25 Best Tips for Home Service Business Marketing – Phonexa Canada

Phonexa

28 minute read

This guide is part of our home services lead generation series, where we share the most effective free and paid lead acquisition strategies, examine top platforms and websites to get home service leads, and predict home service trends to capitalize on.

The evolution of modern technologies changes home services marketing, substantially increasing the opportunity window. On the one hand, businesses can now find home service leads through dozens of channels, mix and match them for optimal service marketing strategies, and develop their unique approach to raise brand awareness and broaden their audience. On the other hand, the ability to connect with more people faster creates a continuous loop where marketing trends are evolving into complex strategies within which new methods are found.

With all the new possibilities available, you ought to take action not only if you want to grow your business but also not lose it to the competitors: why wouldn’t they use the opportunity you missed?

Before spending a hard-earned buck on a home services marketing specialist, read this article. Here, you will discover many home service business marketing ideas absolutely for free. Some may not be the best fit for your business, while others you may already use but wish to enhance. Read on to learn the “eureka” solution you needed so much.

What Is Home Services Marketing?

Home services marketing refers to a range of actions aimed at promoting and advertising home maintenance, improvement, and repair services to increase sales. Key components include local SEO to enhance online visibility, targeted advertising through platforms like Google Ads and social media, and reputation management through online reviews and testimonials.

Companies need to tune their marketing channels to align with their specific objectives. In the case of home services marketing, they should prioritize increasing visibility for the local audience and establishing warm relations with communities.

This article provides tips on modifying your existing marketing campaigns and insights on others that you may want to start using. By focusing on local SEO strategies, targeting local keywords, and participating in community events, home service businesses can strengthen their presence and connect with potential customers effectively.

Additionally, leveraging customer testimonials and engaging with local influencers can enhance credibility and trust within the community, driving long-term success in your home services marketing.

Top Home Services Marketing Tips You Should Try in 2024

Take Advantage of Home Services Social Media Marketing

Effective digital marketing for home services cannot be complete without leveraging social media potential. There are many influential platforms you can choose from, but ideally, use at least two of them.

Different social media favor different content types. For the best results, optimize your material for the platforms you use and create unique home services marketing campaigns. Here are three home care marketing ideas for three types of social media accounts that your business can combine:

Most social media platforms have these common benefits for home services marketing campaigns:

• Ability to communicate with users through direct messaging or via reviews and comments functionalities
• Providing detailed information about your business so potential customers can easily identify it
• Participating in business and location-related virtual events, forums, and communities

Run Social Media Platform Ads

Home services advertising on social media platforms offers scalability and control over your spending to run marketing campaigns with predictable outcomes. These are the main reasons for running social media home service ads:

• Precise targeting: Most home services businesses operate within a certain area. If that is the case with your company, there’s little point in advertising to homeowners who live outside your scope. By employing social media platform targeting, you will only pay for ads that get through to people likely to become your customers.
• Control over your budget: Social media platforms allow tuning digital marketing for home services to your specific needs. For example, if you run Facebook ads for home services, you can pay for each time a person clicks on your ad, proceeds to your landing page, reacts to your ad post, or for every thousand ad views. There are many more options to set budgets and bidding strategies, so you’ll feel like you have a home services advertising agency in your pocket.

Source: Generating Home Improvement Leads With Paid Ads

• Advanced analytics: The data gathered by social media platforms enables the tracking of home services ads activity in real-time. Conversion, click-through, and user-engagement metrics will provide you insights about your target audience that you should use for perfecting your home services marketing strategies.

Create and Optimize a Google Business Profile

Creating a Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is an opportunity provided by the most visited website in the world that no business owner should pass by. If you haven’t done so already, chances are your business’s profile has been created without your direct action based on public information and user suggestions. In such a case, you must verify ownership of a business to manage how the information appears on Google, update with fresh information and photos, and communicate with users who leave reviews.

Remember that GBP will be among the first search results that visitors see on the Google search page if they type in the business’s name. The other results may display data from the official website and social media pages, but the Google Business Profile will most likely attract the attention of people who want to see unbiased reviews and verified contact information.

