The Huge Potential with Home Improvement Companies
So, you’re an experienced home improvement contractor. You know how to deal with the nuances that every job brings up. It’s taken you years to develop what I call “common construction sense.”
Guess what? You have a huge advantage when it comes to marketing.
The simple fact is that what you do is hard. And because it’s hard, big companies with big advertising budgets focus on easier projects.
Do you think big, systemized companies want to deal with permits, change orders, and complex remodels that stretch out over months? Nope.
Because less advertising dollars are going towards additions, basement finishing, kitchens, and other complex projects, marketing is way cheaper.
So if you’re a contractor that knows how to handle jobs with medium to high complexity, you’ve got a huge advantage. With a relatively small advertising budget, you can bring in project after project that fits with what you’re good at.
With a little business savvy, and a willingness to pay attention to your marketing (which, you seem to have, being that you’re here) - you’ve got a solid chance to grow by leaps and bounds ahead of your competition.
The first step? Focus on one thing.
7 Strong Marketing Strategies for Home Improvement
Marketing Strategy #1: Focus on One Thing
When I sit down with home improvers, and ask what type of projects they want to get, they tend to give me a list.
They say “Oh, we can do it all; kitchens, baths, decks, painting, etc.”
Probably a better question to ask is “Pretend I can get you any type of project you want. And as many as you want. What type of project do you really, really, really want?”
The reason I get the list answer is because most home improvers are used to just taking work as it comes. They take whatever work is available. They’re working on Sally’s kitchen, and Sally asks them about a bathroom remodel, and they say “Sure!”
This is another reason most home improvers don’t advertise; they get a steady stream of referrals. The problem is, these referrals are usually a wide variety of projects.
But is every project created equal?
If you think about the headache, profitability, and yeah, how fun each project is to do. Does it all line up? Is a kitchen remodel the same as building an addition?
For most contractors the answer will be a resounding no. If you’ve been around for a bit, chances are you’ve gotten pretty good at specific types of projects, or helping customers meet specific types of goals.
Maybe you’re the go to guy for really custom, out-there work.
Or maybe you get referred because you are an efficiency machine - getting jobs done at a reasonable cost and a reasonable rate.
So what if, what IF you could focus on one type of project? And get an unlimited supply of that type of project?
Well. Now you know what the real purpose of marketing is. With marketing, you can do exactly that.
Any contractor can get work. It’s not hard to find work. What marketing lets you do is to get the right type of work. So what’s the right type of work for you?
Let’s say you do a list of things like baths, kitchens, sunrooms, decks, full home remodels. Here are some things to ask yourself about each type of project:
- What type of project typically goes the smoothest with the least amount of hiccups?
- What ends up being the most profitable?
- What are you good at that most other home improvers don’t like to tackle?
- If you can afford to throw it into the equation - what do you like doing the most?
Maybe your company is well set up to handle multiple types of projects. Maybe you enjoy them all equally and they’re equally profitable. In that case, the question to ask yourself is what type of customer are you best at serving?
Do you typically fit the bill for homeowners who want something custom, high end, and very unique? Do you spend hours creating a design to grant the customer’s every wish?
Or, do you typically fit the bill for customers who are tired of waiting, and want something done really fast? Maybe they don’t want to go back and forth on design. Maybe they already know what they want, and want it done now.
Or maybe you help that middle class suburban family who doesn’t have unlimited money, and you are a genius when it comes to helping people get the most out of their renovation while spending the least amount of money?
If it doesn’t make sense to make the thing you focus on be a type of project, then maybe what you focus on is the type of customer.
When you nail this down (pun intended), you can laser focus the rest of your marketing efforts to bring you the type of jobs you want.
When you talk to lead providers, Facebook Ad Super-Geniuses (hey, that’s me!), or your website company, you should be able to tell them exactly what type of projects and customers you’re looking for.
Marketing Strategy #2: Hire MULTIPLE Lead Companies
As much hate as lead companies get, they are truly incredible. They give you an opportunity to start getting leads now - for your ideal type of project, mind you - without having to wait months or years for other marketing efforts to kick in.
