Proven Lead Generation Strategies for Home Services Industry

Thank you so much. Now, what a great humble introduction, man. I’m super, super grateful to be here. Thank you so much.

Man, I could take up your whole episode with that answer. But fate had a plan for me. I got hurt bad back when I was 25 years old. But I was very fortunate, I had some friends there for me, and I landed in the industry. I joke, I laugh, and I didn’t choose Digital marketing, it chose me.

Ironically, it chose us. We didn’t choose it since the company owners in a previous opportunity had relationships with the Home Services Industry. So we naturally transitioned with them at the beginning of a business. Home Services is something that came along with them. And we’ve focused on being the most reputable company in that area.

One thing that is super cool about RYNO Strategic Solutions is that we stay in our lane. We specialize in what we do and be extremely great. So we don’t have full-blown lead generation. We focus on new leads, meaning consumer growth rather than revenue growth. Everything’s done through lead generation conversion-based websites. So we try to avoid things like E-commerce, and we do this intentionally. Like to be good at something, I think it’s very important to specialize, focus, and hone in on that particular theme that you want to be great at to help accomplish your goals as an organization.

I still have a little old-school mentality because I still believe content is king. I think some elements will help. But without good content and quality pages on a website, I think it will be relatively difficult to succeed. And by all means, a rising tide raises all ships. So we are an open book.

Yeah. I think that supplemental advertising coupons are going to help you convert better. But the way I’ve always taught some of the students that come through here, RYNO isn’t just a Marketing agency, we try to treat our operation like a school. We’re constantly educating employees who come here to learn the art of SEO and PPC. But if I had to explain it very simply put to the less experienced consumer, I’ve always advertised this. It’s a three-step process. First, we have to rank to be found. We need to create that engagement by generating a click. There’s more than one option on the search results page. And then third is to convert, you have to generate an opportunity. And you think in our industry, many businesses forget, hey, like in the home services space, a conversion isn’t. this is not E-commerce, it’s not a sale. It’s an appointment, they’ll get to the house and convince them to make a transaction. So I look at it in that sense that coupons are crucial in that third step, that conversion can meet the intent of the phone, and we’re sending contact forms to reach out to our clients.

Oh, gosh, it’s such a great question. It’s something that we’re super passionate about here. I always say that in business, it’s key to have a unique differentiator in addition to the basic mission, vision, and core values, and it’s the remoting piece that sets RYNO apart from many of our competitors in the space that we’re in. But to answer your direct question, I think your cost per lead is crucial. When dealing with a business owner, it’s important to understand money in versus money out. And let’s also be real, Digital Marketing can be complex. And I think it’s quite easy for less experienced clients who don’t understand it to be somewhat skeptical. So I think we are in an industry where we’re simplifying that reporting is key. And ultimately, what they want to understand is the money I’m spending. Is it justified? What am I getting back from that? So it isn’t easy because, as a Marketing agency, I can’t control what happens after the phone call after you generate leads. I don’t know their ability to book. So we must create a metric that allows us to be held accountable as an agency but is within our control. And I think that the cost per lead is that ultimate metric. But I think there are a lot of other crucial elements that you need to look at that supplement that, like what are you paying for click in certainly digital advertising and where you rank organically and things of that nature. So it would help if you didn’t mistake that answer for cost per lead being the only thing that matters, but I think it is extremely crucial.

We charge for a traditional SEO or PPC budget campaign where they would supply the dollars and think of it as a bank account. So we go in, lack of better terms, it’s like if I go into a casino and you hand me a budget. That’s my limitation, and that’s what I turn into a lead.

If you get a couple of different options here, we believe an SEO campaign must be successful by building the website. I often describe to my inexperienced clients that it’s like trying to go to the Super Bowl with someone else’s quarterback or car racing with someone else’s car, trying to be competitive. And when I think that it’s important that your SEO strategy is in line with the website it represents. We try to ensure we build all our sites in-house with specific strategies. But to be clear, talking landing pages, there were elements sometimes where you might run pay-per-click. And we do have generators that are designed more for PPC tactics versus SEO because they are different. So we have to determine if we build a landing page on a subdomain versus using existing pages on the website. So all of that needs to be evaluated and analyzed to determine how different country areas react differently to different pages in different situations.

