Home Improvement

Marketing Minute: How To Convert Bad Google Reviews Into Business

dbarto — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 18:17:47 +0000

Marketing Minute: How To Convert Bad Google Reviews Into Business

dbarto Tue, 02/28/2023 - 12:17

In a video series called Marketing Minute, director of home improvement Drew Barto shares tips designed to help contractors grow their businesses and boost their bottom lines. In this episode, Barto addresses the topic of turning negative Google reviews into additional revenue:

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Director of Home Improvement Drew Barto shares tips on how contractors can turn negative Google reviews into additional revenue

Drew Barto

Lead Gen — Home Improvement

Sales — Home Improvement

3 Tips for Contractors to Turn Bad Google Reviews Into Revenue

dbarto — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 19:17:04 +0000

3 Tips for Contractors to Turn Bad Google Reviews Into Revenue

dbarto Tue, 02/21/2023 - 13:17

It’s easy for some contractors to sweep negative Google reviews under the rug. If we look away, they don’t exist, right? Wrong. Running away from customer feedback is not only bad business, but you’re also missing out on opportunities to add revenue and create raving fans for your company.

Here are three tips on how to convert bad reviews into more business:

1. Respond to Google Reviews Immediately

Someone in your business should be responsible for receiving notifications of new reviews and responding to them as soon as they’re submitted.

Suppose the difference between a four-star review and a five-star review is something as silly as the customer being unhappy about your installation team wearing t-shirts on a hot 90-degree day, rather than more professional long-sleeve button-down shirts. In that case, you might not be able to make it right. But, you can at least acknowledge the comment and thank the customer for the feedback.

However, if the issue is related to the quality of your work–say, the customer isn’t satisfied with the neatness of the caulking around the windows your crew installed–then respond right away to apologize and let them know someone will be calling them to set up a time to come out and take a look at it. This leads to tip number two…

2. Call Customers Who Leave Bad Reviews

Customers don’t think you’re going to call them after they say not-so-nice things about you online. Prove them wrong and pick up the phone.

If their complaint is related to something you can fix, then fix it ASAP. The sooner you address what’s bothering them, the sooner you get them back on your side and more likely to refer you.

In my 13 years of home improvement experience, the customers who raved the most about us were the ones who had problems that we resolved after installation. These customers referred us the most and this is where you’ll earn that ever-important referral revenue.

3. Ask Customers to Update Google Reviews

If you’ve resolved issues for a customer, kindly ask them to update the star rating and the review. According to BrightLocal, 57% of consumers will only use a business if it has 4 or more stars in local reviews. So, every bad review you can upgrade to a higher rating will help you get more business.

If you feel especially good about your relationship with a customer, ask them if you can use their situation and your response to it in your marketing efforts. You might even get a great video testimonial out of them.

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Best practices for responding to Google reviews that will create more raving fans and drive more referral business to home improvement companies

Drew Barto

Lead Gen — Home Improvement

Sales — Home Improvement

Business — Home Improvement

7 Tips for Offering Financing in Home Improvement Sales

dbarto — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:13:26 +0000

7 Tips for Offering Financing in Home Improvement Sales

dbarto Wed, 02/15/2023 - 14:13

Bryan Miller and John Gwaltney

We got involved in using financing about seven years ago and it’s changed our business for the better. In fact, our financed jobs are on average 23% larger than our cash jobs.

Here are some tips on how to implement a successful financing program in your business:

1. Show Your Sales Staff How a Financing Program Will Benefit Them

As business owners and sales managers, it's our job to give our salespeople tools to help them overcome customer objections. A financing program is one of those tools because it allows your sales team to handle price objections by making projects more affordable.

You can very quickly layout for a salesperson how much more money they’re going to make by closing more sales when offering payment plans through a financing program.

2. Ask Your Financing Partner to Train Your Team

We've had some amazing mentors over the years and Certified Contractors Network, or CCN, offers a really strong program with several different vendors. Those vendors came to us and actively taught and trained our sales teams how to position financing in the home.

