Renownedly, July and August have proven to be slower months of the year in the home renovation industry. This break between the spring and fall busy seasons is primarily due to the summer winding down – families tend to take vacations and start gearing up for the start of the school year. Right now, contractors and sales teams are still dealing with full plates from the spring months, but it’s crucial to know a potentially slow period is right around the corner.
Before calendars start filling up at a rapid pace in the fall season, use your time in the upcoming lull to prepare and set your team up for success. Going into a busy season primed will reap many benefits for your business.
Taking Stock – Evaluating What Worked and What Didn’t
Utilizing your time in the sluggish months to break down what just happened in your last busy period is important. For instance – one big area to look at is your pricing. You should be breaking down all pricing to see how it affected your profitability. Of course your markups have to cover your costs and hit your target margins. Other areas to review are more subtle. Were some products/services priced too high and weren’t selling? Were other items a huge hit allowing for a price increase? These are the factors you need to take a deeper look at during the slower months to set your business up for success for the second half of the year.
Throughout the busy season, you should constantly be collecting data on what has worked and what hasn’t through learning, measuring, and understanding. This can be in the form of running reports, talking to your sales team, and listening to your customers. Some promotions and offers may have been a huge hit whereas others were not as well received. You will want to know which ones helped increase revenue so you can bring them into the next season with you or rework them to better serve your customers.
Face-To-Face Sales
It’s been proven that face-to-face messaging is a great method of marketing and can be more constructive than an email, direct mailer, or phone conversation. The Harvard Business School conducted a study that proved face-to-face interactions resulted in thirteen times more brand recall than any other form of marketing communication.
The tried and true method of door knocking has so many benefits and is a low cost practice for your sales team to generate new leads. It is an excellent opportunity to stand out from your competition, as most companies post-Covid tend to focus more on online marketing campaigns. It’s important when your team is on the ground to make sure they are knowledgeable, professional, and informative. With the door knocking technique, their first impression will decide whether or not a potential lead turns into a customer.
Another zero cost marketing strategy is utilizing the “star pattern” when your crew is on-site. This approach entails going to the house next store on the right, on the left, and the three houses across the street. They should be doing this when the truck is in the driveway. Your team is already on-site with a customer who has committed to your product and service – why not play off that trust and try to turn their neighbors into customers as well? Afterall, combining both word-of-mouth and a face-to-face interaction could be the combination needed to close a future sale.
Capturing Photos and Reviews
As a business, you should be controlling the brand image your leads see. The best way to do this is by painting the picture for them. When they scroll through your website and see positive reviews and beautiful before/after imagery, they should be thinking “this can work for me, too.” During peak seasons, it should be a requirement that your sales team and crews are archiving all photos and testimonials they receive. If they don’t receive them, they should be making it a habit to ask! This way, when calendars open up during a slower period, they can utilize that time to publish all the hard work conducted during the busy season.
When it comes to credibility for your business, the power of before and after photos could be the piece of the puzzle that converts a lead to a sale. Not only are you proving to potential prospects that your team can deliver results, you are also helping homeowners understand how great your product or service is. Oftentimes, people don’t realize how badly they need something until they see how terrible the situation was before it was installed. You can even influence upselling when a lead or customer looks at a before and after picture. Homeowners don’t necessarily always know what they want (or need) but seeing a product being beautifully executed in an image triggers them to purchase more.
Another easy way to further prove your integrity is by providing positive testimonials. When a reader is able to see firsthand the experiences of previous customers, you are showing any future client your brand is trustworthy, reliable, and can deliver results. By keeping up with reviews and making an effort to publish them, you are showing your business cares about their customers and their brand image. With word-of-mouth referrals, you are also giving them a credible platform to scroll through previous customers’ experience.
We Can Help
As industry leaders in home renovation lead generation, Home Appointments knows it requires many irons in the fire to run a successful business. By utilizing time during the slower periods, you are able to keep your head above water in the future when your calendars are filled to the brim with new appointments. If you’re looking to add an exclusive leads strategy to your marketing plan for the fall, we are here to help. Schedule a discovery call to learn more.
