5 Instagram Marketing Tips for Home Services Businesses
- June 14, 2019
- By: Vonigo
By Natasha Ponomaroff, Senior Marketing Director of Instasize.
When it comes to marketing their brand, there seems to be some hesitation among home services businesses to use Instagram for marketing.
But they could be missing an opportunity. The social media platform has a wealth of business tools and a pool of possible customers for service companies to reach, maybe even more than any other avenue online.
The Challenge: Be Visual
The drawback seems to lie in the medium itself. Instagram was built to leverage imagery, and many service-based businesses believe they don’t have anything visual worth posting on the platform.
But this simply isn’t true. While product businesses might find it easier to sell using visuals, it isn’t impossible for service businesses to do the same—especially with the right know-how and strategy.
Here are 5 Instagram marketing tips for home services businesses.
1. Show off your Company’s Culture
People like knowing where their money is going. After all the practical considerations like price, quality, and convenience, they connect with the story behind the brand. Who runs the company? What are its people like? What does it stand for?
Think of Instagram as an opportunity to build great PR around your business. Aside from featuring your service, consider featuring your people.
Create content around their stories, why they joined your company, and how they’re helping take your business forward. This is a fantastic way to humanize your business and introduce your customers to the very people servicing them.
Aside from the people, you could also show off your vehicles or headquarters. Give your followers a behind-the-scenes look into what goes on in a day at work to give them a better appreciation of the service you provide.
2. Highlight Your Expertise
One way to establish your brand and your craft is to showcase your know-how and share your skills with your customers.
Do you own a cleaning service? You could try sharing cleaning tips and tricks as content. Or demonstrate how you can remove stains or polish a floor.
Do you move pianos? You could document the tricky process of transporting a piano, and fill your gallery with great pictures of pianos — and in places you wouldn’t expect to see pianos. Pianos wrapped in moving blankets, pianos hanging from cranes. People playing pianos. Be visual!
By sharing helpful content that supplements your service, you’re highlighting your expertise and creating a means for engagement, both of which can help you become the top-of-mind choice in a competitive market.
3. Bring Out the Quotes
Another form of content that can be highly engaging and shareable is the quote post. You can use quotes from employees who represent your company, clients you’ve serviced, businesses you’ve collaborated with, or other interesting or inspirational people.
Not only does this get people talking about your brand, but it also does so in a way that doesn’t necessarily necessitate the need for photography.
It helps to create a template for this kind of content. To create yours, download a photo-editing app with layout tools, like Instasize.
Play around with the border tool, choose from its many modern fonts, and go with a color story that goes well with your brand. Once you’re good to go, use this as a template for your future posts.
4. Share Your Client’s Stories
As with any business, it pays to show gratitude to your loyal customers. One way to do this is to feature them on your Instagram account (with their permission, of course).
If you have testimonials or reviews from them, create content and post away. Maybe share their picture with a quote as part of the visual, and use the caption to introduce them to your followers. You could even take a short video of them and share that, too.
A testimonial isn’t even necessary. Got some loyal customers you’d like to celebrate? Or some interesting ones with amazing stories? Post about them as well.
And if they’re on Instagram, don’t forget to tag them. If they repost what you shared, your brand can reach their followers — all of whom can become potential new customers of yours.
5. Showcase the Outcome
A lot of people browse through Instagram feeds to look for content that’s interesting or aspirational. One way of leveraging this is to post content that shows off the lifestyle your clients can have if you service them.
Start by sifting through some memorable success stories or experiences you had with a customer. Helped a young family “upsize” by moving them into the home of their dreams? See if you can tell the story with photos. Cleaned an entire soup kitchen before the volunteers arrive to start feeding the community? Show off the sparkle with a good photo.
Create content by featuring these stories, and when possible, even showing off the “before and after” pictures.
All these stories are interesting because they show the great effects of your services, making your brand even more attractive to potential customers.
And it doesn’t have to take a lot of work — post a few times per week when you have some visuals worth sharing. You might earn some new fans and customers in the process.
Natasha Ponomaroff is the Senior Marketing Director of Instasize – a content creating toolkit for anyone editing photos and online content on mobile. A weekly contributor on the site’s blog, Natasha tracks social media trends and updates the millions of creatives who are currently using Instasize to curate awesome online content.
When she isn’t writing up the latest trend, Natasha is overseeing a team of 10 over at the Instasize HQ – ensuring that the marketing content on the apps various social platforms is ready to go.
Want to learn about how the right software tools can help you grow the revenue and profits of your home services business? Book a free, private demo of Vonigo.