If your sales team is successful in selling financed jobs, it means more revenue for your finance partner. So, they will gladly invest in your salespeople and continue to train them.

3. Promote Financing Options Across All Areas of Your Business

To be effective at helping consumers access the dollars they need to invest in a project with your company, you need to sow your financing options into each area of your business. It needs to be a part of your marketing language and your initial outreach.

People must be able to see that you offer financing upfront. It should be part of your scripting for when customers call in to set appointments, and your sales staff has to be trained to talk about your programs when they first meet with prospects.

4. Build Financing Fees Into Your Pricing Model

We know a certain percentage of our jobs will be financed, so our fees are built into all of our pricing models. You don’t want your salespeople wrestling with adding or subtracting fees depending on how a customer chooses to pay for a project. Go to market with those expenses in the cost of every job.

5. Introduce Financing as Industry’s Standard Payment Option

Set the stage early that when making large purchases many consumers choose to use financing. Educate customers about the idea that monthly payment plans are the standard in the home improvement industry.

6. Lead with Monthly Payment Plans When Presenting Price

We lead with monthly payment plans in all of our marketing. We also provide same-as-cash options and present the project's full price at the end of a sales call. We present two monthly payment options–one that's more rate-sensitive and one that's more term-sensitive. Most recently, we’ve had great success when offering monthly payment plans with longer terms.

7. Offer Customers Max Approval Amount to Increase Job Size

We’ve found that 77% of the people who finance with us also use the financing for additional work orders, or change orders. These change orders can be the result of unexpected issues on the jobsite or products homeowners choose to add to their projects.

We can increase the job scope with ease because most of our financing options are max approval programs, meaning the customer can apply for all the money they can be approved for–not just the amount of the project we’ve priced out for them. They won’t pay on what they don’t use, but it protects them if future issues arise.

Bryan Miller and John Gwaltney are senior partners at Georgia-based Outback Deck, Inc. Miller founded Outback Deck in 2010.

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How replacement contractors can implement financing into their sales processes to close more leads and increase job sizes

Bryan Miller & John Gwaltney

Home Improvement

Sales — Home Improvement

3 Ways to Make Your Home Improvement Brand More Memorable

dbarto — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 20:37:32 +0000

3 Ways to Make Your Home Improvement Brand More Memorable

dbarto Tue, 02/14/2023 - 14:37

Like millions of people who watched the Super Bowl LVII battle between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, I was duped by an advertisement for Tubi–a movie and television streaming service. It got me good.

The ad started with a scene of the game’s actual TV announcers in the booth welcoming viewers back to the game, seemingly after a series of commercials had ended. As the announcers continued to talk, a menu of TV app icons appeared at the bottom of the screen. Audible clicks could be heard as the apps were scrolled through until the Tubi icon was highlighted and selected.

That’s when I momentarily lost my mind.

I began hurling accusations around the room as I sought to pinpoint the jokester guilty of switching off the big game by clicking some random app. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized the whole thing was an ad.

It was brilliant because it was disruptive. It got my attention. And a lot of people were talking about it that night and the next day. Time will tell if it was worth the investment for Tubi.

The key to having success with a unique way of doing business is to make it a personality trait of your home improvement brand.

The average replacement contractor doesn’t have $7 million to spend on a Super Bowl ad, but what else can you do to become memorable in your market?

1. Stop Selling the Same Products as Your Competitors

The home improvement industry suffers from commoditization. In other words, most companies sell the same products as their competitors do and they compete on price alone. That’s boring and often bad business. There’s only one winner in that kind of competition: the company with the lowest price tag. Very few contractors have the resources required to successfully operate a low-cost, high-volume business model.

Solve this problem by selling a brand or product nobody else in your market offers. And sell it at a premium price because it’s unique.

For example, if you offer basement finishing services and everyone you know is installing drywall, you could explore alternative options like a finishing system featuring waterproof and mold-resistant wall panels. You could then focus on the benefits of your products over drywall in all of your marketing messages. Those would become your unique selling propositions, or USPs.

