CASE STUDY
Laplante Electric
Doubles Its Standby Generator Sales
With an increasing demand for standby generators in Maine, LaPlante Electric saw an opportunity. To grow the business and leverage this opportunity, LaPlante Electric partnered with SC Digital to optimize its digital marketing efforts and help double its standby generator sales.
Here’s a look at the approach we implemented to help LaPlante Electric establish a strong online presence and generate quality leads.
The Challenge
LaPlante Electric came to SC Digital with a goal to sell more standby generators. More profitable than electrical services, standby generators carry a high initial cost (and profit) and also provide long-term, passive income to the installer in the form of service plans. With an opportunity to grow this part of the business, LaPlante Electric needed to build a strong online presence, establish credibility as a standby generator provider/installer, and create a digital marketing program that resulted in business.
The Tools
Website Design
Search Engine Optimzation
Reputation Management
Facebook Ads & Facebook Lead Generation
Yelp Management
Google Ads Management
Brand Refresh
LaPlante had a solid reputation as an electrical contractor that offered standby generator installations. In order to grow the generator business, Laplante Electric needed to position itself in the market as, “The Maine Standby Generator Authority.” By establishing the company as the best resource for standby generators in Maine, it was able to streamline its message and effectively grow that part of the business.
The Key is the Name
When creating messaging for the brand, we wanted to create something memorable, clear, and unique that would also help build the company’s online presence. With messaging like, Maine Standby Generator Authority, we knew the language would be highly beneficial for the website and improving visibility in search results. We utilized this language throughout the website copy, site title tags, and online platforms.
Within a few short months, the rebrand and website optimization efforts landed LaPlante Electric in the top of search results for generator-related search terms in Maine. Not only did this result in high quality traffic, but it resulted in many leads and new customers.
Shortly after rebranding and performing a great deal of organic SEO on the website, Laplante Electric became dominant for just about all generator-related search terms in Maine. This brought a great deal of organic, highly converting traffic to the website.
Optimizing for Conversion
A key area of opportunity usually goes missed on many business’ websites, and that is the opportunity to quickly capture contact information from website visitors.
This is something we quickly addressed for Laplante, making it incredibly easy for website visitors to fill out a form or call the business. Laplante saw an immediate increase in website leads of over 800%! The best part? Most of those website leads were from people who were interested in standby generators.
Using Finance Programs to Build a Competitive Advantage
A key factor in the success of this account was employing a “monthly payment driven” marketing strategy. The fact is, standby generators are very expensive. Typically between $8,000 and $10,000 which most people simply do not want to part with all at once! In many ways, a standby generator is like an insurance policy: you might never need it, but if you do… it’s sure nice to have. Problem is, insurance is a monthly expense…. Generators are typically a 1 time cost. Until now.
Laplante Electric: Home of the $99/mo. Standby generator
By reducing the investment to a low monthly payment which just about anybody can afford, we widened the standby generator market significantly. In this way, we helped Laplante find an audience which was not currently being tapped into by their competitors. And it worked. Instead of competing with everyone else for the same 10 customers, Laplante now had a competitive advantage which allowed it to stand in a class all by itself. The best part? Competitors seemed to have no interest in competing in this arena.
Video Marketing to Explain Ourselves
Whiteboard “explainer videos” have become a specialty for us, and Laplante was one of the first clients for whom we completed one of these videos. We wanted to communicate a clear message with the audience in a format which made them want to consume it.
See that video here:
Using Facebook Ads to Generate More…. Well… Generator Deals!
Facebook and social media are good for a lot of things. One of those things is communicating a super-strong offer with a willing audience, and inspiring that audience to take action. That’s precisely what we did for Laplante. It didn’t happen right away, though. We tested roughly 35 different ad variations, including text changes, image changes, call to action changes, landing page changes, until we finally arrived at one simple idea:
People respond to solutions to their problems. And in Maine, everyone experiences the same problem: massive snow storms and power outages. The solution? Something that makes you feel powerful against a massive snowstorm. Invincible even. Something that makes the homeowner feel intelligent, well prepared, and invincible. A standby generator.
So simple… yet so powerful. The process after the ad was also simple. The user could click “Visit Website,” which would immediately bring them to a simple landing page which reinforced the offer in the ad, and the conversion was natural.
Over time, we have followed this original strategy up with others similar to it…. Simple, hard hitting images that take users by surprise as they’re scrolling through the Facebook news feed. They work.
Here’s the ad
Google Ads to Make an Even Bigger Impact
In order to create additional Google first page dominance, we have executed a paid search strategy for Laplante which includes bidding on particular keywords like +generator +dealer +maine, +standby +generators +nh, and more. The beauty of Google Ads is that they allow advertisers to drop their message into any targeted geography and any search activity necessary.
So, advertisers have the ultimate customization. If you want to sell red chairs in Albuquerque New Mexico and Detroit Michigan only, Google allows you to dominate searches for red chairs in only those two cities with a properly executed campaign. In Laplante’s case, the goal is to dominate Maine and penetrate the New Hampshire market, and there are few tools more suited for this than Google ads.
On to Heat Pumps
In order to keep the business moving forward, Laplante is now venturing into other areas such as heat pump installations. Heat pumps are still a relatively new phenomenon in Maine, in that they allow you to easily regulate the temperature at multiple locations throughout your home at a fraction of the cost of a central A/C unit.
They’re becoming increasingly popular, and Laplante will surely be capitalizing on this trend. We are employing similar SEO and Facebook Lead Generation strategies to move the “heat pump” needle just as with standby generators.
Check out their Feedback:
Moving Forward
We are so incredibly fortunate to work with Laplante Electric to grow their business, and can’t wait to continue helping them do so long into the future!
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