Howdy Friends,
I’ve had a number of conversations with contractors who have the same quiet, nagging question, “How do I know my marketing is actually working?”
It’s a frustrating place to be. You’re spending money on ads and time looking at your metrics. But you’re not fully confident which number actually tells you whether you’re winning or not.
I’ve been reading a book my mom gave me for Christmas called Click Here by Alex Schultz, the CMO of Meta, and one concept really stood out to me. Your marketing needs one North Star. One clear metric that defines success. Everything else supports that.
If you have two North Stars, you don’t have one.
For a contractor, that North Star usually isn’t clicks, reach, or video views. Those numbers can be helpful, but they aren’t the goal. A real North Star might be qualified leads. Not just any lead, but the kind of lead you actually want to work with.
If you’re a smaller contractor, that might mean eight to ten qualified leads per month. For a mid-sized operation, maybe it’s ten to fifteen. Larger teams might need thirty or more. The exact number depends on your close rate and your capacity. But the point is, it’s one number. Clear. Defined. Measurable.
Now everything else in your marketing has a job. Awareness builds familiarity. People have to know you before they trust you. They have to trust you before they buy. Engagement, video views, and website visits aren’t the goal. They’re the bridge that supports your North Star.
Without that clarity, it’s easy to feel adrift. Too many contractors say they want to make more money, but they aren’t sure what gets them there. When you don’t define what success actually looks like, every metric feels important. And when every metric feels important, none of them truly are.
There’s another piece here that matters. Marketing and sales are connected, but they’re not the same. Marketing’s job is to deliver qualified opportunities. Sales’ job is to close them. If you’re getting the wrong type of leads, that’s a marketing issue. If you’re getting the right type but not closing, that’s a sales or systems issue. Make sure your North Star applies to the system you want to ensure is working correctly.
Most of the frustration I see doesn’t come from a lack of effort, but from a lack of defining one clear goal. A lot of contractors haven’t sat down and decided what their one real-world number is. So they watch everything and feel confident about nothing.
If you want your marketing to feel less chaotic, start by defining your North Star. Put a real number on it. Then make every campaign, every post, and every dollar support that one objective.
Before you scratch your head over more metrics this week, ask yourself two simple questions. What is your North Star right now? And can you define it without looking at a report?
If you want help understanding your North Star metric, so you know exactly what you’re measuring and why, and want to build a marketing system around it, contact me here.
Later, Chad Beachy
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