2. Promote Unique Customer Experiences

If you aren’t able to set yourself apart with your product offerings, then stand out by promoting uncommon customer experiences to your prospects.

If the majority of the companies in your market are high-pressure sales organizations whose salespersons insist on spending hours in every home, buck the trend by guaranteeing a quote in 60 minutes or less. Or offer your sales presentations completely virtually. Many of you read that last sentence and are now rolling your eyes. Virtual sales calls are not for everyone, but they are being conducted by others inside the industry to meet the changing demands of today’s consumers.

The key to having success with a unique way of doing business is to make it a personality trait of your brand. You need to let potential customers know how you’re different and how it benefits them. Don’t be shy about it.

3. Be Bold with Your Brand

Does your brand blend in or are you attracting attention by being bold and different from a visual standpoint?

Home improvement contractors aren’t often creative when it comes to company color schemes. Do some research in your market to learn the most common colors being used by competitors and then re-design your logo absent any of those colors. It’s never too late to rebrand your business. Most companies lack a recognizable brand in the first place.

I’m not suggesting that you re-wrap your fleet of vehicles in pink just to stand out. Although that might help you gain attention, there should be some meaning behind your company logo and brand colors that help you tell a story. What that looks like for your business is up to you. But don’t be afraid to be bold and be seen.

If you’re not memorable, you’re forgettable.

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How replacement contractors can rise above their competitors in the race for brand recognition

Drew Barto

Home Improvement

Lead Gen — Home Improvement

Sales — Home Improvement

5 Marketing Musts in a Tightening Market

cbroderick — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 15:39:24 +0000

5 Marketing Musts in a Tightening Market

cbroderick Fri, 02/10/2023 - 09:39

All home improvement companies should consider including some of the below strategies, a mix of modern approaches and traditional techniques, into their plans to earn a bigger share of a tighter market in 2023.

1. Increase search engine marketing budget.

I started with a new pay-per-click company and wanted to give them a strong financial foundation from the beginning. So I provided a bigger budget and we implemented a different strategy.

Rather than target small pockets around each of our two locations, we’re now targeting our entire service area. We’re not reaching our budget during our slow season, but we predict that in our busiest months of March, April, and May, we’ll hit our planned spend.

If the intent isn’t there and the search volume is lower than anticipated, we’ll spend less on digital and apply those dollars to other lead generation efforts.

2. Bring back direct mail marketing.

We’re going to return to more traditional marketing methods like direct mail, both in coupon mailers and with standalone mailers. We’ve always had success sending direct mail postcards around the radius of jobsites.

Coupon mailers have been off and on for us, but we need to implement those regularly so we can be in mailboxes when homeowners are ready to start a project.

3. Emphasize lead generation over branding your business.

The number one purpose of marketing is to get the phones to ring, so we’re going to get back to using tried and true direct response techniques to generate leads, like promoting deals and discounts, bold calls-to-action, and strong expiration dates.

I thought I was differentiating us by promoting the benefits and features of our products and our company, but these are things that consumers actually want from their contractors, they aren’t reasons to call us now.

We can still accomplish branding with direct-response advertising. We’ll include copy on why customers should choose us and how we do business differently, but we’re moving the promotional offers and reasons to call now to the forefront of our ads for more lead-gen impact.

4. Approach social media marketing differently than competitors.

I consistently see before and after photos or beauty shots on social media feeds. I’m going to include those things, but also position my company in a different way by showing customers what live jobsites look like. It’ll be more of a behind-the-scenes peek at the entire installation process on Facebook and Instagram.

Social media platforms are the places to show customers who you are, how you do business, and that you’re posting relevant content regularly.

5. Send a brand ambassador to every jobsite to increase referrals.

Brand ambassadors are sent to every jobsite and deliver a bottle of wine to each customer, then ask questions about how the installation went and if there’s anything we could’ve done differently. The only role this person has is to visit clients and get them to verbalize that they’re happy with our company. I call this soft marketing. We’re planting seeds for good reviews, referrals, and repeat business down the road.