It’s so crucial. In the home services industry, we must remember that everything is location-based. So there’s a very big world for SEO, SEM, and PPC. But what we do is such a small increment of that. Everything we do is because our clients are location-based, and in our industry, they’re only licensed to go so far as to serve the consumers.

It varies because you’ve got a lot of coverage in different areas. Like some clients might be more rural, and others might be metro. So how far they’re willing to go, I think, varies based on things like county lines.

I would say it’s safe to assume 50 isn’t much farther.

Yes, and the location. Sometimes when you’re in those rural areas, you’ve got to travel a little farther.

That’s a great question. When it comes to content in this particular industry, for the home services, for lack of better terms, we have to dumb it down. I can’t speak for you, Matt, but if you tell me to change a vehicle’s radiator, I get what a radiator is, but I can’t do it. And because it’s such a large investment, I’m spending anywhere from 20 to $100,000 on a vehicle. So it’s very important to me. I get nervous about who I can trust will go in there and ruin that investment if they don’t do things the right way. It’s very similar in home-services because this is your home, in most cases larger than a vehicle, so we want it done right. And we may not know somebody. So we invite someone to come into our house, we invite them to pick something potentially, and we don’t necessarily know what needs to be fixed or how to do it. So I say all this to you because I think it’s crucial to understand that most of you consumers are typing in very vague, general things in this particular industry. Like, say, repair, plumbing service, electrician, they’re not being very, very particular about what specific service they need. But what it all comes down to at the end of the day is keyword research. So you need to choose the service, evaluate the area, and research to supplement how much demand there is. A good example in this industry might be furnaces. It may be more common in certain parts of the nation, whereas in others, they are not because it’s such a big deal for HVAC.

Well, if you can’t beat them, join them. In the world of SEO, I like to describe things as you have, what is called on-site SEO versus what is off-site SEO. On-Site SEO is when we’re talking about content within your website. We’re talking about how fast and secure the website is. Also, the technical elements that are important for search engines like Google to recommend you higher on the results page. But you have to consider off-site as well. Whenever you’re dealing with location-based business off-site, SEO is crucial. And the way that you do that is by paying attention to what’s called local directories. Several publishers are out on the web, and that would be something like Yelp, now called Google Business Profiles. It used to be Google My Business, aka Maps, Bing Maps, and Apple Maps, these are all considered directories and publishers. And this is the thing to your point when you’re searching for a location-based service. Those types of directories always appear at the top because Google knows that they are location-based tools that are helping us find a business within the service area. So it’s common sense, like, I’m going to give a boost to a directory like this. And when I say it, beat it, join it. Part of doing off-site SEO is ensuring you go into those profiles, manage them, and optimize a profile on Yelp or Google Maps the same way you’re optimizing a website. So now, there are differences between the two. So when I meet with my clients monthly and discuss performance results, we look at each of those different directories and make sure they are doing the things that would help them rank better within those directories, the same way we’re trying to get you to rank against them. So it’s important, like, are you generating reviews? Are you responding to those reviews? Are you doing any type of keyword targeting? Several tactics happen in the directories the same way they happen outside. Does that answer your question?

I will say 100%, and I think it depends on what you mean when you say advertise.

And the answer is yes, 100%. And the only reason I say that is because typically, when you’re dealing with paid advertisement, you’ll get a lot of people who will tell you, Hey, I scroll right past it. The general user doesn’t want to be manipulated. If I know something is paid for, I feel like someone’s manipulating it to try and get my business. And I don’t think anybody wants to do that. But I think what we find that happens is a type of consumer, especially in the home services space, where you have to think about situational awareness. I can give you an example of today’s generation, and I call this my third arm. I use cell phone devices in our industry, especially for home services. When you think about situational awareness, I’ll give you an example. If I have a senior citizen in the home and infant, your index at 120, and my AC goes out, it becomes a serious emergency. So I’m not going to sit here on this laptop and take my time and do my research. I’m probably going to use this device to search whether an app or browser. But I’m in such a panic state going so fast that when you use an advertising tool, whether it’s Yelp or Google PPC, it tends to overlook the label that is an ad, especially when the message is compelling. I also think that a very important thing to understand is that in location-based businesses, proximity is important. So if I am located in Phoenix, and I’m also trying to get out 45 minutes away to a city like Mesa here, I service it. But if I want to grow there, SEO isn’t as beneficial to me because Google looks at me and says, Why would I suggest you over this guy who’s much, much closer to the general location? Well, PPC and digital advertising, even if it’s inside of Yelp, or another publisher, you can tactically pick where you show up for locations and pay to cut the line. It’s like a fast pass like PPC when I woke up the next day, now, I can manipulate that proximity algorithm a little bit and get eyes on me when I may not necessarily be the best option from a location standpoint to the consumer. Does that make sense?