Source: Home Services Lead Generation: Top Winning Strategies in 2024 and Beyond

Your well-maintained account enables you to get more home service leads because your business will appear in local search results when a person looks for relevant home services. With the right SEO for home care customers, your Google Business Profile may be featured in the prominent “Local 3-Pack” position, separately from other results. It also provides visibility on Google Maps by placing your business location marker, contact information, and key details directly on the map.

Invest in Home Services SEO Marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO) involves various actions to increase your site’s visibility on search engines. Although this definition sounds like all it takes for improved SEO is employing web tools to adjust the website’s characteristics, the right way to understand SEO is that it is essentially aimed at making your site better for site visitors. This includes increasing load speed, providing users with clear navigation, making the text readable, and enriching it with keywords so the search engines can match your site with the relevant queries.

Unlike paid home business advertising, which stops traffic once the budget is run out, investing in SEO provides a continuous generation of organic leads over time.

SEO for home care businesses is often seen as a long-term solution for home services marketing, meaning that the search engines will take several months to establish your site’s credibility and relevance and improve rankings. However, such steps for SEO as optimizing meta tags, titles, and descriptions, improving website speed, fixing broken links, and creating high-quality content will enhance user experience and increase chances for conversions immediately.

Ask Customers for Referrals

Your home services marketing approach can benefit from client referrals. Say you accomplished a kitchen makeover for a happy customer. You ask them to recommend you to friends and relatives. They refer you to a neighbor who wants to refurbish their bathroom. Since they saw your amazing kitchen work, this neighbor believes their referral. Win-win: the neighbor feels more confident picking a craftsman, and you obtain a new client without advertising.

This method may exponentially extend your consumer base – one pleased customer can lead to two more. Requesting recommendations multiplies word-of-mouth home care marketing results. It improves business image and sales cost-effectively. Referrals are the finest praise a consumer can offer.

Run Paid Search Advertising

Often, the first thing Internet users see when starting a new browser window is a search engine provider interface. According to statistics, 69% of users start their virtual journey by inputting queries into the search bar and examining the results. Unsurprisingly, this scenario is valid for homeowners looking for local home services in an emergency.

For example, during a heating breakdown, consumers will rush to search “heating service,” and that’s where home care ads excel. Google (if you’re using Google home services ads) will compare users’ prompts with the keywords you used when creating your ad campaign and users’ geolocation with your business’s location details.

If you match, your search ad could be the first one the user sees, leading to immediate calls to your business. Depending on your campaign details, the ad money could be deducted from your budget only after users click on your ad.

Experience Phonexa and all of its eight products. Take a product tour to explore Phonexa’s performance marketing product menu.

As mentioned, Google is the most popular website and, naturally, the most popular search engine. However, consider Bing, the runner-up, for home care advertising. Despite having a substantially smaller audience, it still equates to over 100 million daily users – a figure that is more than substantial from a marketing point of view. Like Google, Bing provides advanced targeting options and offers several unique advantages for home services marketing:

• Bing is predominantly used in the USA.
• On average, Bing advertising costs less.
• Bing’s users are older, blue-collar, and have higher incomes, so they are more likely to own households.

Improve Website Design

Is website design important for home services marketing? Absolutely. For a company seeking to consistently generate leads, a well-designed website is key. This is where customers learn about services, check pricing, and regularly engage with relevant content. They submit inquiries via site forms and even complete transactions through payment gateways.

The significance of having a well-designed website cannot be overstated, as it is a primary venue for business-customer interaction. Positive user experience greatly influences user decision-making, especially for customer retention. For optimal home services website design, consider these tips:

Overall, strive to create a frictionless experience that will leave lasting positive memories for users who may seek a home services provider again.

To analyze user behavior on your website and identify any friction points, consider using Phonexa’s HitMetrix. Its advanced features, such as heatmaps, click tracking, and session recordings, enable the evaluation and optimization of various website components to improve conversion rates.

Generate Leads Through Events

Hosting or sponsoring events can be a powerful tool for home care marketing strategies. This creates opportunities to meet potential customers face-to-face and build personal connections. You could host workshops demonstrating your service expertise, such as a DIY home repair or renovation session. Or, consider sponsoring local community events, fairs, or charity events to increase brand visibility.