Tara Dawn is the co-owner and marketing manager of Opal Enterprises, a replacement contractor that has served Chicagoland for two decades.

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Use these tips to help attract more leads in 2023

Tara Dawn

Home Improvement

Lead Gen — Home Improvement

Sales — Home Improvement

January/February 2023

5 Tips to Overcome a Drop in Demand

dbarto — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 18:10:44 +0000

5 Tips to Overcome a Drop in Demand

dbarto Mon, 02/06/2023 - 12:10

I’ve talked to a lot of contractors lately who’ve indicated a decrease in lead flow after an embarrassment of riches the past couple of years. Here are five tips to consider anytime demand is down for your products.

1. Don’t Panic.

Too often home improvement companies get nervous and start cutting prices, which means cutting margins and profit. The customer wins because they get a great product or service at a discount, but your company loses the valuable dollars necessary to run a successful business.

2. Do Not Cut Your Marketing Budget.

When leads are lean, large companies will gain an even bigger market share if small to medium-sized contractors cut back. The rich will get richer and you’ll be left scratching your head wondering how another one of your competitors got acquired by a private equity firm.

3. Create a Robust Referral Program.

Reward your customers with checks for referrals. Or deliver bottles of wine to their doorsteps like Chicago-based contractor Opal Enterprises. Stay top of mind with monthly or quarterly reminders by mail or email as offered by companies like gFour Marketing.

4. Follow Best Practices for Direct Response Marketing.

Emphasize your offers and calls to action, and always include an expiration date to create urgency. The grandma with the Gucci bag whipping out coupons to save 13 cents on banana bread at the grocery store also wants to feel like she’s getting a great deal on a new door.

5. Promote Your Financing Program.

Customers who might not think they can afford a home improvement project at the moment may change their tune if you show them you offer same-as-cash or low monthly payment plans like the guys at Outback Deck who shared their finance-first approach with me on my Rock Stars of Remodeling podcast.

Whatever you do, don’t take your foot off the gas when times get tight.

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What to do and what not to do when home improvement lead flow gets light

Drew Barto

Lead Gen — Home Improvement

Sales — Home Improvement

Marketing Minute: How to Overcome a Drop in Demand

dbarto — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 15:45:49 +0000

Marketing Minute: How to Overcome a Drop in Demand

dbarto Thu, 01/26/2023 - 09:45

In a video series called Marketing Minute, Director of Home Improvement Drew Barto shares tips designed to help contractors grow their businesses and boost their bottom lines. In this episode, Barto addresses the topic of overcoming a decrease in demand for your products or services:

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Director of Home Improvement Drew Barto shares tips on how to survive and thrive in periods of lower demand for your products or services

Drew Barto

Marketing

Lead Gen — Home Improvement

Great Day Improvements Acquires Largest Full-Service Home Improvement Company in Northern U.S.

dbarto — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 14:34:56 +0000

Great Day Improvements Acquires Largest Full-Service Home Improvement Company in Northern U.S.

dbarto Wed, 01/04/2023 - 08:34

Ohio-based Great Day Improvements continues to expand its direct-to-consumer portfolio with the purchase of Your Home Improvement Company, adding an eighth member to its family of brands and its first since buying Champion Windows in December 2021.

For Great Day Improvements, the investment signals an expansion into the northern United States and strategic growth in the bathroom remodeling space. In addition to Your Home Improvement Company and Champion windows, Great Day boasts a lineup of brands that includes Patio Enclosures, Universal Windows Direct, Apex Energy Solutions, Stanek Windows, Hartshorn Custom Contracting, and The Bath Authority. The deal with Your Home Improvement Company was announced on November 21, 2022.

Michael Hoy

“When we consider growth opportunities, we look for companies that are the right fit geographically and that offer the right products,” said Great Day Improvement’s Chief Executive Officer Michael Hoy. “More importantly, the company has to have the right culture and the right leadership team, because we are keeping everybody and not looking to cut heads. Steve Little and his team at Your Home Improvement Company culturally fit with us really well.”