I’m not telling you this particular trade PPC is crucial for the reasons we’re discussing now. More importantly, in the home services industry, you can only do so much in SEO. You can only control so much. Optimize your site, but it’s constantly used with less experienced people. It’s like planting a fruit tree to eat that fruit regularly. It was an orange tree. I leaned very heavily upon pay-per-click tactics to generate leads for my business. Think of it as me watering the tree. So I’m keeping the tree-the business alive as it grows by utilizing PPC to buy the time it needs for the SEO to start growing. And at the point at which your business has made a digital footprint large enough for SEO organically, meaning it starts to generate the fruit and they are sustainable, that’s when I can let off my foot on the PPC a little bit. I use pay-per-click until the SEO starts to do what it’s designed to do. And the time it takes for SEO to do what it’s designed to do varies. I will never give you a guaranteed time frame. Because if an SEO company has very little competition in a rural area with a small population, it’s probably easier to see that success compared to a major market like Phoenix, where HVAC or plumbing companies are on every corner. It’s going to take a lot more time. But for Pay Per Click, it’s crucial to understand because not only can you get as near a radius targeting or zip code to try and determine where you want to go. Tactics might be, what’s the average age of the unit? Or what’s the average age of the home? If you have a community built 10-20 years ago, depending on your opinion on what that lifespan is, you might target that area, knowing that changeouts and new systems are bound to become pretty popular because of the time they were built. So PPC can be very tactical because I could pause and resume a service campaign that’s emergency based. Because if you have an emergency, you will not wait that long. If I can’t get to you the same day, you will go to the next guy on the list. So maybe those PPC dollars are better off going towards a sales campaign where you have a new system. Sometimes it’s trying to replace a unit that’s not broken. I don’t want it to break during summer. I am being proactive. All this is, hey, I’m willing to wait two weeks for a company I feel good about to come out to my home when it’s a much, much larger purchase. Like a new air conditioner can easily run you eight grand. So hopefully, it makes sense.

Such a great question. I think it’s key to have a unique differentiator, as I described, is Ryan Trax in our reporting system. We try to decipher legitimately what a new customer is versus new revenue. Let’s try to scale your growth from a $1 perspective. I’m trying to scale your growth from an actual customer. When I get more new customers, the money comes naturally, which is how I hold myself to a higher standard than our competition. But to your question, I think coupons are crucial. And I think you must have a coupon that relates to about every area of the company. So what I mean by that is that if I said HVAC, you’re either repairing a unit, replacing a unit, doing seasonal maintenance, or people are doing a lot more indoor air quality these days. But to my point, if I’m going to run a PPC ad that is all about maintenance, they click this ad, and I send them to a page with nothing to do with maintenance. There is no value. You are going to lose. You get the click but no conversion version, it’s a waste of money. But where the coupon helps is the sense of urgency. So what I mean by that is you want your consumer to be entitled to, in today’s day and age. We have a device where we get what we want when we want it most of the time. And we’re like, hey, what’s in it for me? And so we must write a compelling offer that makes them feel like they’re getting a real deal and opportunity. So if you’re unaware of what your competition is doing, you’re losing out there. It will help if you stay competitive with your competition. And I would also say, put the time and value on it. Here’s a freebie for those who watched this podcast if I were to do a coupon that tells me a $50 Maintenance special versus a one that says $50 Maintenance special with a traditional value of $150. This one’s way better because I know how much money I’m saving and what a good deal. Or I might also say this expires by a certain date, whereas this one does not. And this is the difference when you’re building a website with a traditional design agency versus an actual Digital Marketing agency.

Yes. If I take these coupons design agency, they will make sure the coupon is beautiful, but a Marketing agency will look at it and say, you know what, I am going to put an expiration date on that auto rotates every week. So any time someone sees it, they have a sense that it will expire.

Marketing agency builds a website as an investment tool with the intent of your money coming back to you full circle and more. A design agency builds something that is visual and represents your brand well.

