A strong home services marketing strategy is a great way to make your business stand out against the competition.
Looking to bring in more clients to your local business? You’ve come to the right place.
In this article, we’ve compiled 12 actionable home services marketing tips drawn from the successful strategies of businesses just like yours.
What is home services marketing?
Home services marketing is a combination of promotional tactics to attract potential clients to your service business.
A home services marketing strategy may include a diverse range of tactics, including paid advertising, social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing campaigns, and more.
How to market a home service company
Here are proven steps to market your home service business successfully. You may not need to follow all of them — take one step at a time, and add more strategies as you see fit.
Read on for the top home services marketing tips.
1. Define your target audience
When it comes to home services marketing, you don’t need to appeal to everyone at once.
While some home service professionals, like plumbers or electricians, cater to a wide range of homeowners, others have a more specific group of customers. It’s really important to clearly define who your target audience is early in your digital marketing journey.
For example, home cleaning services mostly appeal to busy working professionals, people who manage rental properties, or those who need help with deep cleaning after renovation. By narrowing down your audience pool to specific categories, you can create a way more targeted marketing plan that speaks directly to your ideal customers.
So how do you define your target audience? Ideally, you should be able to have a look at your past customers and highlight the repeating patterns. If you’re only starting out, you can conduct market research or look at your competitors to see who they are primarily targeting.
It’s also a good idea to create 3–4 distinct customer personas to better visualize your target audience characteristics. A customer persona is a fictional character that represents the key features of your ideal customers.
2. Know where your clients find you (or your competitors)
After identifying your target audience, the next step is to pinpoint where they go to find home services. Are they active on popular social media platforms? Do they seek referrals on forums or online groups? Are they online at all?
There are two ways to find the answers: ask your existing customers directly and/or explore the channels where you expect your target customers to be present.
Check online directories, social media platforms, local forums, and community groups. See if your competitors are active on these channels and how much engagement they’re getting.
For home services marketing, It’s best to enter a channel where moderate competition already exists. This suggests your target audience is actively using it.
These are some home services marketing channels you could use to build your online reputation:
Email marketingInstagramFacebookPinterestForumsMessengers like Telegram, WhatsApp, etc.Google searchOnline local directories like Google My Business and Foursquare
Instagram presence of a landscaping company
3. Build your presence both online and offline
We’ve touched on online marketing strategies — and we’ll get back to it again — but we shouldn’t forget that the home services industry often thrives on offline promotion.
In fact, offline marketing can be a powerful tool for building brand awareness and your initial customer base. While it might not be enough to scale your business rapidly, it’s a solid foundation to start with.
You know those vans driving around town with company logos and phone numbers plastered on them? That’s a great example of offline marketing in action.
But it’s not just about vans. There are plenty of other offline tactics you can use to promote your local home service business: anything from networking with local businesses and attending community events to even good old-fashioned print advertising.
No matter which offline tactic you choose, back it up with an online presence. Think of it as a funnel: many prospective customers who discover your services offline have only just entered the top of it. They may need multiple touchpoints before they decide to hire you. Those touchpoints are supported by your digital marketing strategies.
Visualization of a potential marketing funnel for a home services business
4. Use QR codes
QR codes are a smart marketing tactic that bridges the gap between the physical and digital worlds.
Imagine you have a well-designed landing page that showcases your services and customer testimonials. You might link to it in a few offline places, but most people won’t be patient enough to manually type in a lengthy URL.
Instead, you can place a prominent QR code on your business card or company van. When someone sees it and wants to learn more, they can simply scan the code with their smartphone camera and instantly access your landing page, social media account, or messenger app.
WhatsApp QR code
Pro tip: If you’re using WhatsApp for business, you can even drive potential customers directly to your WhatsApp Business account instead of a traditional website. Easily generate a QR code that links to your WhatsApp Business account using a free QR code generator. Or access it within your WhatsApp settings.
To manage customer interactions through a convenient interface, consider using a dedicated WhatsApp marketing software.
5. Set up a simple home services website
For home services marketing, it’s important to have a credible website. Luckily, you don’t need to hire a professional to craft a complex website design. A simple one-page website can do the trick.
You can create one with any drag-and-drop builder. Brevo offers a landing page creation feature as part of its comprehensive toolkit (which will be handy as you expand your marketing efforts).
Building a user-friendly landing page in Brevo
In Brevo, you can get started with one of the many pre-built templates or easily assemble a page by dragging and dropping the various building blocks. Just include the essentials: a clear description of your services, customer testimonials, and your contact information.
6. Get featured in local business listings
This is a must-do step for any home service company. It’s completely free and can significantly boost your online visibility.
Local business directories are online platforms where potential customers can easily search for businesses in their service area, including home service providers like yours.
Some of the most popular international directories include Google Business Profile, Foursquare, and Yelp. However, you’ll likely find directories specific to home services in your country or city as well.
7. Boost your local search rankings
While getting featured in Google’s directory is a great start, it doesn’t guarantee top visibility among the many other businesses in your area. Your listing might appear below the initial search engine results, and only three businesses typically get featured prominently on the main screen. If you’re new and don’t have many reviews yet, reaching those top spots will take time.
Meanwhile, you can improve your online visibility by boosting your site’s search rankings. If you’re in a competitive niche, it’s best to hire a local SEO expert to achieve positive results as fast as possible. If you are not, you can try improving your rankings on your own.
How do you gauge the competitiveness of your niche in terms of SEO?
