The home remodeling industry is one big sector. The thing about home remodeling is that it covers a whole lot of other areas. It can consist of interior works such as furnishings and fixtures, as well as exterior jobs such as roofing, masonry, and siding. It also involves flooring, plumbing, and electrical works.
The industry is known to be a lucrative one, especially with all the sub-industries within this particular niche. This service is always in demand, especially as any structure no matter how superbly built it is, is bound to have some remodeling done down the road. The thing is, remodeling requires a lot of work hard labor and expensive materials, so it costs a lot. Combined with the high-value outcomes of such projects, it is bound to bring in a whole lot of money which means that businesses in the home remodeling industry have the potential to rake in the revenues.
To maximize the promising characteristics of such businesses, focusing on the digital sphere for marketing is a great move. Now, there is a lot of digital marketing techniques home remodeling firms can focus on. We have website development, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, and reputation management.
One thing that can take advantage of all techniques is online reputation management (ORM). Implementing this tool is a great move for any home remodeling landscape, especially those that have been receiving negative feedback. To find out more about this option, keep reading.
The Home Remodeling Outlook in 2021
Before getting into the potentials of reputation management for this industry, let us first take a look at the home remodeling landscape. From 2015 to 2020, the average industry growth was pegged at 1.7% thanks to circumstances that encouraged owners to do some remodeling to their home.
Between 2017 and 2019, homeowners spent $522 billion on improvements in around 115 million projects. This shows a $72 billion rise in related spending when compared to the 2015 to 2017 period. These figures show that each project cost $1,350 to $1,500.
These pre-pandemic figures are already impressive, but what you need to keep sights on is its tremendous increase in projects during the pandemic. In fact, there was a whopping 61% increase in projects from March 1, 2020 to mid-August of the same year.
According to experts, the stay-at-home orders have compelled homeowners to, well, stay at home. This means that they are present to oversee the project. Owners are also likely to have been doing remodeling in preparation for selling their home, as the late summer saw an increase in sales.
While the demand for this service is rising, it is important to note that the industry in the US, with a market size of $97 billion in the US, has around 455,608 businesses and employs 692,273 workers. This is why it is important to step up your marketing game, and reputation management is the way to go.
Reputation Management Techniques for Home Remodeling Firms
What you need to know about home reputation is that it uses different digital techniques to help increase your chances of being hired for a project. Keep in mind that 91% of customers look to the Internet for answers for their home improvement needs. Seventy-two per cent of this number consider reviews. You can bet that they also take your overall online reputation into account.
To reel more customers in, you want to make sure that your target market sees you in a positive light. Reputation management is your best bet in achieving this. Here are some of the techniques that can help you start your ORM campaign.
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Reputation Audits
In order to know how to properly work toward managing your reputation, you first want to conduct a reputation audit or the process of analyzing how your target market sees your brand. It takes a look at various aspects of the reputation of the brand, and by extension, the company. It looks at mentions of the brand name, company name, any marketing trends and events launched by the team, and other similar aspects.
With the right tools, a company will be able to analyze its relationships with customers through positive and negative reviews. It also sheds some light on issues with business procedures that affect its sales. Moreover, it offers openings for comparison with competitors and market leaders. It lets companies find audience groups and user insights, which they can use to improve their overall service.
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Receiving and Handling Feedback
After a reputation audit, the company should always be open to feedback. You want to make sure that you receive comments and suggestions from your target market as this is your primary way to know what you are doing right and what you can do to improve your service.
The important part about receiving reviews is how your choose to receive them. Say your business received a glowing review for a remodel you did for a client. It is easy to handle such as feedback in which you simply can be gracious about it and thank the customer. However, receiving a negative review can be difficult, but it does not mean that you could be ungracious about handling them.
The best way to go is to be open to any kind of feedback and handling them well. You do not want to show an antagonizing face when responding to bad reviews, and instead offer a willingness to correct any mistakes and improve your offering. Learn how to spot a ticking time bomb, especially if the issue being pointed out has the potential to go viral. Then, make sure to address it professionally and properly.
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Running an SEO Campaign
No matter how big or small the project is, your customers will want to leave comments. Add to this is that small and large companies receive positive and negative feedback. What makes the difference is that some criticisms blow up to the point that some customers campaign against your company. A viral negative campaign can hurt your reputation and inevitably, your sales.
Given the advice given above, what you need to do is to offer some compromise and make the necessary changes to address the issue. But while you know that you made the right decision, many existing and potential customers do not.
An SEO campaign is a good way to make sure that overblown negative feedbacks, especially those posted on blogs, are not the first thing your target market sees when they search your brand and company name. Launching blogs that show your good side, and your new and improved service will help you, but you want to make sure that it ranks high on Google. A good SEO strategy is the best thing for this.
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Get More Reviews
To further counter bad reviews, particularly those that you feel are unfair or blown out of proportion, you need to get more reviews, especially good ones. Remember, having a lot of reviews means that a lot of customers go to you for home remodeling projects. This can encourage returning or potential customers to also turn to you for related help.
One thing you need to remember is that you should do your best to get a positive review. So, you want to make sure that you make improvements, go above and beyond, and even offer promotions that help customers feel that the money they spent is worth it.
What it Means to Have Great Reputation Management
Once you learn how to handle your online reputation, you will see great improvements in your business operations, sales, and reputation. The first takeaway you will have when you do ORM is better issues addressing. You will learn how to handle all kinds of criticism, giving you an idea of how to properly respond to them. Remember, knowing how and what to respond with is an art in the marketing world and this takeaway may be the greatest one.
Another thing you can earn after a great ORM campaign is better market perception. You do not want your online reputation smeared as it can be bad for business, and ORM is your best bet. With this, you can attract customers, which gives you more opportunities to increase your conversion rate.
You will also be glad to know that a great reputation is it encourages employees to work for you. A company that truly wants to operate and do business better would not only treat their customers better, but also their employees. Your existing workers will be glad to work for you and applicants will also want to work for you.
Lastly, a great ORM uses different aspects of digital marketing, which means that you already deploy them. You definitely already have a website, some form of an SEO campaign, and a social media campaign. You just need to use these to your advantage to increase your sales and you are good to go.
The Bottom Line
Reputation management is always an essential process for any business. Any owner of a home remodeling company wants to keep up with their competitors and they know that a negative reputation can bog them down. With ORM and other digital marketing techniques, you can go toe to toe with your competitors and improve your business’ performance.