It can be. We always recommend it. We supply our lines and do our tracking. Here at RYNO, we have a team that listens to all calls because we need that human intelligence to listen to a call and find out who is a first-time customer and who is a repeat. I will give you an example. Not to knock on artificial intelligence, but many do cool things where they auto-transcribe calls.

But you have this condition that says, hey, if the call is longer than or shorter than a minute, it is or is not an engaged lead. Because what we are trying to do is distinguish who is new and has never done business with us and persons who have. AI will not decipher that. I also think it is important to have a pulse on did it book or not. I can give you all the leads in the world. However, suppose your customer service representative or on-facing team doesn’t book and close those opportunities. In that case, you will still have a business owner thinking we are not doing our part because they don’t see the revenue or the appointment on the schedule. So to have a team listen to that and provide that type of feedback is very valuable because it helps business owners understand this is not a lead generation problem it is a booking problem which you may want to dive into some coaching. So it took us sideways there.

By showing them. In my tracking reports, I track how many missed calls they have. I will show them firsthand. I have an obligated screen sharing when I do my reporting calls. It’s very simple, if I tell you it’s 120 or 10 degrees, it’s more of a coal factor. People are more uncomfortable with in-home services because I can’t shower. We have a problem. If I am sweating buckets, we have a problem. Your home is supposed to be the most comfortable place in your life. So when I am uncomfortable, their time is of the essence. And because we need to create that picture for business owners, I say you do that, and it is usually enough. In this industry, we have some options, it’s not uncommon for them to use answering services to retain the lead. But it doesn’t change the fact that if you don’t get back to them or get to them fast enough, you will lose it.

Yes, I would say so.

It helps. I think the challenges are that you must find a good quality answering service that attempts to understand your brand, your model, and what you do. Because most of the time, they are reading from a script or someone who has a phone number routing and can be hit or miss depending on how well you bridge that gap. And I want to make it clear; your brand is everything. We can do Digital Marketing all day, but you wonder if I have salespeople going out selling. If your brand is on par, you don’t need people to go out and sell. So there is a reason I go out, and I buy this common watch. Like no one knocked on my door and sold it to me. It branded itself so well that I went in and chose to purchase it. It is the power of the brand, and when you create that type of brand, it will give you some equity in your Digital Marketing. So I want to make sure I touch base on that because it is crucial. And that is the thing when you hire an answering service that is not in-house; you are putting your brand on the line. So you have to look at it from a couple of perspectives because protecting the brand is as crucial as generating leads. So make sure you vet your answering agency is the message I am trying to deliver here. So ensure you get one trying to understand your brand and represent it the way you want it to be at odd hours because they usually field calls at 11 or midnight when we are not our most friendly selves.

I do, I have a few and have no problem name-dropping. I am a big fan of Podium. There is no real partnership there, it is not like I am getting an incentive to advertise them. What I like about them is that Podium creates a system where they receive text messages instead of using automation or botting. I also like that it keeps the communication in-house, which helps protect the brand. I advocate for reviews, especially off-site SEO because it is a ranking factor. We talked about the directory earlier. Google Maps, it is not uncommon that I see it do 25 to 30 percent of the call volumes per month for the clients we represent in-home services. If you are neglecting Google maps, what I want you to walk away with from this podcast is to pursue it and actively engage with it because it’s 100 percent free, and it’s a game changer, organically off-site. Paying attention means you don’t have to manage a website to generate free leads from Google maps. But to get yourself to rank, you have to generate reviews. So for review variation tools, I am a fan of them as long as the reviews are real, organic, and, more importantly, you respond to the reviews with the thought of tactics.

That’s a great question. Google does allow you to create service area listings. So you do not need a physical location. But I do believe, from what I have seen over ten years, that the physical locations respond better to the algorithm. And I have seen several things happen. First, you can create a physical location, so you send a postcard and prove you have access to the mail. Some people have no problem using their house and advertising that. It all depends; it’s a risk. It’s out there for the general public, and people can come to that location, and the risk factor is a possibility. In this industry, inspecting, plumbing, and stock counting may need to come into your shop more. We are coming to your approach. But if you ask me if having a physical location is worth it? 100 percent. I have clients who rent. They will rent a room in a building to have the mailing address to create a location. It depends on what the cost is. It all comes down to you looking at how much you will pay for rent.