During such events, collect contact information to follow up later. That could be via a signup sheet or a raffle where attendees provide their details for a chance to win a prize. You can also showcase before-and-after photos of your projects, distribute business cards and brochures, or offer special discounts for event attendees.

Remember, the key is not just to sell your services but to build relationships that can result in referrals, as attendees might recommend your business to their friends and family. Don’t forget to cover events on the media channels you have to inform a wider audience about your events.

Finally, don’t miss the opportunity to participate in home service-related events organized by other businesses. You may establish new connections there and gain fresh home services marketing ideas.

Google Local Services Ads for Home Services

It is worth highlighting Google Local Services Ads in a separate section from other search advertising types. These ads will appear above the regular Google home services advertising results and be visible only to your potential customers who live in your specified area.

Users searching for relevant services will see the essential information about your business, such as title, user ratings sourced from your Google Business Profile, working hours, and address. The green “Google Screened” badge indicates the business has passed Google’s special verification process.

Source: Google

Unlike other types of advertising for home services, where you pay for increased visibility or user engagement, you will only pay after acquiring a lead. Thus, instead of leading to the landing pages, such ads have direct call buttons.

It’s worth employing a call automation system that will store leads’ contact information and track call details to maximize the effectiveness of Google Local Services Ads. For instance, Phonexa offers call tracking and analytics features with its Call Logic management software that will help you increase the effectiveness of incoming calls for lead generation.

Looking to elevate your ad performance and home service marketing efforts? Build your plan or book a demo to see Phonexa’s platform in more depth.

To streamline digital marketing for home services, you can use a Google booking functionality integrated into the ads, a feature exclusive to a few business types, including home services.

Add a Live Chat Option to Your Website

An effective marketing strategy for service businesses must provide a solution for addressing customer needs as soon as possible. This urgency is particularly crucial in digital marketing for home services.

Imagine you own an electric company, and the owner of a household with a solar system wants to inquire about upgrading their electrical panel. Since such niche-specific information is not easily available on your website, the person turns to a solar services company and commits to working with them, even though your company could complete this job at a lower price.

By integrating features like web chat into your home services marketing strategy, you ensure that customers receive timely responses. In the fast-paced home services industry, where multiple competitors offer services in the same area, your investments into paid ads or social media activity may go to waste if emergency leads fail to contact you.

Additionally, live chat offers valuable insights into customer preferences, pain points, and frequently asked questions. Analyzing chat transcripts helps you identify trends, refine your services, and tailor your home services marketing strategies to increase the efficiency of your lead-generation efforts.

Encourage Clients To Leave Reviews

Positive reviews are the best free endorsement for successful home services digital marketing. They provide potential customers with a signal that the quality of your services is high, the pricing is fair, and the user experience your company provides is positive. In the competitive market, the ability for users to leave and read reviews has become a core feature for most types of communication channels: social media accounts, websites, search ads, Google Business Profiles, business directories, and more.

Reaching out to our clients has a direct and clear goal of getting positive reviews, which can impact our brand’s public image and, therefore, support our home services marketing efforts.

However, proactive solicitation has more underlying benefits:

• Asking your past customers to share their experiences with your business is a perfect opportunity to offer them new services or discounts.
• By inviting recent customers to leave reviews in a follow-up email, you let them understand you’re ready to hear their feedback and possible criticisms, establishing relationships and encouraging them to come back for new purchases.
• Reviews improve SEO.

It is not unusual for users to shy away from sharing their experiences on a platform if there are no previous reviews. In such cases, the initial user reviews might snowball, generating a wave of enthusiastic reactions from users that have the potential to raise your company’s online visibility and enhance brand reputation.

Business Listings

Internet marketing for home services should embed all sources that can be used by potential customers looking for local services. Unlike all-encompassing media platforms, business listings commonly connect individuals with local businesses and are the go-to sources for emergency services. These online databases allow companies to be sorted by services and location and often include helpful information like user reviews and ratings, prices, and portfolios.

Business listings often sort businesses alphabetically by name. This approach allows less famous companies to compete with big-name brands, provided they match users’ queries. Updating the business profile with fresh images and encouraging users to submit their reviews are essential for setting you apart from competitors who may have incomplete information on the listings.

