Intro
Not all marketing is created equal. While most types of marketing work, some are more expensive than others, and some take longer than others to start working. So in practicality, while a marketing strategy might work great for the remodeler down the street, it might not be a good strategy for your specific business at this specific time. Following so far?
The key to successful marketing is knowing what to do and when to do it. But what's challenging is that marketing companies want to pitch their specific program and tell you how good it is. So it's hard to know what actually makes sense for you right now.
This post is meant to cut through the noise and help you get a solid grasp of the three main categories of marketing, and how to leverage them; no matter what stage of growth your company is in!
One thing to note: in this post, we’ll be specifically talking about marketing that flows from your business. These are either marketing efforts that you can do in-house, or hire a company to do on your behalf. But if you run a remodeling business, don’t rule out buying leads from third parties. There are some great companies out there to buy leads from.
With that being said, let’s dive in!
Hunting Marketing
Estimated time to see results: 1-2 months
Hunting is when you go out and look for prospects with some type of manual effort like cold calling, door knocking, finding prospects on social media, etc. While it takes lots of time and effort, it gives you the ability to seek out the exact clientele you want to work with.
Here are a few different types of hunting you can use to get clients. Remember, the more consistent your efforts, the better your chances are at landing some good jobs.
Door Knocking
Homeowners consider remodeling projects for a long time before they pull the trigger. The time span between their initial interest and making the purchase can be months or even years.
This means that at any given time, the pool of homeowners who are in the market for a remodel is huge. Especially compared to other home services where the homeowner’s needs are more urgent. And because of that, interruption-based marketing techniques are very effective. Door knocking included!
To knock doors effectively, pick a few good neighborhoods and start making your rounds. Dress nice, smell nice, and try not to stand too close to the homeowner or you’ll make them uncomfortable.
When you talk to homeowners, your goal isn’t to sell them on the spot. Your goal should be to see if there’s interest and, if there is, to schedule a follow-up visit. On this visit you can dive into what they're looking for in more detail and then try to close the deal.
Door Hangers
Door hangers give you the opportunity to get in front of thousands of targeted homeowners with very little cash investment.
Your door hangers don’t have to be complicated. To make homeowners intrigued, your hangers could include pictures of your work, a picture of yourself, and maybe a special offer. I believe genuine, authentic content like this, or an offer with good value, beats a polished graphic design any day of the week.
Your hanger should also include clear next steps for the homeowner that require minimal thought or effort. For example, you could have them text to set up a time for a phone consultation. This gives you a chance to interview them about their project and hopefully set up a time for an in-home estimate.
Cold Calling
Cold calling still works and there are a lot of successful companies using it as a legitimate source of leads.
You can find phone numbers to call by purchasing them online. There are several websites that offer targeted lists of thousands of homeowners. Just like with door-knocking, don’t try to close the sale over the phone. If the customer has any interest, set up an appointment for later and pitch the customer when they are more prepared.
To cold call effectively:
- Purchase a list of numbers
- Write a basic script
- Tweak your script every 500-1000 calls to make it more effective
Facebook Groups
Finding customers in Facebook groups might be a good option depending on your market. It’s also completely free.
In some communities around the United States, buy and sell Facebook groups pop up. If enough people are in these groups, there’s a good chance that every now and then someone will post who is looking for recommendations on good remodeling companies.
When you see homeowners looking for a quote, you can comment on their post and exchange contact information. From there, you can schedule a time for your appointment.
When to Hunt
Hunting strategies are a great option for new remodeling companies. You may not have much money to spend on leads and marketing starting out, but hunting gives you the opportunity to go out and find new customers for little to no cost.
Even established businesses (especially roofers) still regularly use teams of door knockers to go out and find projects. Depending on your business model, hunting could be a viable long term strategy as well.
Keep in mind that you probably won’t have a high close rate with the leads you get through hunting strategies. These homeowners haven’t had much time to get to know you. That being said, hunting can be a great strategy starting out - especially if you’re willing to put in the time and effort!
