We went to school with several guys that have a great web marketing company. They introduced us to another great company that utilizes the Internet for a portion of their sales. We contacted them and they were willing to share some of their experiences on using the web to help power their sales.
The company is a bond company, called Swiftbonds.
How did you get started?
Swiftbonds is a surety bond company. The surety bond industry is a very old and staid industry that goes back centuries. Most of the people in this industry and old men. Seriously, old men. Nearly all of the sales that are made are by word of mouth or the traditional sales method. We employ several bond experts that use their relationships in the industry, especially the construction industry, to develop relationships and provide bonds to large users.
What we decided to do is to add another marketing outlet to the traditional model. Thus, we determined that there is an underserved market of construction contractors that use the Internet for finding a company to provide them with a surety bond (i.e., performance bond, payment bond or contract surety bond). We believed that this platform would help us provide a different type of bond (a credit based bond) to those that have a harder time finding them.
What are surety bonds?
Surety bonds are used by a variety of companies to help facilitate their business. Typically, they are used in construction business to provide assurance that a contractor would perform the terms of the contract according to those terms. That is, a contractor would build according to the specifications and that they would pay their subcontractors, materials and vendors.
How do small contractors find you on the web?
Usually, it is done through a typical search, like through Google, Bing or Yahoo! However, over the last couple of years, social media has been growing in significance. We’ve noticed a definite increase in the usage of Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. Although I am not sure that we get a lot of sales directly from these platforms, I do see a spike when we get more calls in other ways. Thus, we believe that our social media helps us show our expertise to our potential clients.
Swiftbonds is a world class provider of surety bonds, such as bid bonds, performance bonds, payment bonds and other contract surety bonds. Swiftbonds has used its years of experience to create a easy way for companies to get a surety bond without all the hassle that normally goes into a bond proposal.