Most will give you a fixed cost per lead for your desired project and your area. This means you can set your budget to get the amount of leads you want.
What I recommend is working with multiple lead companies at the same time. Why? Well, here’s the thing:
There’s almost certainly going to be a big difference in lead quality between sources.
Is it because one source is just bad and the other one is just good - period? Or that some are better than others all the time? Usually not.
See, there are a lot of variables at play:
- There might be way more demand in City A for kitchen remodels than there is in City B.
- Remodeling Company A might be way better equipped to answer calls and follow up with leads than Remodeling Company B.
- Lead Source A might be way more established in City A than City B.
All these variables combine to determine how many leads a given contractor gets, in a given city, and how many turn into sold jobs.
This is why it’s so common to hear some contractors swear by a lead company, like Angi Leads, while other contractors absolutely hate them. Sometimes even within the same city!
The problem is that there are so many variables it’s impossible to correctly guess ahead of time what lead company will get the best home improvement leads for you specifically.
I’ve been advertising for various types of home improvement companies for 6 years. And if I started a remodeling company tomorrow, I still wouldn’t know the lead companies to sign up with for my desired project in my city.
So rather than trying to hunt down the perfect lead source for you, going with a few different sources will help you diversify and balance out all the variables.
And after 3 to 6 months, if you see an obvious disparity between them, you can turn off the lower quality ones.
If you’re just getting started, here are a few lead companies I recommend talking to:
To get the most out of your leads, and track what’s working best, you’ll want to do Marketing Strategy #3.
Marketing Strategy #3: Use a CRM System
CRM systems can practically make or break the results you get from your marketing efforts.
If you’re unfamiliar, CRM means “Customer Relationship Management.” A CRM system is simply a cloud-based software that handles contacts, email marketing, scheduling, and other functions that support sales.
Many CRMs for home improvers also include scheduling, robust project management, and employee management.
So what makes a CRM so important?
CRMs give you the ability to keep all your customer details, along with their project information, all in one place. Your project manager can take notes on the customer in the system, and if that customer calls your office with a question, the office person can pull up the customer and immediately have access to all the same info.
This keeps your customers happy by providing better communication - leading to more 5-star reviews and referrals!
But for marketing, there are a number of ways CRMs can help you. You can…
- Run automatic email campaigns, increasing the number of appointments you set.
- You can send automated texts and emails to your upcoming sales appointments, making it easier to close the deal.
- You can use a sales pipeline, to keep track of what stage each prospect is in, and follow-up with them according to that process.
- You can blast out an email or a text message to all your contacts with some new promotion or service offering when applicable.
- You can use scheduling to manage your sales appointments (or sales appointments for your salespeople.)
- You can take notes, resulting in better communication, and helping customers feel more valued. You can call Johny back after 6 months, and ask him if he is still interested in the bath remodel you had discussed with him 6 months earlier.
- You can send estimates and get contract signatures electronically - and in some cases, collect payments electronically - making it easier for customers to sign up with you!
- You can send out review requests to customers you’ve completed projects for.
- You can create estimate templates, allowing you to get estimates out more quickly - and have a better chance of closing those customers who are in a hurry.
- You can track all your incoming leads, and see which sources are resulting in the most sales. This will help you spend your marketing dollars more efficiently.
That’s just 10 ways, out of many more, that CRMs can help you make the most out of your incoming leads.
“But I already close 80% of my leads!” you may say. If so, that’s awesome! That being said, where did those leads come from?
If all your leads have come from Google, or been referred to you, your close rate will be much higher. Leads from Google have probably done their research, and leads from referrals have already been sold on you as a company by their friends.
So a CRM may not help you boost your sales from referrals that much.
But leads that come from lead sources, Facebook ads, and other marketing efforts are a different animal altogether:
They don’t know you as well.
They don’t trust you yet.
It’s on you to show them you can communicate, that you’re organized, and convince them you can help with what they need.
Because of the relatively low cost for a CRM - and the HUGE impact it can have on sales for your marketed leads - it’s pretty much a necessity.
