Home service businesses constantly battle one another to navigate local search visibility. Not only do they need to consistently provide excellent service to each customer in the hopes of word-of-mouth marketing, but they also have to do the leg work. Marketing takes time and, in most situations, experience.
Most people who need a roofer, remodeler, HVAC contractor, or a related service turn to the internet to find someone to call. Some may have a roofer they know. Others may turn to a neighbor to ask for a recommendation. Yet, 21% of people say they use an internet search to find the local business they need on a daily basis, and 32% stated they do this numerous times a week.
You know the value of having a website and blog, launching a social media website, and even using paid search to generate leads for your business. The problem is that these steps take time, and if you do not keep up with them, things can get difficult for your business.
The bottom line?
- To continue to generate leads and fuel your business, you need a robust marketing strategy that reaches consumers, both existing customers and new clients.
- You don’t have the time to micromanage the entire process and are unsure about paying a full-service team to do the work for you.
That’s where an all-in-one platform can help. When choosing such a platform, focus specifically on what you need and want it to do for you, considering factors such as where your pain points are right now and where the most likely opportunities exist.
To help you choose an all-in-one-platform and to see the results it can offer, there are three key areas to focus on:
- How well does the tool help you market your business across all of the strategies you are using?
- What types of sales automation tools does it offer to minimize the stress and time demands of marketing?
- How can it help you grow your brand through reviews? By spending less on marketing and letting your satisfied customers do the work for you, you can save money.
As a small to medium-sized business that wants to attract lifetime customers, those that come back time and time again, an all-in-one platform can do all of these things for you without extensive expenses or time demands. They enable you to learn the skills necessary to use marketing to grow your venue and broaden your reach with new customers.
Choose an All-in-One Platform That Markets Your Business
A home services business, such as a decking company, window team, or plumber, needs to build relationships with its clients over time. Marketing is about establishing your position in the industry and then reminding people that you’re there to help them. When choosing an all-in-one platform for these objectives, you’ll want to determine how well the marketing component can help you with these critical areas specifically:
- Social media: Building relationships with your customers through social media is critical. That’s because many people learn as much as they can about a company through their social media profile and local recommendations, and if you are not there, your competition is. Branded social media pages with consistent postings, as well as engagement with people who comment, make a difference.
- SEO: Your website and blog need search engine optimization. This isn’t a one-time process of creating content with keywords. Rather, it’s critical to consistently monitor your keywords, make adjustments, and continue to build your rank to remain competitive.
- Business listings: Having your business listed in services like Angi’s List and Yelp are important. In addition, you need to have a Google Business Profile that enables you to capture those very local customers who need your help.
- Text marketing: This method allows you to send SMS messages to your customers to keep them engaged and coming back to you.
- Email marketing: The all-in-one platform you select should allow you to set up and manage email campaigns for your customers, allowing and encouraging them to come back to you time and time again.
- Online advertising: Paid advertising is a component of the lead generation process, especially when you need to pull in fast leads to meet current openings in your schedule.
Seek out an all-in-one platform that enables you to have a single tool to handle all of these critical areas in one sitting. That’s the reality when you choose the right platform. It enables you to build your business by creating a single resource to use to keep up with each of these areas.
Invest in an All-in-One Platform with Automation
That long list of things to do above can seem overwhelming, but that’s where an all-in-one platform with automation can help you. It creates an opportunity for you to build a strong marketing campaign and keep it moving forward without having to babysit every detail of it.
One of the best reasons to have automation in place is to make booking appointments fast. It used to be that a customer had to find a phone number for a plumber, call them, wait in line for an available person, and then go back and forth to find an appointment time. With sales automation, they click on the right tab on your website (or social media) and can book an appointment at the times you have available, seeing immediately what works for their needs.
To go further, marketing automation through an all-in-one platform also keeps the customer informed. For example, it will send auto follow-up emails to your customers to make sure they remember the appointment. Then, over time, you can use it to remind them to have your team out for a service call or to handle any seasonal tasks that need to be done. You don’t have to have another person answering those calls or feel like you have to answer your cell every time it rings in the field.
Choose an All-in-One Platform for Reviews
Consider a few more statistics to show the importance of reviews. First, 93% of people say they use online reviews of companies before they decide to make a purchase – that means nearly every lead you get has looked at your company’s reviews. More so, 84% of people say that those online reviews are just as valuable and worthy to them as asking a friend for a recommendation. Finally, consider that nearly a quarter of all people will pay more for a service if the company has a better reputation than the competition.
Your all-in-one platform should help you to:
- Get reviews
- Learn when you have an update to your reviews
- Help you respond to good and the bad
For example, if you provide your client with a great first appointment, you want to get them to offer a positive review for you. The solution you use can contact your customers after the service appointment and direct them to Google Reviews or other services so they can leave a review for you. It’s fast and easy.
One step further, though, makes it even more efficient. Consider an all-in-one platform that will send your happy customers a text message right after your service appointment. You know they are happy with you right now, and now is the perfect time to request a review. With the platform able to send a text message right away, you can grow your 5-star reviews quickly. That helps more people see your business, boosts SEO rankings, and may even help you gain more of a brand image as a result.
Reviews do not have to be something you worry about but, instead, something you seek out and grow. With the help of an all-in-one platform, you do not have to spend a lot of time managing reviews either, but they will work for you.
How the Surefire Local Platform Works
The Surefire Local Marketing Platform™ provides the resources you need to grow your home services business without the high cost of a full marketing agency. When you implement this strategy, you are then able to start connecting with the people who want and need the services you have without having to spend hours of your week learning how to market or how to create a blog post.
The Surefire Local Marketing Platform is designed to provide local businesses with hands-on support and automation, no matter their size or industry. It allows you to get around digital roadblocks, such as negative reviews or competitors with better-ranking keywords. You can also use it to gain incredible insight into your business marketing efforts. That way, you can tailor your future campaigns and messages to achieve more of the results you want.
Learn more about how Surefire Local Marketing Platform™ is working to make home service companies, including plumbing, windows, siding, and others, able to meet the demands of marketing in a digital world while still being able to master their timelines and budgetary needs.
Schedule a Surefire Local demo now and see how it works.