In addition to guest posting on the UpCity blog, Visibly Connected is featured as one of the Top Digital Marketing Agencies in the United States. Check out their profile!
Marketing a home services company is no easy feat. Pair that with little to no knowledge of how marketing works in the first place, and you have an uphill battle on your hands.
This article is meant to give you an overview of your options for marketing your local business, along with the pros and cons of each option.
I’m not claiming that you’ll be able to hit a home run with your own DIY home services marketing after having read this. However, you will most definitely have a better understanding of what direction you need to take and be equipped with the knowledge to make sure you ask the right questions when interviewing a potential marketing agency.
So, let’s jump on in, shall we?
First Things First, Traditional Marketing Methods
So, as a home services business owner, this is where you will more than likely be the most comfortable. Traditional marketing tactics and techniques are the “old-school” way of doing things for most HVAC companies, plumbers, roofing companies, electricians, etc.
That doesn’t mean bad…just that it’s been done for quite some time.
The technical definition for traditional marketing is any form of “offline” marketing that preceded the more modern digital marketing.
These traditional advertising methods can include;
-
Branded business cards
-
Wrapped service vehicles
-
Direct mail media such as promotional postcards
-
Print ads in local publications
-
Billboards
-
Referrals
So does traditional marketing still have a place in a home service company’s set of tools today?
Pros and Cons of Traditional Marketing for Home Services
The good thing about traditional marketing is that a portion of it should be a no-brainer for any home services company that is interested in branding and marketing itself.
Every reputable business should have a unique logo, a well-designed business card, and a steady flow of referrals to work from.
Branding
This process is best to start at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey. Deciding on a unique and effective brand image with items such as your business name and logo will help set you apart from your competition.
Be sure to give this some thought because it will be your first impression with most homeowners.
Business Cards
Business cards tend to be an afterthought for some business owners. After all, what benefit can a well-designed business card have?
Having a thoughtful business card will show potential customers that you value your business and that they should too.
Be sure that your business name, logo, and all of your contact information are clear and legible, and most importantly, accurate.
You can even utilize the back of your business card for a coupon or referral offer such as “10% off your next service when you present this card” or “Refer a friend and receive a $25 gift card”.
Referral Systems
Speaking of – it’s crucial that you have a solid referral system in place.
According to Hubspot, referral leads close at a staggering 50 to 70 percent. As much as 60 percent higher than other lead sources.
Making sure that all of your current clients are aware that you appreciate and even award referrals is critical.
Coming up with a system that offers clients who refer you new business an incentive such as a $25 gift card (for a prospective customer who ends up using your service), for example, can offer some of the biggest returns on your investment.
What home services company wouldn’t pay $25 for a closed lead?
Service Vehicle Branding
Branding or wrapping your service vehicles isn’t necessarily something that you will be able to accomplish right away. This can be a considerable expense depending on the number of service vehicles and the complexity of the graphics being used.
That being said, you only have to pay for it one time.
Having your service vehicle(s) stand out in traffic means that people will notice you going to and from your jobs. This offers the perception that lots of their neighbors are trusting your business for service which in turn encourages the person to want to learn more about you.
All of the above-mentioned traditional marketing tactics are basically a free form of advertising once you get past the initial cost.
However, not all forms of traditional marketing will yield a great return on your investment. Let’s look at a couple more examples.
Direct Mail Campaigns
Direct mail campaigns tend to have a very small conversion rate and require constant and consistent utilization to even begin to start to see results.
With the rising cost of print and postage, this can turn into a large expense rather quickly.
Not to mention, how many times do you look at, much less even keep, direct mail postcards and flyers that you receive at your mailbox?
Trying to comprehend the overwhelming amount of printed media (that you paid for) that will ultimately end up in homeowners’ trash cans can be a hard pill to swallow.
With all that said, so long as you have the proper expectations and realize that the average conversion rate is between .5 and 2 percent, this could be a viable option for you.
