Generating Home Services Prospects: Best Practices

Digital Media Solutions

Although Americans spending more time at home as a result of quarantine orders has negatively impacted many industries, some verticals closely tied to the recent “power nesting” phenomenon have experienced a spike in demand. Home improvement sales increased by 71% from early March to early April, and now as states across the country enter various phases of reopening and more companies evolve to permanent work-from home models, Americans may be more likely to focus on tackling previously put-off home improvement projects and outdoor space upgrades. The best practices highlighted below will help ensure lead generation campaigns geared toward home services prospects are set up for success.

PREPARATION IS ESSENTIAL

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Careful preparation is essential for any successful lead generation campaign. Developing and following through on a strategic plan can be the pathway to success, resulting in a growing, engaged home services prospect base.

Determine what media channels work best for your campaign: Seek out channels that can produce motivated users. Search, email, social and native advertising can be key components of successful home services lead generation campaigns, and affiliate traffic can produce guaranteed conversions on the landing page of your choice.
Prepare your infrastructure: Make sure your call center is appropriately staffed to handle increased call capacity, and consider extending call center hours.
Determine what success looks like: Identify KPIs (key performance indicators) that will be tracked and measured throughout the campaign. When working with third parties, be clear about campaign goals and how success will be measured up front. Depending on the type of campaign, if all creative assets and tracking are prepared for launch, third-party home services lead generation campaigns can be set up in as little as 48 hours.

FOCUS ON CONVERSION-FRIENDLY CREATIVE AND USER EXPERIENCE

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Although interest in home services is high, with so many options for consumers to choose from, brands with the most engaging creative are likely to come out on top.

Know your audience: Determine who your target audience is and develop creative that speaks to them. Mine your data to create ideal consumer profiles based on your most profitable customer segments. Use images that match your target demographics, enabling prospects to engage with relevant creative that is more likely to result in conversions.
Strong CTAs are crucial: High-impact creative with a strong call to action is critical. Depending on the type of home service being offered, messaging focused on protecting or improving the home, or creating an at-home oasis can be quite compelling. Consider adding qualifying questions to determine how soon prospects are looking to begin their home services projects to help prioritize prospects internally.
Differentiate from the competition: Longer format creative, like review sites and listicles, allow for more room to engage prospects with unique benefits and key selling points to help stand out in a crowded home services marketplace.

DEVELOP A ROBUST OUTREACH STRATEGY

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Although the supply of consumers looking for home services is abundant, the competition is also fierce. In order to compete, advertisers need to be aggressive, but strategic, with their outreach plans.

Timely follow up is essential: With many advertisers vying for attention from the same pool of consumers, following up with interested prospects as close to real time as possible is crucial. The first call, email or communication should occur within minutes of the lead being submitted. Act quickly, as it is likely consumers are shopping around. Be realistic about your capacity for prompt follow up, and set caps with third-party publishers as needed to keep lead flow in check to ensure immediate outreach.
Don’t rely solely on phone calls: Establish a robust outreach workflow that includes more than calling. A well-planned email cadence can be highly effective for home services lead generation campaigns. A waterfall approach with a welcome email, follow ups, special offers and more personalized content tends to perform better than one-size-fits-all “canned” messaging. SMS can also be a useful tool to engage consumers and set appointments.

PRIORITIZE OPTIMIZATION

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As with any marketing campaign, monitoring results and making adjustments based on outcomes is essential for home services lead generation campaigns, as incremental improvements over time drive growth and profitability.

Test and iterate creative: Test various headlines, copy and images to determine what creative mix is resonating best with your target audience. Iterate to improve creative performance throughout the campaign lifecycle.
Share data with publishers: Empower your partners to optimize by providing them with outcome data as closely to real time as possible, ideally daily, enabling them to make adjustments to quickly and effectively improve campaign performance.

LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW DIGITAL MEDIA SOLUTIONS^® CAN HELP YOU BUILD A SUCCESSFUL HOME SERVICES LEAD GENERATION CAMPAIGN AND SCALE CUSTOMER ACQUISITION.