Best Practices For Home Services Marketing PDF Free Download
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Best Practices
For Home Services
Marketing
Adapt Your Strategy in Response to
a Changing Market
Table of
Contents
0 1. Home Services Marketing: More Homeowners
are Looking to Upgrade than Move
02. 8 Essential Strategies for Engaging the
Rural Home Services Consumer
03. Activate New Home Services Clients with
Direct Mail
04. Build Your Home Services Business to Drive
Revenue Growth with Digital Marketing
05. Home Services Case Studies
Introduction
Consumers in rural markets are more likely to remodel or
upgrade their homes than to move.
These consumers respond to media across both print and
digital channels.
Whether your goal is to target all homeowners within your
service area, or to engage a more specic niche, Mspark’s
data-based targeting capabilities can identify your highest-
value potential customers.
Keep reading to learn how a coordinated, multi-channel
marketing strategy expands reach and cost-efciently
increases customer acquisition for home services providers.
01
As interest rates have climbed, more homeowners are choosing to update or remodel their
existing homes rather than move—a home services marketing opportunity. A May, 2024 survey by
Discover Home Loans revealed that more than half of homeowners would prefer to renovate than
move. During the rst quarter of 2024, homeowners spent $463 billion on home renovations.1
Homeowners are making improvements
inside and out.
WHAT TYPES OF RENOVATIONS ARE HOMEOWNERS PLANNING?
Not surprisingly, bathrooms (65%) and kitchens (61%) were the most popular remodeling
projects according to a survey of its members released by the National Association of Home Builders
Remodelers in May.2 After kitchens and baths, the most popular remodels requested were:
50% WHOLE HOUSE
REMODELS
23% BATHROOM
ADDITIONS 22% WINDOWS/DOORS
REPLACEMENT
20%
DECKS
20%
ENCLOSED/
ADDED PORCH
65%
BATHROOMS
61%
KITCHENS
Home Services Marketing:
More Homeowners are Looking to Upgrade than Move
01.
02
Engage homeowners looking to make improvements.
Nationwide, from rural to urban markets, more consumers are planning major home
improvements or repairs in the next six months than consumers planning to move.3
4.2
6.9
3.4
4.9
13.9
12.3
11.6
12.5
Rural
Urban
Suburban
Total US
HOMEOWNER PLANS IN THE NEXT 6 MONTHS
Start Major Home Improvement/Repair Buy a House
HOMEOWNERS LOOKING TO MAKE IMPROVEMENTS
Consumers planning home improvement purchases are inuenced by media across both
print and digital channels. Mspark’s coordinated media strategy ensures your brand remains
top of mind for consumers, expanding your reach and driving response rates.3
27.8%
18.4%
16.7%
13.5%
13.2%
13.1%
12.9%
12.5%
12.3%
28.4%
19.0%
17.3%
14.5%
13.9%
13.4%
14.1%
12.0%
12.9%
27.2%
18.1%
16.5%
13.3%
13.0%
13.0%
12.4%
12.7%
12.4%
Internet
TV/Broadcast
Social Media (Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, Pinterest,etc.)
Email Advertising
Direct Mail
Advertising Inserts
Video on Mobile Device
or Computer
Coupons
Mobile Websites and Apps
(Smartphone, Tablet)
MEDIA INFLUENCES ON HOME IMPROVEMENT PURCHASES (JAN-2024)
Adults 18+
Source: Prosper Insights and Analytics
Rural Markets
Urban Counties - All US
MEDIA INFLUENCES ON HOME IMPROVEMENT PURCHASES
03
Whether your goal is to target all homeowners within your service area, or to engage a more
specic niche, Mspark’s data-based targeting capabilities ensure you get the most value from
your advertising spend by targeting your highest-value potential customers. Learn more about
how Mspark’s targeting capabilities help you make informed business decisions.
Multi-channel home services marketing tactics increase
reach, response and ROI.
Delivering customized, coordinated messaging across your prospects’ preferred advertising
channels elevates your brand and increases reach and response, which also increases your
advertising ROI.
By combining the persuasive power of digital advertising with the tangible impact of direct mail,
we’ve seen response rates soar by up to 450% and conversion rates increase by up 28%.4 Learn
more about integrated, multi-channel advertising campaigns.
