How do you advertise to homeowners?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by randy tolowski on March 21, 2012 at 2:18pm

what is pay per click?

Permalink Reply by Chris Gerstner on March 22, 2012 at 7:17am

Pay-per-click is a form of online search engine marketing. Specifically, when you go to Google and search for almost anything, the pay-per-click advertising is what you usually find as the top three results and the right side column of ads.

You only pay for those ads when someone clicks on them and if done correctly, these can yield high quality leads at fairly reasonable prices.

adwords.google.com/

Permalink Reply by David Eakin on April 19, 2012 at 8:40am

Chris,  How do you know that these two advertising methods are the most successful for you? Have you done a stratification survey with your clients to see how they came to you originally?  If not, do not rely on some other party's Web site statistics as true success for your firm (i.e., clicks does not equal revenues to you).

Most of the business our firm receives is either from partner referrals (mostly energy companies) and word-of-mouth.  We are continuing our CRM approach by keeping in fairly constant contact with past customers via email newsletters (so that the word-of-mouth traffic increases).  We have also done some SEO work with our Web site and do get some customers through this, but not lots.  Most other common forms of advertising (phone book, generic mail flyers, etc.) really do not give the results the advertising sales people promise.  Find "progressive" neighborhoods (just because there are neighborhoods of huge energy hogs doesn't mean they really want to invest their disposable income in changing the status quo) and offer to hold free seminars.  Write articles for popular local publications (note that you may also need to advertise in it to get accepted).

Permalink Reply by Sandra K. Adomatis, SRA on April 26, 2012 at 2:31pm

 I am an appraiser and developer of green courses.  Has anyone tried including an infrared camera photograph in the MLS photo gallery?  It seems to me the picture tells a thousand words and would be a real eye opener to the public.  The picture backed up with the average energy bill for the past year.  This is great information for an appraiser in comparing properties as well.

Permalink Reply by David Eakin on May 8, 2013 at 10:06am

Sandra,

Who places photos in the MLS? Real estate agents. What is the real estate mantra? "No house is a bad house, it just needs the right customer" regardless of how terrible the condition or how large an energy hog. No real estate agent wants a potential customer to suspect that the house in question is "bad" - especially in comparison to others. This is one of the reasons the RE industry is so adamant against Zillow.com (valuation independent from agents) and why they would prefer not to work with any type of outside/independent inspectors (general building inspectors are grudgingly accepted only because mortgage institutions generally require them). But advanced methods for energy efficiency (and inspections/IR images to that end) are not generally accepted by the RE industry East of the Mississippi.  Some progressive RE agents West of the Miss. have figured out that they can show product differentiation to some discriminating clients in a buyer's market but since the real estate industry apparently is improving we will see if even that continues. Hence no IR images on the MLS.

Now if you want to start an addendum/similar tool to Zillow that would show the general public IR images/additional condition/energy usage/neighborhood police reports/etc. of houses independent of the MLS...

Permalink Reply by Ania Divina, SEXY LEDS on May 7, 2013 at 4:32pm

Chris,

Our company offers a product, so it might work better for us than for you, but having a profile at Houzz.com wouldn't hurt.

We found MANY clients through Houzz.com just by participating in the discussions and contacting other homeowners and professionals.

Try advertising on Houzz.

Permalink Reply by David Eakin on May 8, 2013 at 8:07am

Chris,

Thanks so much for the link to Houzz - I was completely ignorant of it until now. Huge repository of remodeling info/photos/contractors. But I wonder how visible it is to the general public, and it doesn't look like many home performance/energy efficiency contractors have signed up (another visibility issue)?

Permalink Reply by Ania Divina, SEXY LEDS on May 8, 2013 at 8:38am

David,

As I said, we use Houzz for promoting a product - LED candelabra bulbs, not a service. I think houzz provides excellent opportunity for both, because the audience is highly interested.

Houzz is a lot about making it visual. So if you have many photos showing what you do, you can upload them. Example: http://www.houzz.com/Solar-Energy-Contractors

Or you can comment on recent articles on home page. Like this article: http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/10492368/list/Know-Your-House--Compo...

Whenever you comment insert a link to your website (don't forget to include http://www. otherwise it won't open as a link) and a picture of what you do (it's allowed to attach images).

According to Houzz, they reach 14 million monthly homeowners: http://www.houzz.com/advertiseOnHouzz

But you don't have to advertise on houzz to get noticed. Like I said, commenting is the way to go. They even have daily commentator top, which increases visibility of your company if you comment a lot witchin one day.

I hope that helps.

Ania Divina SEXY LEDS Inc. http://www.candelabrabulb.com