It can range dramatically, that is why it is important to evaluate the reporting. Google Maps give you free insight. You can go in and see how many calls you are generating from it per day, see the caller id and if you are running your business as a small mom and pop, keep track of that. This person makes an $8000 system sale, and you have their personal information on file, compare the numbers with Google maps and track it, that eight thousand dollars with maps which is completely free. Does that justify my time and effort in optimizing this map listing? And when you start to see how much comes through, it is very easy for you to see if it is worth renting out a space or not. There are many ways to win the game, but at the end of the day, you have to play well with Google. They are trying to keep a clean tool out there so that it doesn’t die. Like everyone uses google for a reason. It has established trust, and if we damage that, we lose the share and the impact that google has. So I would say be cautious when experimenting with these things because you need to play by the rules. The minute you lose their trust, it’s hard to come back from that.

It’s been done. I see people take pictures of their trucks and somehow get by. I see different things. Google seems to be a bit more lenient as of late. Recently we did a virtual video where we walked them into the office. They are not stern about seeing an address, sign, or door. Something you said, though, that I think is so important to call out is you want to be thinking about your competition and ensuring you are always paying attention to what they are doing when it comes to Digital Marketing. If you have any SEO experience and are listening to this podcast, you have heard of Bruce White. He is the Godfather of SEO. But his SEO siloing methods, I think, are very powerful on websites. So I bring him up because we get lost in Digital Marketing. After all, we think we have to do this entire checklist from A to Z, and all you need to do is what your competition is doing, plus a bit more. That is very important. The first thing I do with a client is evaluating the search page to see who I am competing with and what they are doing. And it helps me develop a plan on how I will pursue my competition. I often describe Digital Marketing as a chess game. So there are a million moves I could take. And I will change them every month based on what the guys I am competing with are doing. It’s not the same things in the same order. It varies schematically based on conditions and competition. So it’s always interesting to me because I may bring a client on and say, who do you think your top three competitors are? It varies on Google, who I would consider their top three.

When you have digital real estate in the virtual world and are trying to build the largest billboard in Google, I have to look at those digital guys, not the real guys.

I have a client from Phoenix, and I should rephrase. It is not my client but a company we had spoken to back and forth. They had zero Digital Marketing efforts and are still a top five organization size-wise in the city to put it in perspective, you can completely neglect digital and still be a winner. But digital, I can tell you, will be your next best friend outside of branding and word of mouth. You were going to say something before I interrupted you.

So, if you ask me how I am tracking leads to my organization here at RYNO.

Oh yes. I can answer both of those things. For us in-house, we use SalesForce, which is why it has been so valuable. It is because if you can dream it, it can be done with the help of SalesForce. If you don’t have access to a high-level developer, my next suggestion would be HubSpot because I think it is much more user-friendly and out of the box with fewer customization requirements to use operationally. So when talking about a phone services client, the most commonly talked about field management software in the space is ServiceTitan. And they have some alternative options, Housecall Pro is one, and FieldEdge.

Some of these guys have integration with Google, which makes it convenient. SuperClear is a field management software, and it is like an actual CRM. I still think you will go back to companies like SalesForce and HubSpot to do that unless you build something in-house.

Matt, it’s a loaded question. But I would tell you guys here at RYNO we exist to grow your business, period. It is our statement here. If I could recommend any piece of advice outside of the things, I’ve already mentioned. If you are neglecting Google Maps, you are missing out so big. It is 100% free and very easily done in-house. You don’t need a marketing agency to generate those free opportunities. Outside of that, I would say understand your reporting. that is crucial. In digital marketing, the quality you get is how much you want to hold them accountable. Ask questions, and understand what success is and what is not. Be aware of what your average tickets are as a company. Ask how much you are paying for these leads. Because if it costs a hundred dollars to generate a new customer, and I know the average ticket for the type of service they want will cost a thousand dollars sound like a win once you start to evaluate profit margins. Know your reporting and have a pulse, that’s my advice.

Sure, and I love it because I love talking shop, and I love teaching, and I do a ton of webinars. The best way you can connect with me because my calendar is always very tight, is by email. I will evaluate those. My email is mvenidis@rynoss.com.

I am. I am on LinkedIn M. Venidis.

Matt Thank you so much, man, I am grateful.