Billboard Campaigns
The billboard method seems good in theory but you must keep in mind that it is ultimately a form of static exposure, meaning that billboard never moves and, generally speaking, captures the attention of the same commuters each week.
You’ll be lucky if you can find a billboard available on a stretch of freeway known for its extended traffic jams but you can bet that you’ll also pay a premium for that real estate.
Have you ever tried to take down a phone number or website while traveling 65mph?
A billboard campaign would be best used as a secondary marketing strategy. Meaning, once you have exhausted the other “low-hanging fruit” options, it may make sense to look into a billboard for additional brand awareness.
Another thing to consider with any traditional marketing campaign is the lack of the ability to analyze the results. It will be difficult to know exactly which forms of advertising are most effective because traditional marketing doesn’t offer the same level of data harvesting that digital marketing does such as tracking website traffic, inquiry forms, and phone calls.
A decent rule of thumb to consider when deciding on your digital marketing strategy is to think about how you personally operate as a consumer. Are things like direct mail and ads in the newspaper what draw you to a business? Or do referrals and seeing a company’s service trucks constantly running around town convince you to call?
Hear From Industry Experts
Read the latest tips, research, best practices, and insights from our community of expert B2B service providers.
Digital Marketing Methods for Home Services
The more common, and more often than not, more effective form of marketing for a home services company is digital marketing.
Digital marketing is a blanket term used to describe any form of marketing that utilizes the internet and other forms of digital technology.
Some of the more popular forms of digital marketing are;
-
Search Engine Optimization
-
Pay-per-Click Ads
-
Video Awareness Ads
-
Pay-per-Lead Ads
-
Social Media Marketing
-
Web Design
-
Email Marketing
-
Business Listings
So, does high tech always equal high return? Let’s find out.
Pros and Cons of Digital Marketing for Home Services
To stay competitive in the home services industry, you must utilize some forms of digital marketing. There are too many options, some of which with a low barrier to entry, for you to not consider it.
With traditional media consumption rates dropping and digital media consumption rates climbing, your best opportunity to capture your potential target audience will be through the internet and other digital marketing channels.
According to Oberlo, the average American spent 62.4 percent of their day consuming digital media in 2022 and it’s projected to increase again in 2023.
Let’s look at some of your options for your business’s online presence and digital marketing;
Web Design
Your business’s website is generally going to be the start of your digital marketing journey. While it’s not required, it is usually pretty standard for a home services provider to have a business website with information about their company and services and offer the ability to inquire and/or schedule a service for new customers.
The value of a home services website is not always quantifiable in that it is more so a platform to help bolster your other marketing efforts.
There are countless methods and costs available when it comes to designing your home services website and it can be difficult to know which option is best.
Premium website design services generally take into account more than just the look and feel of your website. Typically, they will help set up the foundation for a successful SEO campaign, create the structure for hosting landing pages for PPC campaigns, etc.
Local Search Engine Optimization
Local SEO can be a complete game changer for your home services marketing strategy. Unfortunately, it takes quite a long time to start actualizing the benefits of the service.
My agency typically sets the expectations upfront that a client shouldn’t expect to see dramatic results until about 8 to 12 months into the campaign. That’s not because work isn’t being done, but because there are several outside factors that search engines control that need to be considered. Some Local SEO marketing agencies can be a little vague about what it takes to get your local business to rank better, but a trustworthy agency should be able to confidently answer your Local SEO questions.
If you can afford to be patient, SEO should yield you the best return on investment among almost all of the digital marketing solutions available. This is because, if you rank in the top 3 to 5 results on Google search, your only limiting factor will be the number of searches any particular keyword(s) gets per month.
A final consideration to take into account when considering SEO is that the results are relative to your physical location as a business. Meaning, the further away people are from your office when searching, the less effective your rankings will be. This has the potential to create a hurdle for home service professionals with a large service area.