So… what’s the best CRM?
Well, that depends on what your company needs the most. Some CRMs focus more on the sales end, some focus more on the project management end. Some do both!
At Service Allies, our favorite CRM is Builder Prime. It covers the whole spectrum of functionality, at a much lower cost than most systems.
If you need something more specialized, here are some other home improvement CRMs to look at.
Whatever CRM you choose - the most important thing is that you use it. Inputting your customer data, in one centralized cloud-based software, can help you unlock your full marketing potential.
Marketing Strategy #4: Get Good Pictures that Show a Transformation
Now hold it right there Sparky.
If you’re like most home improvers I know, you’ll probably glance at this section and think to yourself, “I already get pictures of all my projects,” and start scrolling past.
It's excellent that you already get pictures. Believe it or not, you’re already ahead of quite a few remodelers out there.
That being said, it’s important to understand - as a home improver - how vital your pictures really are.
Think about it. Why do customers hire you?
80% of why they hire you is for their kitchen, bathroom, etc to look different. It’s mostly a visual result they’re looking for. They want to see a transformation.
This means you not only need to get photos of your projects. You need to get photos that show a clear transformation.
This means lots of before and after photos taken from the exact same angles so that the differences are clear. So that you can see how the layout changed.
It means cleaning up tools and other crap before taking photos.
And it means making sure your phone lens is focused properly so the pics don’t come out blurry.
When you have photos of before and afters, you can:
- List them on your website to show your ideal customers that you’re their guy (or gal.)
- Show them to new prospective customers, who are looking for the same kind of transformations, to show them how you’ve done those exact transformations before.
- Show them in Facebook ads and other types of advertisements to catch the attention of the right audience.
- Put them on your Google listing to improve your SEO and traffic to your site.
- And more!
I’m not saying you need to go buy a professional camera. (Actually, in our experience, cell phone photos work the same or better for ads.)
But what is important is that deliberate effort is put into getting photos that show the transformation.
In-progress photos of your guys working on the project might also show prospective customers how clean and organized your team is.
Now - be honest with yourself. Are you being that diligent with customer photos? If the answer is no, you’re not alone. 80% or more of the home improvers I talk to really struggle with pictures, and might only have 10 or so good ones.
But paying attention to this area of marketing - (a FREE area of marketing, I might add) - can do wonders for your marketing efforts.
Now, maybe you yourself take lots of photos but you can’t get your guys to do it consistently.
If that’s the case, I highly recommend a tool called Company Cam.
It’s an app that easily lets you take before and afters, and organize them by project. These photos are then uploaded to the cloud and can be accessed anywhere.
When you sign on with marketing vendors, you can just give them access and they’ll have all the photos they need.
I’ve noticed an interesting trend. When I come across home improvement contractors who are signed up with Company Cam - they always seem to have lots of good pictures!
If you get good before and afters, at consistent angles, for each and every project - you’ll be ahead of 80% to 90% of home improvement companies.
It’s worth it!
Marketing Strategy #5: Wrap Your Vans and Trucks
Wrapped trucks are hands down one of the best investments you can make in your marketing. Here’s why.
It’s estimated that wrapped vehicles get around 30,000 to 70,000 visual impressions each day (how many times people see your brand.)
If we do some math, that’s at least 30,000 impressions times 5 work days every week times 52 weeks in a year. That’s 7,800,000 times your brand makes an impact! And since your vehicle will probably last 5 years or longer, that’s 39,000,000 impressions per vehicle.
For comparison, the average cost per 1000 impressions (CPM) with Facebook Ads is about $11. So to get 39,000,000 impressions, you’d have to spend $429,000.
Now, does that mean you should immediately empty your bank account to wrap all your trucks? Well, here are some things to consider first.
One: you should have a clear sense of what you want your brand to convey, and the type of projects or customers you want to attract. This may take a few years in business to establish.
Two: wrapping your trucks probably won’t result in immediate leads or phone calls. It’s a cumulative effect that takes place over years. People see your vehicles on the road, your brand gets stuck in their mind, and then later when they see your Facebook Ads or search for local remodelers, your name will ring a bell.
