Commentary

Home Improvement Upgrade: How Brands Target Prospects

Home improvement firms face many hurdles when trying to attract customers, according to The State of Customer Acquisition, a new study from Porch Group Media, conducted by Ascend2. 

Of the marketers polled, 88% say acquiring new customers has become more difficult. And 49% plan to greatly adjust their acquisition strategies over the next year.

Of course, they’re not doing that badly: 58% achieve at least moderate ROI and 33% very high. But they need data. 

Case in point: 90% say their targeting would be improved by access to detailed property data — maintenance needs, recent upgrades, etc.. 

Home improvement marketers also rely on:

  • Home improvement data (roof in need of repair, windows in need of replacement) — 44%
  • Behavioral data (purchase history, website activity — 37%
  • Property data—(e.g., homeownership, property size, home value) — 30%
  • Demographics (age, income, education) — 28%
  • Transactional data (order value/purchase frequency) — 28%
  • Intent data (search activity, online engagement) — 27%
  • Geographic data (location, zip codes) — 23%
  • Psychographic data (lifestyle, values) — 15%
Yet these data challenges persist:
  • Ensuring data accuracy and completeness issues — 51% 
  • High cost of third-party data — 49%
  • Limited access to real-time data updates — 39%
  • Privacy and compliance concerns — 37%
  • Difficulty integrating data with marketing systems — 33%
  • Lack of internal expertise or resources — 32%

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How do they identify potential customers now?

  • Social media activity (e.g., likes, shares, comments) — 78%
  • Online search behavior (e.g. keywords, queries, site visits) — 77%
  • Content engagement (e.g., ad interactions, downloads, video watches) — 77%
  • Email engagement (e.g., open rates, click-through rates) — 65%
  • Purchase signals (e.g., product comparisons, cart additions) — 64%
  • Other — 3%

Meanwhile, here are the channels and strategies utilized by home improvement marketers:

  • Social media marketing — 75% 
  • Email marketing — 71%
  • Search engine optimization (SEO — 62%
  • Paid ads — 60%
  • Direct mail — 53%
  • TV (including CTV) — 50%
  • Retail and point of sale promotions — 48% 
  • Purchasing leads — 40%
  • Telemarketing — 39% 
  • Other — 4% 
  • None of the above — 1% 

Note the relatively small percentage of firms purchasing leads. This suggests a shift toward first-party data strategies. 

Ascend2 surveyed 270 industry marketing professionals. Of these, 33% provide home improvement or maintenance services, 23% sell home improvement or lifestyle products and 44% are both service providers and retailers. 

 

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