Minnesota-based Your Home Improvement Company was founded in 2004 and has been recognized as the largest full-service home improvement company in the northern U.S., with locations spanning 10 states. Its product offerings include interior and exterior solutions ranging from replacement windows and doors to roofing and bathroom remodeling, the latter of which represents a product Great Day Improvements has set its sights on for future growth.

“They had more of a bath presence than we currently have,” Hoy said of Your Home Improvement Company. “And we were really interested in that one-day bath business.”

Your Home Improvement Company president Steve Little will continue to lead his team and will work with Hoy and senior executives at Great Day to find ways to pull growth levers to help them grow faster.

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The private equity-backed home improvement giant extends its geographical footprint to more than 150 locations

Drew Barto

Business — Home Improvement

Master Your Marketing Mix

dbarto — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 17:49:56 +0000

Master Your Marketing Mix

dbarto Mon, 12/12/2022 - 11:49

I’ve often heard from contractors that this type of marketing doesn’t work or that type of marketing doesn’t work. Just because it hasn’t worked for you doesn’t mean that it can’t. When it comes to marketing tools, most home improvement companies are mediocre at many and masters of none. That needs to change to achieve consistent growth.

The Major Mistake Contractors Make When They Hear Marketing Ideas

An easy trap to fall into in this industry is to attend an event or a webinar or read an article online, and walk away with too many marketing ideas. Yes, too many.

I have a concept called the “2 of 10” rule. If you read 10 tips or have 10 takeaways from an event, you should only try implementing two immediately. And the two you pick better be feasible for your business. Ask yourself: “Do I have the financial resources and the people to truly commit to making this work for me?”

Don’t settle for mediocrity in your marketing mix.

For example, you attend an industry event and hear how successful another contractor has been with a canvassing program. That’s great. But do you have the people in place to pull that off? Are you willing to make the investment to hire someone to manage a new department and make dozens of hires just to get started? If yes, go for it.

But if you think that you can simply test the waters by sending a couple of part-time employees out into a neighborhood to knock on some doors, you’re setting yourself up for failure. And you’re likely to tell others canvassing doesn’t work.

Another example might be promoting giveaways. Many companies have succeeded in holding sweepstakes. The easy part is getting people to sign up for a chance to win free windows or a new roof. The difficult part is turning those leads into appointments.

Running sweepstakes requires a dedicated team to follow up with the entrants by using a script designed to convert them into “today” leads. Generating names from giveaways isn’t very fruitful unless you have the resources to turn those prospects into leads, and those leads into appointments.

The Majority of Your Leads Will Come from Only a Few Sources

The truth is that any lead source you’ve heard about is working for someone in this industry. What’s right for someone else may not be right for you. And that’s OK. But how can you know what will work for you if you don’t commit to it the way you should?

The most successful marketers in the home improvement space rely on two or three main lead sources that, when combined, generate a large majority of their leads. This is where they’ll wisely spend the bulk of their marketing budgets and the bulk of their time making incremental improvements.

The remaining lead sources act to fill in the gaps and shouldn’t require a lot of your time to implement and execute. You shouldn’t be spending an unbalanced amount of your financial and people resources on marketing tools that only generate a small percentage of your business.

How to Avoid a Mediocre Marketing Mix

Before you latch on to a new-to-you marketing idea, determine if you’re willing to give it a fair chance to work for your business.

Don’t be the company that runs a couple of months of TV ads on a local station and then pulls the plug, or the one that sends direct mail to a few people one month, and then declares direct mail to be dead. Make a commitment, study the results, and make improvements.

It’s a new year in a market that most expect to be tighter than the past few years. Don’t settle for mediocrity in your marketing mix.

This year, I challenge you to try two completely new lead sources or two lead sources that you’ve tried in the past (but only half-assed). This time, commit to giving them the financial and people resources required to make them work for you.