Seems like it was not so long ago that you could make a website for your business. “submit” it to Yahoo or the new internet thing called Google, and in no time your site would be indexed and showing for all to see. As time went on and things changed, advertising and promoting your business online became very costly and sort of gray and hazy as to what actually worked for you. Nowadays there are as many opportunities to waste money as there are to buy into legitimate marketing.

“Post Your Ad For FREE”, “Get A FREE Listing”, “Network With thousands Of Other Contractors For FREE”; or other similar pigeon type advertising, is usually the first red flag that it’s either worthless or will eventually cost money to upgrade to a better form of advertising.

It’s called “pigeon advertising” because it’s like sticking your ad to a pigeon and letting it go. There’s a chance that someone will see it, but usually it just gets lost amongst the other pigeons.

Rich Bogath, Managing Partner, Botonde.

Remember that free is never free unless it has conditions. No one is stupid enough to believe that you would be willing to work for free (“We will build your deck for FREE!”) but if it has a condition then it is believable (“Free decking estimates!” or “30-days FREE”). Just don’t forget to be careful when offering freebies… FREE can also have the perception of “no-value”.

Also be careful when it comes to social media advertising. Extremely valuable when used properly, but can spiral out of control exponentially if you’re not careful. The key is to test a little at a time. It does not stand to reason that if a five dollar investment gets you no results, a five-hundred dollar investment will do any better. In most cases, you should bring on people with experience to do this for you. Yes, it represents additional investment, but they can help you avoid tons of costly mistakes.

Botonde does not engage in or offer any sort of pigeon advertising. Aside from offering your contractor business the finest profession-specific calculators and tools for generating take-offs, estimates, materials and labor, Botonde is now building and testing a “homeowner to contractor” marketplace. This marketplace allows local clients to find your business through your own personal business profile page that acts just like a mini-website for your contracting business. Also as part of that, client referrals and contractor to contractor endorsements are also included. This is all included with your nominal monthly fee when you sign up as part of the Botonde family.