Do you own a plumbing or HVAC repair or house cleaning business? If so, then now is the time to get out of your comfort zone and help grow your business digitally!
Since the home services market is growing at a rapid rate, the competition between the service providers is also on the rise and to survive this high level of competition; you cannot rely on traditional methods; you need to fasten your belts to grow your small business to a level of security from the competition.
Why is Home Services Marketing Important for a Small Business?
Selling a service is difficult than selling a product as a service cannot be touched or viewed, so people are not aware of the quality of the service until either they use it themselves or hear its reviews from others. In addition, there are so many other service providers offering similar services; you need to prove yourselves better in every aspect from production to promotion to pricing. Therefore, Home services marketing becomes crucial to make your business visible to the targeted audience, turn them into customers, and achieve higher returns.
Why do you need to Ditch the traditional marketing techniques?
The world is moving at a very fast pace, and everybody is on the move. People always look for easy and convenient options. Gone are the days when they look into magazines, pamphlets, and newspapers for home services; now, they have access to every information on their cellphones. The internet has revolutionized the whole scenario of looking for information. Everything is just a click away.
Thus, to grow your small business, you also need to adapt to the changing scenario and ditch your traditional marketing methods.
Why do you need to digitize your marketing strategies?
According to research, 97% of consumers go online to find a local business, including home services. Therefore, it becomes highly important to mark your print on the internet in this age of digitization. A website is the face of your business; now, you don’t have to invest in fancy infrastructure to lure your customers because a website can be your office through which you can connect to your customers, offer them your services, and receive their feedback.
It would help to digitize your home services marketing mix to promote your business online. Marketing Mix is a business tool used to market the products; it determines the business’s unique selling points. There are seven elements of the marketing mix- product, promotion, price, place, people, process, physical evidence.
How to Use Digital Tools to Improve your Home Services Marketing Mix?
There are multiple digital marketing tools such as SEO, content writing, Pay Per Click, Email Marketing, social media, etc. You can use them to digitize your marketing mix to grow your home services business. Email, website, and social media are the top three marketing tools small businesses use: 54% use email, 51% have a website, and 48% use social media.
Here are the ways to digitize the seven elements of Marketing Mix:
- Product: here, the product is your service, and the main motive is to sell services to the relevant audience and earn profits. You can showcase your services to them through digital marketing strategies such as SEO, blogs, and articles. 82% of smartphone users use a search engine when looking for a local business. Therefore, you can use these marketing tools to showcase your services to the relevant audience make them aware of the quality of your services.
- Promotion: people will know about our business when you will attract their attention towards it, and this is possible through various marketing tools such as advertising, direct marketing, and in-store marketing to put your product above others so that the person gets to see your business before other service providers. About 90% of the marketers believe that their social media marketing efforts have increased exposure of their business and about 70% say their traffic has increased with the help of advertising on digital platforms (Vendasta, 2017)
- Price: in this competitive world, price plays an important role because you cannot fool a customer as they have a tool (internet) in their hand, where they can compare the prices of services and choose the best one. Therefore, you need to strategize your marketing based on market research, offering discounts and referrals to your customers. You can offer them these discounts through emails and newsletters.
- Place: it is not just a physical location, but where you are selling your product, these can be websites, catalogues, social media, search engines. You should set your location based on the research of buying patterns of the relevant audience so that you can target them at the right stage to promote and sell your service. Search engines also play an important role in directing customers to these places. 86% of people look up the location of a business on Google Maps. Therefore, it is always better to target local customers, which you can easily do with the help of local SEO.
- People: This includes every person involved in the process of creating, marketing, selling a service. So, every individual involved in the business plays an important role in maintaining in gaining and maintaining long-term relationships with the customers. To offer them quick service, you can rely on a non-human chatbot that can instantly resolve frequently asked queries related to your business. The quality of service at every step matter for the feedback and referral of your business from one customer to the other.
- Process: the timeline of buying a service and in transition and the delivery is important for any business, as people often need home services in time of emergency. These logistics help them be mentally prepared for the delivery time of the service. The delivery process has to be smooth and efficient to gain the customers’ trust.
- Physical Evidence: Physical evidence is proof of your brand’s existence and purchase of a service. This evidence is not limited to the physical stores and offices. Still, websites, digital receipts, invoices, or follow-up email newsletters can also be used as physical evidence to gain the trust of your customers.
Website is the crucial physical evidence for your business; therefore, you should make efforts to make your website customer-friendly. They should be able to locate your location, contact details, and services easily because 75% of the people judge the business’s credibility based on the website design.
Thus, changing the marketing strategies and adapting to digital home services marketing will help your business reach the relevant audience, turn them into your customers, and further help your business grow.
And understanding the importance of implementing these marketing strategies incorrectly becomes crucial to hire a marketing agency that is proficient in their field because a wrong implementation of these strategies can take your business down the hill.
Many digital marketing agencies offer home services marketing for small businesses; you can check these agencies online, compare their services and prices, and then choose the best one for you and take your home services business towards the higher roads!
