to get the hang of. Their version of Facebook's chat is 'hangouts'. You can chat with the people within your circle using your web cam. Picture galleries are automatically complied for you. It suggests people you may know and who you can invite onto Google+ who aren't there already.


I've only been playing around with it for about two days but it's fairly easy to get the gist of it. So why the big hype then if we already have an uber successful social media platform? The answer is the mere fact that it's Google.


I did some investigating earlier. Even though it's still in it's trial stages, people with blogs and websites have found a significant increase in traffic thanks to Google's +1 feature. I have it on my site, you can find it at the bottom of every post. Every time someone clicks on the +1 button, that flags up on that person's Google+ page, showing everyone that they've seen something worth reading. This is proving a brilliant boost for site traffic.


So, if you're a blogger, then this is something you need to get to grips with now while it's fresh and not populated with spam advertisers! This is also something that businesses I think could be able to take advantage of. In my opinion this platform is easier to use and navigate than Facebook, therefore making it more accessible to those who think they're not Internet savvy. It's easy to collate photos, editing information is done at the click of a button, the interface is clean and simple - it's a no brainer really. Businesses should be taking advantage of any new way to communicate with it's potentially massive customer base.

Trends Show Composite Surge

The chart above shows the ever increasing interest in composite doors.


We have all seen increasing sales in composite doors over the past few years, mostly due to installation companies pushing them. But what the above images shows is that the general public are now starting to get to know the composite style of door, asking questions about them, searching specifically for them and asking for them by name. 


Those who are geared up fully to take advantage of the composite door surge by having a good product at the right price will make plenty from this new emerging sector. Those who haven't I fear will be too late!

WordPress or Google?

This blog is soon to grow up and become it's own website. Something which perhaps should have been done a while ago, but there we go, time makes fools of us all.

But I just wanted to ask a quick question and I'd like a bit of feedback. Both WordPress and Google allow you to create your own domain.But I'm having problems with WordPress as the username I want apparently is already used. I think I tried to create this blog on WordPress so thats my fault! Should I go through Google? Or should I persevere through WordPress? If I go through Google then the address will end in .com. If I go through WordPress I can use .co.uk.

Either way this is going to be sorted before the end of the weekend!

Double Glazing In The World Of Search

The top image shows the search numbers for 'double glazing' over the last five years. What is obvious is that there has been a steady decline since 2004, and that when it comes to Christmas we may as well not even be open.

The second image shows again the figures for 'double glazing' but over the last 12 months. Unlike previous years, 2009 was a year of stabilisation. No huge peaks and troughs as you would normally see, other than the standard drop at Christmas. But what you can see is as the graph runs into the beginning of this year, search numbers have steadily risen above the 1.0 line, whereas last year it either on or below the 1.0 line.

From the feedback and conversation going around, the industry is still stuck in consolidation mode. Recovery levels that are worth talking about may be a while off yet, and trading conditions are still going to be tough. Hopefully, as consumer confidence continues to grow, so will the health of the window industry.

Keeping It Level

I've not looked on Google Trends for a while so decided to have a browse and see what the double glazing industry search patterns were like.

The blue line indicates 'double glazing', and has remained pretty much steady all the way through the year. There isn't the usual rollercoaster shape on the graph which regularly showed the big rise in summer and huge dip in winter. This is the same for 'conservatories' indicated by the red line, and 'home improvements' indicated by the yellow line.

Now we are at the end of the year it is easier to form a more accurate picture as to how the public has responded to the financial hardship. What stands out to me as a major positive is how there was no mass panic or dip in search number. Granted the volume is down on previous years, but the public could have really panicked and just stopped searching for home improvements altogether, but they didn't. Another big positive is, as the quieter months arrived i.e. September onwards, there was no big dip in the volume of searches. From beginning to end the public's searching behavior has been steady. This bodes well for the industry in the first three months of 2010. Providing there is no drastic change throughout December, if the steady momentum of the public can be carried into the beginning of next year, and not drop off like it usually does, the double glazing industry could look forward to a much more positive start to 2010 than 2009.

Google Wave

Now this sounds a bit interesting. Real time communications, real time photo exchange and file exchange. For the larger businesses, they could use this as their new internal messaging service, no reason not to if it speeds everything up.

This could also open up the doors wider to the idea of or industry being more communicative with each other. It certainly would make it easier.

Level Trend

It's been a while since I last looked on Google Trends to see how the double glazing industry was faring up in terms of searches. The results for 'PVC windows' in the UK in the last 12 months:

It plain to see that there wasn't the usual spike in the number of searches in the middle of the year as we have come to expect. From my perspective, the graph perfectly illustrates the type of fluctuating year it has been. Since the beginning of 2009 we have had a constant see-saw effect, where we have had a couple of solid weeks, followed by a couple of quieter weeks, followed then again by a more busy period, as the graph indicates. And this trend has continued on up to present. If you were to look on the year as a whole so far, the search results, and probably business in general has been steady, nothing dramatic like the usual spike in the summer then dive during the winter. To be honest, I think the usual routine for our industry won't return for at least a couple of years, if not longer, due to the disruption of the economic balance. If we were to look at the trends in exactly one years time, I can see the graph above, and business in general being exactly the same.

Google Analytics, And A Bit Of A Moan

A feature which I find hugely useful is Google Analytics. Simply copy their tracking code into either your blog or website, and it will automatically track the number of visits per day, where the visitors are in the world, how long they spend on your blog or website, how many are new visits, where visitors are finding your blog or website etc.

What it also lets you do is set goals, so you can improve things like visitor numbers or time spent on the site.

Whats strange is that I have 3 followers from Washington State, USA. Though I think they may have stumbled on my blog accidentally, as I think my 1 visitor from the Philippines, 2 from Belgium, 1 from the Netherlands, the 1 from Australia and the 1 from Sweden may have done!

Of course today was the day the glass cartel decided to inflate their prices once again, I'm intrigued to see whether the manufacturers pass on the price hike this time. We escaped last time, not receiving any sort of increase, whether that was the same for other companies I don't know. But with most types of glass now up 50%, it's hard to see manufacturers taking such a large increase on the chin.

Not wanting to sound too negative in this post, but I'm already envisaging another hurdle for our industry to tackle, and that will be the return to higher VAT at the beginning of the 2010. Personally, I don't think that VAT will go back to 17.5%, it will go higher, possibly to 18 or 20%. If it does go as high as 20%, I can see our industry losing any ground it may make up in the economic recovery for possible the first 6 months of 2010. But that is worst case scenario of course! The positive side to me thinks that we will weather that little storm quite well. Oh, and then there's the changes to document L...

Energy Efficient Searches

Had a look on Google Trends to see how the double glazing industry is faring in Google's searches. The terms 'double glazing' and 'conservatories' showed the obvious trends of being busy in the summer, and dead by December. But searching the term 'energy efficient windows' showed something much different:

It shows a huge spike in search activity at the beginning of 2007, and a bigger increase again at the beginning of this year. This is obvious proof of how quickly the double glazing industry is evolving into its new shape. Those who adapted about 12-18 months ago to sell and install WER's will do well as they have already established themselves in the market. Those who didn't will struggle as they will be trying to get a foothold into a market that is already filling up. Those who are able to sell a good energy 'A' rated window will do best in my opinion.