DIRECT MAIL PROMPTS ACTION IN PERSON AND ONLINE:
64%
of consumers have taken
action in response to
direct mail.5
57%
of recipients have visited
a brand’s website after
receiving direct mail.5
of recipients have visited a retail
location or purchased a product or
service in response to direct mail.5
1/3
More
than
CAPTURE THEIR ATTENTION
WITH OFFERS:
78%
of recipients will open/
read a single offer or
promotion;
77%
will open/read multiple
offers or promotions.5
MAKE IT PERSONAL TO
INCREASE RESPONSE:
68%
of consumers are more
likely to engage with a
personalized message
from a brand.6
55%
of consumers expect
mail from brands to
be personalized to
them in some way.5
Learn how Mspark’s solutions have helped other home services providers acquire new
customers in our case studies. Find more inspiration in our design gallery.
Sources: The top renovations that increase home value in 2024, Bankrate.com, May 7, 20241; NAHB Remodelers Reveals the Most
Popular Type of Home Remodeling Projects, NAHB.com, May 1, 20242; Prosper Insights & Analytics 20243; US Modern Postcard,
Direct Mail Statistics 20234; The State of Direct Mail Consumer Insights by LOB and Comperemedia5; USPS Mail Moments 20236
04
Understanding the unique needs and behaviors of rural home services consumers is key to
developing a home services marketing strategy that drives leads and client acquisition.
Here are eight essential tips for targeting
this valuable customer base:
Know Your Audience.
• 61% of consumers in rural markets own their own home.1
• More than half (54%) of rural homeowners are women, indicating a diverse
consumer base with varying needs and preferences.1
• 37% of rural homeowners have an annual household income within the $50-
$100k range; 21% have household incomes ranging from $100K to $150K+,
highlighting their purchasing power.1
01.
Leverage Direct Mail.
• 73% of consumers planning major home remodeling projects have responded
to direct mail in the past 12 months, making it a potent tool for reaching out to
potential buyers.2
• Direct mail, with its high visibility and cost-effectiveness, stands out as a
preferred hardware marketing channel among rural consumers.
02.
Integrate Digital Strategies.
• Combining digital marketing with direct mail can boost your campaign’s conversion
rates by up to 28%.3
• Digital amplication strategies, such as targeted display ads, email acquisition, and
retargeting, ensure your hardware marketing message reaches a wider audience.
03.
05
8 Essential Strategies
for Engaging the Rural Home Services Consumer
02.
Build Awareness with CTV Broad.
• Identify and target your most relevant ZIP codes
to reach customers at the top of the funnel.
• This cost-effective entry point to CTV is effective
in promoting purchases across retail outlets.
04.
Embracing these strategies can signicantly improve your marketing efforts toward the rural
home services consumer. By understanding their unique needs, leveraging the right mix of
direct mail and digital marketing, and focusing on targeted, relevant messaging, businesses can
acquire new clients, increase engagement, and ultimately, grow sales.
Sources: Prosper Insights & Analytics 20241; AdMall AudienceSCAN 20242;
US Modern Postcard, Direct Mail Statistics 20233; USPS Mail Moments 20234
Utilize Print to Drive Digital Engagement.
• Printed ads are not just about traditional marketing; 51% of consumers are
prompted to go online after receiving mail advertising, making print a valuable
digital on-ramp.4
• This strategy underscores the importance of a coordinated home services
marketing approach that blends the strengths of both print and digital mediums.
05.
Focus on Geographically Targeted
Home Services Marketing.
• Targeting consumers living within your service area and in single-family dwellings
can enhance the relevance and effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
• This strategy emphasizes the importance of understanding and catering to the
local consumer base’s specic needs.
06.
Boost Engagement with Psychographic, Geographic,
and Demographic Targeting.
• Advanced targeting options enable businesses to reach consumers on a
more personal level, ensuring marketing messages are relevant to their
lifestyle, location, and interests.
• Techniques like CRM targeting and keyword search retargeting allow for a
highly personalized approach, increasing the chances of engagement.
07.
Measure and Adjust for Success.
• The effectiveness of your home services marketing efforts can be tracked through
various metrics, including sales data and consumer response rates to different
advertising media.
• Continuous analysis and adjustment based on performance data ensure that your
marketing strategy remains aligned with consumer preferences and behaviors.