Community Partnerships

Being active in your community is important for marketing home services, and it’s essential to build ties with other local businesses. Some of these businesses probably have used their long presence in the local market to establish their brand’s credibility, and their opinion may be crucial to their loyal customers. Partnering with such companies would enable a referral system when you refer each other’s businesses to the audience.

Additionally, if your company is just starting operations in the area, being able to closely watch your partners closely will provide a deeper understanding of how to market home care services considering the peculiarities of the local crowd.

Business referrals for home services marketing will be especially fruitful if you partner with firms that also provide home improvement services (plumbing services and bathroom remodeling, garage conversion, and wall painting) or work in related industries (real estate agents and design agencies referring home remodeling services and vice versa).

Launch Text Messaging Campaigns

Businesses love sending and receiving emails. However, individuals outside of their work environment check their inboxes less often. For B2C businesses, SMS campaigns may be much more influential. With a whopping 98% open rate, they are the optimal method to increase home services marketing effects and nurture leads.

Consider both pros and cons before incorporating messaging campaigns into the home service marketing strategy for home care services.

If you generate leads by capturing their phone numbers, SMS messages may be effective for launching ads with promotions. For example, if you own a roofing services firm, you may launch the following messaging campaign during your low season: offer discounts on roofing inspections to the first 20 people who call you. You will engage with other individuals and have a chance to offer your services too.

List Your Company on Lead Generation Websites

Many websites specialize in lead generation for home services and offer free business profiles to all. Others, like Yelp, focus on a broader audience but are still popular for home service lead generation.

These platforms are interested in growing their business lists and will assist you in making a professionally looking profile. To enhance your home services marketing, keep it updated. Some users will visit these websites to check whether your company has positive reviews. So, if possible, try to complete several projects through a platform and encourage customers to leave reviews.

Keep in mind that some of these websites, such as HomeAdvisor, have excellent SEO visibility, so when users search for companies or services, they may see Google results sourced from profiles on these platforms. If you don’t use these opportunities, it doesn’t mean your competitors don’t.

Have you missed our comprehensive guide on leading websites for home service lead generation? Check it out here to learn about the top-rated online platforms that can serve as sources for home service leads.

Keep Customers Updated With Email Home Services Marketing

Email marketing has been an essential lead generation solution for decades. While emails don’t achieve nearly as high open rates as SMS messages, with 5%-17% across industries, they still should be used due to their main advantage – cost-effectiveness. Email campaigns are inexpensive to launch and reach out to a wide audience. That’s why their ROI can yield $36 for every dollar spent.

To maximize the benefits of email marketing for home services, use email automation tools. They allow tracking and analyzing results of email campaigns and tuning your strategies based on received insights. Keep these tips in mind:

• An email drip campaign refers to sending several consecutive emails to the recipient at predetermined intervals with the intention of lead nurturing and conversion. For example, a roofing service can send a “Welcome letter,” “Benefits of roof inspection,” “Special offer,” “Testimonials,” “Reminder,” and “Final offer” emails.
• Personalize your emails by including the person’s name. Furthermore, segment your audience based on demographics, behavior, and purchase history to send targeted and relevant content.
• Sending emails during different times of the day and days of the week will bring different results. Monitor email deliverability rates and modify the sending schedule for the best results.

Use Ads in Local Newspapers

Advertising in newspapers may be an outdated method for some industries, but it certainly can complement your digital marketing for home services. Consider that the printed ads provide the same level of visibility to the businesses regardless of their experience. Thus, they may benefit from a starting home service company that wants to get local leads.

Advertising in newspapers can be pricey. Before making a decision on buying space in the printed media, research the newspaper’s readership and analyze whether their demographics align with your home services marketing target audience.

Offer Special Promotions During Peak Seasons

Offering special promotions during peak seasons, such as summertime for landscaping or winter for HVAC services, allows businesses to stand out from the competition and make home care marketing plans for strategic allocation of assets and time.

A good idea may be running time-limited promotions, such as “Schedule land mowing services with us before March 20th and get a 10% discount for the season!” Such a method gives customers a sense of urgency and fosters sales.

