Project Overview
Matt DiBara is a fourth-generation owner of his family’s masonry business, DiBara Masonry, which is ranked five stars on Google, Yelp, and HomeAdvisor. Along with running his family’s company, Matt is also the co-founder of The Contractor Consultants and founder of the “The Undercover Contractor” podcast, where he educates everyday homeowners by providing advice and insight on their contracting needs.
Matt approached Otter PR seeking press, podcast, and television coverage to publicize and further brand himself as “The Undercover Contractor.” He has many videos available to watch on YouTube where he offers quick and easy advice for homeowners to navigate through their questions regarding contracting work. In addition, his podcast is currently live on Spotify, and he is currently anticipating the release of his upcoming book, “The Undercover Contractor: How To Not Get F**ked By Contractors.”
The Problem
Matt’s overall goal is to educate homeowners — be they first-time owners or experienced ones — in order to better prepare them to make decisions regarding contracting work on their homes. In initial talks with our team, Matt expressed how (and why) many contractors are usually given a bad reputation and/or considered untrustworthy.
He also mentioned how most homeowners are not experts on the industry. In fact, Matt told us how many contractors and other industry experts tend to take advantage of homeowners by performing unnecessary repairs, charging consumers for work that wasn’t agreed to, or overcharging for the work performed.
Matt understands that, by and large, consumers don’t have an advocate or voice for them in this industry to show them the ins and outs of what they should expect when purchasing a home in need of repairs or renovating an existing one. He sought to establish himself as one such advocate by building his personal and professional brand simultaneously through PR and media coverage.
The Strategy
We wanted to present Matt as a leading expert in the construction and masonry industry. Our plan was to shed light on his varied experiences while also highlighting him as the fourth-generation owner of his family’s business — one with a phenomenal legacy and a century-old tradition of successful work. Matt’s primary goal was to promote him as “The Undercover Contractor,” positioning him as the consumer’s ultimate voice and source of expertise. We also wanted to further promote other areas of his expertise, including contractors’ perspectives of national disasters, building collapses, and general home repairs, as well as his experience with crypto through DJ Diplo.
The goal was to begin pitching him for writing opportunities, which would open doors to additional opportunities like guest articles, interviews, and speaking spots on podcasts where he could serve as a subject matter expert. In each of our pitches, we aimed to utilize his family legacy of consumer excellence to build trust with audiences, which is highlighted through his successful online reputation and reviews. Once that trust was established with consumers and audiences nationwide, we noticed opportunities for television appearances beginning to open up. Both national trust and television opportunities were Matt’s ultimate goal in becoming “the Doctor Oz of construction and voice for homeowners.”
In a consumer-based industry such as construction, consumers rely heavily on the experiences of others. Hence, the idea was that we needed to help Matt land regular opportunities to show why he was different than his competitors.
Business Impact (results)
Following the tragic collapse of the Surfside Condominiums building in Miami, FL, in June of 2021, we crafted and sent a pitch that would provide Matt an opportunity to offer his insights as to how such a tragedy could have been prevented. Our strategy was quickly validated, as this approach opened the door to his obtaining a bi-weekly writing spot with For Construction Pros, in which he was able to write about concrete specifically, and even appear on their podcast.
Building his brand awareness and exposure have successfully established Matt as an expert in his field, and his brand continues to grow through additional opportunities presented. Of the several dozen pieces Otter PR generated for Matt’s media coverage, he has received over 13 million individual online readerships with an average domain authority score of 65. Moreover, our team has received increased interest in Matt appearing as an expert not only for consumers, but outlets seeking his experience and insight to help industry professionals with their own contracting businesses.