08.
06
40%
What specic actions do consumers
take when they respond to direct mail?
40% Investigate a Brand.
• Visit the brand or service website.1
• Search for the brand/product/service online.1
• Check the brand or service’s social media.1
33%
33% Research a Brand.
• Look up reviews of the brand/product/service.1
• Visit another website looking for the product
or service advertised.1
• Check out other media to gauge other’s
thoughts on the brand/product/service.1
27% 27% Activate.
• Visit a retail location to check out a product
in person.1
• Buy a product or sign up for a service.1
In a world lled
with digital clutter,
there’s something
special about
receiving a piece
of direct mail.
64%
of consumers say direct mail
has inspired them to take
action, such as visiting a
website or a physical store.1
74%
of marketers say direct mail
delivers the highest response,
conversion rate, and ROI of
any channel used.1
Activate New Home Services Clients
with Direct Mail
03.
07
08
Sources: Porch/LOB 20231; USPS Mail Moments 20232; LOB 2022 State of Direct Mail3
How to get the most from your direct mail campaign:
Give them a reason.
A compelling, relevant offer is key to get recipients to open and read direct mail:
• 78% will open/read a single offer or promotion.1
• 77% will open/read multiple offers or promotions.1
Get personal.
• Personalized direct mail drives higher engagement rates. Mspark’s targeting capabilities enable
you to zero in on your highest-value prospects and target them with postcard messaging specic
to their needs and preferences. Learn more about our targeting capabilities.
• 63% of consumers are more likely to engage with a brand’s message that is personalized to them,1
• 52% expect mail from brands to be personalized to them in some way.1
Custom-build an audience of your best
potential customers.
No advertising campaign can be successful without rst identifying the highest-value
audience for your message. Your audience is not going to be the same as anyone else’s.
It’s going to be your keywords, your website visitors, your geofences that you choose—
customized just for your business.
Our audience targeting solutions are created based on data, eliminating most of the waste
that is often associated with other advertising methods.
Digital marketing helps you achieve consistent brand delivery across media channels and
platforms, which can increase revenue by 23% on average1.
A marketing strategy that drives results for your business is capable of pinpoint targeting your best
potential customers while evaluating performance, optimizing campaigns, and measuring results.
There are three main sources of data used to identify the relevant audience:
• Behavioral – behavioral data comes from a person’s internet activity.
• Location – location data comes from a person’s ofine actions based on the locations they
have visited.
• Demographic – demographic data comes from ofine purchase behavior, publicly available
data, and self-reported data.
Did you know?
• Average time of people being online is up to 6 hours, 37 minute per day in 2023
(up from 6 hours in 2018).
• The majority of internet activity is now being conducted on mobile devices: 7 out of every
10 hours spent on the web are on mobile devices2.
Different actions demonstrate customers at different points during their path to purchase,
making all of them worthwhile to target with your message. As your audience surfs the web, they
are targeted with ads as they go about their day and interact with their connected devices. This
puts your ads in front of:
• People who go to your website and then leave.
• People who are searching for the products and services that you sell.
• People who are reading content that is relevant to your industry.
• People who visit locations in the real world, such as your competitors.
09
Build Your Home Services Business
to Drive Revenue Growth with Digital Marketing
04.
Target consumers based on who and
where they are.
Geofencing enables you to target consumers based on who they are and where they are.
How is this possible? 90% of mobile users keep their location services turned on, creating
a wealth of data and consumers to target based on physical locations visited4.
Consumers visiting
your website
Consumers visiting
websites categorically
relevant to your business
Consumers who have
visited your store or
are current clients
Consumers searching for or
reading content related to
your offerings(s)
Consumers visiting your
competitors or other
audience-rich locations
Consumers whose demographic
data &/or ofine purchase
history matches ideal prospect
Data Curated Addressable Geofencing
Target households based on over 600
demographic variables that are tied to
physical addresses of consumers.
Landmark Geofencing
Target customers
who have visited local
landmarks that are
relevant to your business.
Store Geofencing
Target consumers who have
visited your store location to
encourage repeat visits.
CRM Addressable Geofencing
Target specic households based on your
supplied customer list to engage lapsed
customers and/or upsell current customers.
Event Geofencing
Target customers
visiting a venue during a
specied timeframe.