During high seasons, you may have to invest in hiring additional staff and renting more equipment and transportation to cope with increased demand. In such a case, any schedule gaps mean lost opportunities and wasted resources. You can offer discounts for your services during specific days or hours to fill the empty slots and maximize your business profitability.

Social Media Contest or Giveaway

The interactive nature of social media platforms allows you to rapidly increase user engagement or broaden the subscribers’ list through gamified content. With contest and giveaway posts, you can attract attention to your business profile while keeping your home services marketing budget under control.

You can ask users for different actions on your social media account and offer different incentives. The number of combinations has no limits so this method can be incorporated into your digital marketing for home services on a regular basis. Here are a few examples:

• Offer a chance to win a free home maintenance service such as HVAC inspection, plumbing check-up, and electrical assessment. Participants can enter by liking, sharing, and commenting on the contest post.
• Run a contest where participants submit photos of their yard in need of renovation or landscaping. The winner receives a discount on yard makeovers, including lawn care, landscaping, and garden design services.
• Create a giveaway for a gift card to a home improvement store. Participants can enter by following your social media accounts and tagging friends who might be interested in your services.

Consider running your contest posts as paid ads to achieve even more visibility.

Add Your Branding Everywhere

Consistent usage of the distinctive elements of your brand is a basic strategy for establishing a recognizable identity for your brand. For home services marketing, it means creating content that will allow users to identify your company.

When developing your branding, consider how distinguishable elements can be used on various communication channels. Instead of focusing solely on appeal, consider how it expresses your company’s values and identity. Ask yourself: does this style denote that we are a reputable construction company with decades of experience? Does this tone of voice imply we are a friendly team that loves to accomplish custom bathroom remodeling projects for people with special needs?

Remember that effective digital marketing for home services requires branding consistency and mutual support of all elements in the company’s communication with the audience. This includes logo, name, color scheme, typography, messaging tone, and content style.

Distribute Mailers

You can hire a distribution team or send mailers through postal services to deliver your marketing materials to your targeted audience. This may be an ideal supplementary method to your digital marketing for home services if you engage users to contact you by phone or email or visit your company’s website.

Source: Postalytics

Traditional mailers allow targeting specific audience segments. For example, you can choose to reach out to household owners or residents of apartment buildings and target individuals living in particular areas, which provides further control over audience demographics.

Add Location Pages on Your Home Services Website

If your business operates in several locations, it’s crucial to create individual web pages dedicated to the home services provided in each location. Ensure that you include the following relevant information on the location pages:

• Address and contact details of your business location
• List and descriptions of services offered in that particular area
• Reviews from customers in the local community
• Local keywords and phrases relevant to the area to improve SEO
• Images or videos showcasing your work in that location
• Links to relevant blog posts and articles and social media buttons

By adding local service pages you can improve your website’s SEO visibility for users from particular areas. Additionally, you will be able to demonstrate your presence and commitment to serving the community, increasing credibility with the local audience. When creating social media or Google ads for home services targeting audiences by location, don’t forget to link them to the relevant pages on your site.

Video Marketing for Home Services

Using videos in digital marketing for home services can address many goals. This content type has the potential to provide the most information in the shortest time possible while becoming more accessible for businesses every year.

A home improvement company can create various video content for the popularization of its services, build trust with the clientele, and humanize the brand. Here are the most effective methods:

• Before and after showcases: Show the results of your work on turning outdated kitchens into modern, functional spaces, highlighting your expertise in kitchen remodeling and design.
• How-to videos: Offer step-by-step guides on decluttering, organizing, and optimizing garage spaces, providing practical solutions for homeowners seeking to maximize their garage’s potential.
• Customer testimonials: Share authentic testimonials from satisfied clients who have experienced the exceptional results of your bathroom remodeling services, proving your ability to deliver custom, personalized results.
• Virtual tours: Provide virtual tours of backyard transformations, showcasing your landscaping and outdoor design services and inspiring homeowners to create their dream outdoor spaces.
• Meet the team: Introduce your team of experienced HVAC technicians through video profiles. Highlight their expertise and commitment to providing reliable and efficient heating and cooling solutions.
• FAQ sessions: Address common plumbing concerns and questions through FAQ videos. Encourage users to write their questions for the upcoming videos and share their opinions on your solutions.
• Safety and compliance guides: Educate homeowners on safety protocols and compliance standards related to roofing and siding installation, demonstrating your commitment to quality, professionalism, and customer safety.