Fishing Marketing
Estimated time to see results: 1-3 months
About fishing
A fishing marketing strategy is when you put bait out into the market and try to get people to bite. Fishing gives you some control over the quality of leads you get, since the type of “bait” you use affects the type of “fish” you catch.
Fishing strategies aren’t cheap, but since they can provide quick returns, they can often fund themselves. Meaning, you earn enough from your new sales to pay for your ongoing marketing efforts, which provides even more sales, etc.
Facebook & Instagram Ads
Facebook’s ad platform lets you run paid ads on Facebook and Instagram. You can attract the types of customers you want by running ads with images and text that’s most likely to appeal to that audience.
Since you can quickly get in front of tens of thousands of homeowners, it doesn’t take long to see results. Homeowners in your target area will see your ads and start reaching out. (With the campaigns we run, leads start coming in within 3 days of launch for new clients.)
Facebook ads is Service Allies’ one and only marketing specialty. Being focused gives us an edge and helps us get better results for our remodeling customers. Check out our lead programs for remodelers:
Google Ads
You can get in front of low-funnel, ready-to-buy customers with Google ad campaigns. They typically take about 1-2 months to “warm up” and start getting you real traction.
In order to get you best results, your Google ads company should be sending leads to a landing page specially designed to convert interest prospects, and should do thorough research on the keywords in your market.
Mailers
Mailers are alive and well, and seem to be producing great ROI in markets across the United States.
One thing that makes mailers so successful is your targeting power. You can decide the precise zip codes that your mailers get sent out to. If you own a high-end, luxury remodeling business, mailers could be the secret sauce you need to get in front of your ideal clientele.
If you’re more of a middle-of-the-road remodeler, mailers still work great, but I wouldn’t recommend only targeting affluent neighborhoods.
Radio & TV
To use radio & TV advertisements as a way to “fish” for leads, run a special exclusive offer. The offer can be a financing offer, discount, or some other exclusive deal. This will help you incite immediate action. Without an offer, you would probably still get some good branding value. But an appealing, hard-to-resist offer will help you get more leads in the short term.
To make your ads successful, it should be extremely easy for prospects to take action. They should be able to text a number, visit an easy-to-remember URL, or something else that requires minimal effort. After presenting your offer, you should also give a clear call to action on what you want them to do.
Farming Marketing
Estimated time to see results: 6+ months
About Farming
Farming marketing efforts require action today to produce results in the long run. You’re “planting seeds” that take awhile to grow.
Since these types of marketing don’t produce results very quickly, remodeling companies seem to give up. Often they switch from company to company hoping for faster results.
But if you have the patience, farming can eventually produce some of the best prospects and customers you’ll ever talk to. This is because farming strategies tend to produce a lot of trust with your prospects. And that trust leads to a much easier, much smoother sales process.
Website & SEO
I lumped these together because in most cases it’s the same company that does both.
A good website with authentic content makes you more trustworthy to customers. They can look around and quickly find out if you’re the right company for them. And don’t try to please everyone - he who chases two rabbits catches none. Think about your ideal customer, or the ideal projects you want more of, and gear your site towards that.
SEO is like a competitive sport. There are a limited number of homeowners searching for remodeling services every month, and everyone is trying to get in front of them. SEO companies go head-to-head to try to produce the best content so that their client’s sites can rank.
Because of the level of competition, SEO isn’t something you can afford to go cheap on. If you’re serious about making it work, you should find the best company you can who ideally specializes in working with remodelers. (One such company is BuilderFunnel. Check them out if you're a luxury custom remodeler or home builder. )
If you can’t afford $2500 to $7500 monthly for an SEO company who can fight well in the search arena, it’s probably not worth doing at all.
Email Campaigns
If you run good email campaigns, you’ll have a leg up on the vast majority of remodelers. Almost no one I come across does this well. When I ask about their email campaigns, they mention that they send out an offer once a month or something similar.
But what do your prospects really need?
In Spencer Powell’s book, The Remodeler Marketing Blueprint, he talks about how the customers you attract will be in different stages of the buying process. Some will be TOF (top of funnel, and just starting to consider a remodel) and some will be MOF (middle of funnel, and starting to consider what exactly they want to have done.)