A simple way to do this is by using a free SEO tool like Semrush. Enter the main search query that your local customers might use to find your services and check the search volume and keyword difficulty score.
If the difficulty score is below 50, it indicates a less competitive niche, and it’s quite possible to achieve positive results without much expertise (assuming you have a basic understanding of marketing principles).
Initial keyword research to assess niche competitiveness
If your niche is low-competition, include these steps in your SEO strategy:
Research more relevant keywords that potential customers might use to search for your services in your area (e.g., “cleaning services in [your city],” “affordable house cleaning,” “best deep cleaning service”). Incorporate these keywords naturally into your website’s content, titles, meta descriptions, and header tags.Add more content to your website. Publish a few informative articles on relevant topics (e.g., “What to Know Before Hiring a Cleaning Service,” “Top 10 Cleaning Hacks for Busy Professionals”). Or add a FAQ section to address common questions and concerns. This will provide more context for search engines and allow you to naturally include your target keywords without overstuffing your landing page.Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and loads quickly. Optimize images to reduce file sizes and avoid slow loading times. A responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes will improve user experience and contribute to higher search rankings.
8. Invest in paid ads
While the processes you’ve set in motion (like SEO and directory listings) are working their magic, it can take weeks or even months to see the results. In the meantime, you can give your home service business a little extra boost with PPC ads, or pay-per-click advertising.
Paid ads provide instant visibility to your target audience, allowing you to drive conversions and start seeing a return on your marketing investment right away.
Can’t you only run paid ads then, without wasting your time on other techniques? You can, but this method isn’t sustainable for long-term growth. Building a strong organic presence both online and offline creates a self-sustaining marketing engine that doesn’t require constant financial investment. Paid ads, on the other hand, demand continuous attention, optimization, and a consistent budget to maintain their effectiveness.
Typically, small businesses choose between advertising on Google, Facebook, and Instagram. The best platform for you will depend on your target audience and their online habits.
For home service companies, Facebook is usually the most popular option. It allows you to showcase your services with high-quality visuals and generally costs less than Google Ads.
As a bonus, if you’re already using Brevo for your marketing, you can conveniently manage your Facebook ads directly through the platform.
Managing Facebook Ads in Brevo
9. Make it easy to book your services
As part of your home services marketing strategy, you should make it as easy to communicate with customers as possible. Did you know that a third of customers expect businesses to respond to emails within an hour? And that’s just for emails.
When it comes to phone calls or messages, people expect even faster replies. If you’re tied up with other clients when a potential customer reaches out, you risk losing them to a competitor who responds more promptly.
To prevent this, set up an online booking system. You’ll need simple automation that syncs with your calendar and shows potential customers your available slots in real-time. While you should still confirm each booking, having an online system allows you to capture leads even when you’re busy with other clients.
You can easily create a booking page with Brevo’s free Meetings tool. Just sync your calendar, specify the event type, and share your booking link wherever you want. You can also add a payment method and set no-show, cancellation, and late policies.
Appointment scheduling in Brevo
Pro tip: Add a chat to your website to quickly answer FAQs. If visitors want to inquire about your pricing, policies, or work hours, a chatbot can assist them immediately. For more complex inquiries, let clients leave their requests and get back to them when you’re available.
Home services chatbot
10. Collect reviews
Always ask your clients to leave online reviews on platforms like Google My Business, Yelp, or wherever you’re present.
First off, it’s a way to assess your customer experience and identify areas for improvement. And of course, positive reviews will act as a powerful magnet for new customers.
Even happy customers often forget to share their positive experiences. You can fix that by offering incentives like a small discount on their next service as a thank-you for their feedback.
Make leaving a review as effortless as possible for your customers. Send them a direct link (ideally with a big, eye-catching button) to the platform where you’re collecting testimonials. For those short on time, provide an option to simply rate your services without writing a lengthy text.
11. Stay in touch with your customers
Keeping existing customers coming back is more cost-effective than constantly acquiring new ones. It’s in your best interest to build lasting relationships with your clients.
That’s why it’s important to collect and store your customers’ information in a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Think of it as a central hub for all your customer data. When someone fills out your contact form or books your services online, that information automatically flows into your CRM.
From there, you can reach these contacts with regular emails or SMS texts with customer surveys, newsletters, and seasonal offers.
Brevo offers a free and easy-to-use tool for creating forms, storing customer data, and designing eye-catching emails and text messages.
Designing email marketing campaigns in Brevo
Important: Before sending promotional messages, you need to give something back. After completing a service, don’t just disappear. Be available to answer questions, address concerns, and resolve any issues that might arise.
12. Offer a referral program
Another effective way to get new leads without breaking the bank is word-of-mouth. That’s when your happy customers tell their friends and family about you, basically giving you free advertising.
But to make it work at scale, you need to give your customers a reason to spread the word. This is what you need a referral program for.
It’s a simple idea: you offer your existing customers a lead magnet — a discount, a gift card, or even a cash bonus — every time they send a new customer your way.
Further reading: Small Business Email Marketing Strategy & Tips for 2024
Get started with home services marketing
Home service business owners don’t need to empty their wallets or plaster billboards across town to attract new customers.
Start with a few key strategies, and stick with them for a few months to gather enough data to assess their effectiveness. Focus on measuring metrics like conversion rates and new leads to determine what’s working best for your business.
Ready to get started? Brevo offers a range of tools to streamline your home services marketing strategy.
Launch your home services marketing strategy with Brevo
Free plan includes access to all core email features, online booking pages, and multichannel campaigns (WhatsApp, SMS).
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