Pay-per-Click Ads
Pay-per-Click (PPC) ads are a fantastic tool to target your audience right at the time of needing your service.
When done correctly, it also provides you with an incredibly controlled environment by using landing pages created with specific messaging for the exact service they are searching for.
According to Email Vendor Selection, the use of landing pages provides a 160 percent better conversion rate when compared to other types of signup forms.
PPC ads also offer a great way to get immediate placement in markets that would otherwise be unavailable to you because of limiting factors such as your geographic location.
All that being said, this optimal timing and placement come at a cost. Companies like Google and Bing aren’t dumb and they know the value of every single search term for every single industry. PPC ads can quickly become a sizeable investment, but so long as your numbers are right and you’re profiting, it should still make sense.
Pay-per-Lead Ads
Utilizing a Pay-per-Lead (PPL) ad strategy provides a little more peace of mind for the average home services business owner. This method generally relies less on a fine-tuned, well-optimized ads campaign of your own and more on a simpler approach by piggybacking off of a third-parties more well-known platform.
Some examples of PPL ad platforms are Google Local Services Ads, Angi, Networx, etc. These platforms do the work to get your audience to their website and collect their information, you are just paying them for the leads.
This offers more peace of mind because you know you are getting what you paid for.
As with any form of marketing, not every lead will be considered a good lead. And this is where the quality of these third-party platforms becomes apparent.
It’s been our experience that companies like Angi and Networx tend to provide a higher rate of “bad leads” and offer a more difficult experience for disputing those leads when compared to a platform such as Google Local Services.
Also, depending on your industry and the competition, you could find that the overall amount of leads available isn’t as high as other self-supported options such as a Google Ads PPC campaign.
Running PPL ads can be a great way to supplement an existing marketing strategy or even satisfy those home services businesses that aren’t necessarily looking for a large number of leads each month.
Social Media Marketing
A successful social media marketing campaign may look different from one home improvement company to another. The more clearly you can define your objectives, the more likely you are to have a successful campaign or figure out that another marketing strategy may work better.
Earlier we had mentioned billboards as a form of traditional marketing. Billboards exist because they were popular and worked wonders at one point. So how do you utilize that traditional concept and mold it into a more modern method of advertising?
One example of a successful social media strategy is brand awareness ads. You can capture that same magic of a billboard by producing eye-catching video or static image ads and serving them to a massive audience in your target service area.
The modern twist is that it’s not a static billboard on the freeway. You are capturing people’s attention when they are relaxed, scrolling social media on their mobile devices or computers. And beyond that, you have the opportunity for engagement such as a click-through to your business profile on Facebook.
As with all of the marketing tactics we have covered today, it is incredibly important to manage your expectations with social media marketing. If you understand what to expect and the value of the results, you should be able to make an educated decision on whether or not it is right for you.
Coming Up With a Successful Home Services Marketing Plan
A successful marketing plan is honestly any marketing plan. Far too many home services companies rest on their laurels and don’t invest the proper time, attention, and money into their marketing to yield adequate results.
This leaves all of the opportunity for the smart ones that are actually taking profits and reinvesting them to help generate even more.
There is no realistic marketing solution that will consistently bring you a 10X multiplier on your investment. The bottom line is, so long as you are at least breaking even, you are winning. Because that means more annual revenue, more clients with more repeat business, and more referrals.
The most important aspect of marketing is to clearly define your goals and track the proper key performance indicators along the way to make sure you are achieving those goals. And keep in mind, that’s not always going to be phone calls. Things like brand mentions, website traffic, content engagement, social media following, and testimonials are all also important.
Here’s the good news…you don’t have to go it alone. It’s always best to pay a professional to do what they know best. After all, you wouldn’t recommend that a homeowner install their own roof, would you?
We’ve covered a lot in this article and if you’ve been paying attention, you should be equipped with enough knowledge to make sure you are asking the right questions when you are interviewing potential marketing agencies to help take your local business to the next level.
Good luck out there.