These TOF and MOF customers aren’t ready to buy yet. And you can’t force them to. So sending out a sales email once a month won’t be very useful to them. Instead, what you can do is send out content that will be valuable to them. What styles should they consider for their new kitchen? What are some popular design options for walk-in showers? What are some features they could include in their new basement?
This content will help your prospect base see you as an authority, and eventually they’ll start calling with questions and proceed to set up an estimate.
It’s worth restating that if you do this well, you’ll have a tremendous advantage in your market. Very few remodelers do, and most don’t regularly email their database at all.
Truck Wraps & Brand Building
The average work vehicle gets millions of views every year. This makes truck wraps one of the most effective things you can do to advertise your business.
Let’s say you spend $5,000 for a quality truck wrap that will stand out. And let’s say your vehicle gets seen 2 million times per year. That’s a $5,000 investment for an opportunity to get your business and offer seen 10 million times over a 5 year period.
You might not be able to afford that up front cost if you’re a new business (not to mention the cost to have someone design your brand.) But once you're established and can afford the extra cost, truck wraps are a seed worth planting! In the long haul, they provide an unusually high return on investment.
Referral Partnerships
Specialized remodelers (Bath Planet, Kitchen Tune-Up, or any company that specializes in a specific service) have a unique opportunity to build referral partnerships. For example, if you were Bath Planet, and your customers ask if you do kitchens, you could refer them to a kitchen specialist and vice versa.
Here’s another example. Let’s say all you do is design and cabinet sales. You won’t be competing with any local remodelers. And if those remodelers don’t have any interest in offering design services (many don’t!) they’ll be happy to refer customers to you for a design. You’ll send them business, they’ll send you business - it’s a win win!
These partnerships take a long time to build and nurture. But once you have them, they provide a steady stream of high-quality referrals. They also don’t cost money to build.
Building Reviews
Since building up reviews doesn’t immediately produce leads on its own, it often gets neglected. There are so many urgent things that come up throughout the day, it can be hard to remember to focus on the important things. Including things that develop your business in the long term.
But good reviews are a powerful asset that’s very expensive to neglect. They dramatically increase the value of any other marketing you do.
For example, let’s say you build up a 4.9 star rating with 38 reviews. Once your SEO kicks in and people find your business, they’ll be able to see that you have a great reputation in your local community. They’ll be much more likely to reach out to you.
And then let’s say you start running Facebook ads. Some prospects will reach out on Facebook, but a lot of them will bounce off of the ad and research your company instead. When they find your 4.9 star rating, your chances of capturing that lead skyrocket!
When Farming Works
Farming efforts work well to build up a stream of high quality prospects in the long run. But since it takes a while to see results, they should be balanced with hunting and fishing marketing efforts - especially for new businesses.
Let’s say you’re just starting out and have $5,000 to spend on marketing. A truck wrap might get you a good ROI in the long run, but it’ll take time before you start realizing those results. You would be out of money and still not have jobs lined up. On the other hand, if you spent that on something that could triple your money in the short term, you would profit $5k, pay for the $5k you just spent, and have $5k more to spend on marketing.
If you’re going to farm, do it with intention, and stick to your plan. Yes, it’s tempting to dip your toes in the water and pull out immediately if it doesn’t seem to be working. But think about farming in real life. Would you plant corn, wait a few days, and then give up because nothing is happening?
Just like real life farming, these types of marketing efforts take consistency and time to produce high quality prospects.
Consider farming when:
- You have enough saved in the business to cover your operational expenses for several months, even if there’s a downturn. Spending money on effective farming marketing strategies might be a wise investment.
- You are getting enough work from referrals, hunting, and fishing marketing strategies, and have a little time on the side to build reviews, build a referral network, send weekly emails to your list, etc.
Wrapping Up
Now that you know how to categorize your marketing efforts, and understand the pros and cons of the three types of marketing, think about how they can fit into your overall business strategy.
What should the priority be right now? Should you be investing more in marketing to future-proof your business? Or, should you consider sticking with manual efforts and short term strategies for now?
I hope this article helped you see where the marketing opportunities are in your remodeling business. Thank you for reading!