Creating videos might be an effective long-game home services marketing strategy, boosting your online visibility and brand reputation. Don’t forget that Google’s algorithm prioritizes websites with video content, so make sure to use it for building Google search ads as well. At the same time, consider that videos may increase page loading time, so don’t use more than one of them per page or employ web tools preventing videos from auto-loading.

Measure, Analyze, and Iterate Your Home Services Marketing Efforts

Business owners should measure, analyze, and iterate their marketing efforts. This cycle should be repeated with every new home service campaign to ensure its effectiveness and calculate ROI.

Measure key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to your home service marketing campaign. These can be the number of site visitors, clicks on your ads, captured leads, customer acquisition costs, and sales.

Once you have the complete statistical data, analyze the gathered metrics. Some KPIs may be directly connected to your specific marketing efforts, such as the number of calls received from customers who clicked your Google Local Ad. Others may reflect the general success of your home services marketing, such as the number of new customers and acquired profit. Analyze which campaigns don’t perform as expected and which do, and detect those that accomplish their goals but don’t seem to contribute to business growth.

Iterating marketing efforts allows for allocating resources. You may have to modify the targeting or bidding settings of your social advertising campaigns, test new channels for promotions, or enrich website content with more CTAs.

Hire a Home Services Marketing Agency

You can always hire a digital marketing agency for home services.

One option is to hire professional advertisers at the beginning of your home services marketing campaigns. This way, you will be able to quickly acquire leads, start working with a local community, get your first user reviews, and encourage customers to spread information about your services to their friends. You can also generate your own home services advertising ideas and try them out while you’re working with the agency or later.

Hiring an agency to improve your existing home services marketing strategies might have several benefits. Firstly, with a wealth of expertise and experience, agencies can identify areas of improvement in their campaigns and offer solutions. Secondly, sharing the burden of marketing chores with professional marketers will allow you to focus on the core business operations. Finally, working with the agency will offer scalability and flexibility that you can later use to create new home services marketing campaigns.

A Quick Recap of Top Home Services Marketing Tips

If you own a home service business, then it’s worth learning about all possible methods of home services marketing. Discovering the best ways to communicate to your audience is the key to success. Look out for new channels your competitors don’t use and enjoy the incoming flow of high-quality leads. Explore popular strategies, learn from experienced players in the field, and continuously improve your digital marketing for home services based on industry trends and customer feedback.

Remember this advice when designing your home service marketing strategy:

• Use several methods to improve your business’s visibility. Pay special attention to SEO.
• Prioritize solutions that allow precise audience targeting. Whenever possible, conduct A/B testing to increase home services marketing effectiveness.
• Calculate the ROI of the marketing tools you’re testing. You may discover it’s possible to acquire the same quality leads with different solutions that require varying levels of investment.

Grow Your Home Service Business With Phonexa

Phonexa’s suite of software solutions provides methods to create, tune, and automate home service marketing campaigns for home services lead generation. It includes several crucial tools for managing marketing channels, such as email and SMS marketing and call tracking. You can also integrate leads from other sources and analyze and distribute them using a single lead management platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is marketing a home care business expensive?

Marketing costs for a home care business can vary based on your chosen strategies. While some methods may require significant investment, there are also cost-effective options, such as social media marketing and creating referral systems.

How to market your home care business online

To market your home care business online, start by creating a professional website, optimizing it for local search, and leveraging social media platforms to engage with potential clients. Prioritize high-quality content, precise audience targeting, and participation in local online events and charities to increase the productivity of digital marketing for home services.

How to get clients for my home care business without previous experience

Use various advertising methods to get your first clients, such as Google Local Ads, search ads, local business listings, and delivering mailers. After completing projects, encourage your customers to leave reviews on home service lead generation websites, social media, and other platforms. A more expensive option is hiring a professional home care marketing company.