Conquest Geofencing
Better known as Competitive
Blunting. Targets consumers
who have visited key
competitors in market.
10
Sources: advertisingweek.com, 3 Reasons Why Brand Consistency Should Be Top Priority, Simplif1; 90 Google Search
Statistics for 2023: Usage & User Behavior Data, Financesonline;2 How Much Time Does the Average Person Spend on the
Internet, oberlo.com;4 www.zippia.com, March 2023;5 Wyzowl, 2023;6 The Streamable7
Build Brand Awareness & Drive Store Trafc
Why digital display? The average consumer spends 7 hours per day
on internet connected screens5.
Our Boost Digital Display solution serves static or animated ads on a
variety of device types with targeting to the household level.
Engage New Customers & Generate Awareness
Why pre-roll video? 91% of consumers want to see more online video
content from brands6.
Video increases brand awareness, ad recall & purchase consideration.
Highly targeted at the household level, ads are served to users on premium
publishers and mobile apps and average 65%-75% completion rate.
Amplify Your Reach
Why OTT/CTV Video? 87% of US adults own at least one connected TV,
and almost half of US adults watch a connected TV daily7.
This video channel allows you to reach consumers streaming on all screens
down to the household-level with non-skippable ads for the highest video
completion rates, averaging 98%. Linear TV subscribers can be excluded.
Measure and optimize digital marketing
campaign performance.
Reporting features, along with campaign insights reports, help to paint a picture of exactly who
is receiving your ads, where they are receiving them, and how they are interacting with them,
reinforcing your ability to maximize the relevance of your campaigns.
Learn more about digital advertising solutions that increase reach and response with measurable
results. Our full suite of mail and digital advertising solutions is designed to be customizable to
develop the most cost-effective media mix to drive ROI and achieve your marketing goals.
Once your target audience has been identied, a coordinated digital marketing approach
enables you to drive engagement across multiple channels utilizing Mspark’s Boost digital
solutions, including digital display, pre-roll video, and OTT/CTV video.
11
Home Services
Business Case Studies
See how home services providers have increased leads and
grown sales by partnering with Mspark to create coordinated,
multi-channel advertising campaigns.
Kitchen & bath remodeling
company increases revenue.
The Challenge:
A home services company specializing in kitchen and bathroom remodeling
was looking to promote a sale on its kitchen remodeling services.
The Solution:
1. Identify the highest-value target audience.
The advertiser provided a list of home improvement stores and
neighborhoods to target, and our team drew target fences around each
location and identied a custom audience of households in nearby zip codes
that featured homeowners aged 55+ with household incomes of at least $150K.
2. Analyze and determine the right media to engage
that audience.
We developed a comprehensive strategy of Geo-Fencing, Addressable
Geo-Fencing, Site Retargeting, Search Retargeting, and Keyword
Contextual targeting to engage the advertiser’s target audience.
3. Quantify performance expectations and activate.
To track the number of users who received an ad and later visited the
advertiser in person, our team implemented a Conversion Zone around
the business’s showroom for both the Geo-Fencing and Addressable
Geo-Fencing tactics. Clickthrough rate and cost per acquisition were
tracked for the duration of the campaign.
The client cost per acquisition was
$7.41,
well beneath
industry benchmarks
Clickthrough rate for digital ads was
0.17%. 12
CASE STUDY
Window replacement
company increases leads
and sales with shared mail.
Client Goal:
A national window replacement company wanted to increase leads
to grow sales with shared mail.
The Solution:
1. Identify the highest-value target audience.
Analyzed surrounding zip codes to determine households with
propensity to replace windows and patio doors. Targeted the best
64,000 households surrounding the store.
2. Analyze and determine the right media to engage
that audience.
Utilized the impact postcard to increase response rates and deliver
relevant messages to each household based on relevant lifestyle
demographics to increase personalization. Offers: Save $300 on
windows; save $800 on patio doors.
3. Quantify performance expectations and activate.
Mailed stand-alone pieces outside of our direct mail package,
resulting in a shared mail rate that is 1/3 lower than the competition.
Measured net sales during the campaign cycle.
CASE STUDY
$65,000+
Total Sales Revenue
$3.45 ROAS
For Every $1 Spent
(Return on Ad Spend)
13
Home Services
Business Case Studies
CONTINUED...