Three: if you’re going to do it, you should do it right. This means hiring a professional branding company to create your brand and the design for your trucks and vans. (The company I recommend for this, by the way, is KickCharge Creative.) The process of designing the brand and trucks alone is expensive.
If you have some reserve cash that you’re looking for a good way to invest, and you know what direction you’re going as a company, I strongly recommend you consider wrapping your vehicles.
But if you don’t have that stockpile, and don’t already have a decent flow of leads coming in, you may want to focus on lead generation efforts.
Also - up next is something you can spend $0 on and start booking more estimates almost immediately.
Marketing Strategy #6: Call Old Leads Again
If you’ve been in business for a while, you’re probably sitting on a goldmine without realizing it: dead leads.
I’m talking about all the conversations you’ve started with people about their home improvement projects that fell through the cracks somehow:
- They never answered the phone when you called.
- You could nail down a time to do their estimate.
- You provided an estimate and never heard back.
- They agreed to move forward, then canceled at the last minute for some reason or other.
Here’s the cool thing about this industry. When homeowners consider a home improvement project, they sit on it for a while without acting. They take their time to think and plan. So, maybe you don’t realize it - but a LOT of these homeowners still haven’t completed their job yet.
Don’t believe me? Here’s an example.
I was calling dead leads for a client of mine, out of the leads Service Allies had generated for him. I talked to this one lady who had tried to schedule with the owner of the business already, but he wasn’t able to meet her. He had canceled the appointment with her twice.
It was about 6 months after that had happened that I was calling her. She said she was still interested - if the owner could actually meet.
Long story short, I set up the appointment, and he got a $115,000 basement project out of that.
The process I followed was to pick a batch of leads (maybe 10 at a time) and call each one 4 times and text 3 times over the course of 4 days. After I cycled through that batch, I would move onto the next batch.
Somewhere around 5% to 10% of the old leads I called were still interested in getting an estimate and booked an appointment.
So yes - calling back dead leads is a really good way to get estimates, but…
Something tells you may already know this. And despite knowing it - you may still have hundreds of leads to call, but you haven’t gotten around to it yet.
And maybe there’s legit reasons. Maybe the last interaction you had with someone wasn’t that great. Maybe you don’t want to be a bother.
But can I be honest with you? I have the same issue. I have hundreds of old leads from my own marketing I can call. And for me personally - the real reason I don’t is because I don’t want to.
It’s uncomfortable. It’s embarrassing. I get worried people won’t remember who I am and think it’s a lead company that’s cold calling them, and then lying about a previous interaction. Plus, getting rejected hurts.
So what ends up happening is I subconsciously procrastinate on calling my old leads. There’s always something I find to do that’s “more important.” It gets pushed so far back on the list that it gets pushed off the list altogether.
Now that I’ve been honest with you, be honest with yourself. Do you think the reason you, or your sales team, haven’t called back old accounts might be similar?
Getting to the root of the issue - and dealing with it - can help you address it better.
Give your old leads a call and see if they need an estimate for more work. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results!
Marketing Strategy #7: Run Paid Facebook Ads
Most sources that get immediate leads are lead companies. While immediate leads are great, buying leads won’t build up your brand.
And while it’s great to build your brand from branding efforts, and get long term traffic from SEO, sometimes it takes a while to get going.
What if there was a way to start getting leads within days, while simultaneously building up your long term reputation in your local market?
Well - you’re in luck! It’s called paid social media.
Unlike most types of marketing, paid Facebook ads allow you to get in front of tens of thousands of homeowners right away.
And with well-written and well-crafted Facebook ads (like the kind Service Allies creates!) plenty of those homeowners will become your leads!
And because we create custom campaigns for each of clients, you’ll be able to focus on attracting your ideal customers (like we mentioned in Strategy #1).
We specialize in just Facebook & Instagram ads, and we just work with companies that serve homeowners.
To see how Service Allies can help you grow with Facebook Ads, schedule a call with the owner today!
