7 Marketing Tips for Installation Companies

For installation companies that make house calls to install flooring, windows, doors and the like, there is no lack of options for where to spend your money on marketing.

But how do you get the best return on your investment of cash (and time)? We’ve compiled a list of tips that installation companies can use to help grow your business and increase bookings.

1. Use Social Media

Not just for the budget conscious but for all businesses, social media is the most cost-effective way to get the word out about your company. The trick is in knowing what to say.

As you are the experts in your field of business, it’s probably best to keep your social media management as close to home as possible. By this, we mean that if you can dedicate some of your office team’s time to it, that’s preferable to hiring an outside contractor. But it doesn’t hurt to inform your team of how to approach it first. Here’s some useful guidance you can pass along.

Tell Stories, Make Friends, Connect

Don’t worry about “getting followers” or how many likes you’re getting. Jumping onto Facebook just to talk about your services or your latest promotion isn’t likely to resonate with your market.

Instead, tell stories. About the heritage home where you carefully replaced the windows without affecting the house’s historical facade. About the flooring you installed for the local veteran’s club. Highlight your office manager’s inspiring 10km run with her family to raise awareness for a worthy cause. Ask yourself: “Would I want to read this?” If it passes your own sniff test, share it. Any one story could be the “hit” that brings a new audience to your virtual doorstep. Post several times weekly if you can and engage with other local businesses and causes.

When people reach out to you via social media, connect with them in a friendly manner, so that others will see that you genuinely care.

Pro Tip

Use a chatbot tool (for e.g. Facebook Messenger) to offer potential customers and instant connection during office hours.

2. Be Visual

This is an extension to the above tip on social media, but is worthy of a place of its own on this list. As an installation company, one of your greatest assets is the undeniable visual appeal of your completed work.

Take before-and-after photos on virtually every single job you do. Just make it part of your installer’s job duties. A few simple tips on image framing and lighting, and not only will you have an accurate record of the completed job for your customer files, but also assets you can then use in your marketing. Each week, choose a few of the best to be shared on channels like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Pro Tips

Use an image template for your before-and-afters, to save time and keep a consistent style. Or if you want to take your visual marketing to the next level, experiment with Facebook Live and/or Instagram Stories.

3. Communicate Services and Products Clearly

When a prospective customer arrives at your website, it should be immediately obvious to them how to go about booking a job with you. If you require an estimator to arrange a quote of the job first, make that the primary call to action.

Have your contact details, product information, and pricing options clearly displayed. Anything that is relevant, especially videos and product specs from your product manufacturers, should be easy to find. Further than that, describe the process of what a new installation will look like, to help inform your customer. Will they have to vacate the premises? Will you make a mess? How long will it take? How many technicians will come to the house? And so on.

All of this detailed information is also fantastic for SEO. A major part of optimizing your website to win search traffic is how much relevant information it contains, so don’t be afraid to add plenty of detail.

Pro Tips

Publish a blog on your site, and share stories, product info, industry trends and more. Don’t forget about all of the attractive visuals you’ve been gathering.

Writing blog posts with titles or copy that includes keywords like “new hardwood floor installation + (neighborhood name)” will help you win more searches. Also, make sure your website is optimized for mobile, and see below regarding reviews.

4. Make it Easy to Book With You

Perhaps most importantly of all, you want to make it easy for customers to book jobs with you. Offering an online booking tool is the easiest way to access a larger, more tech-savvy market that is more concerned with convenience than with getting the lowest price.

Whatever your booking system, remove as much friction from the process as you can. Place your booking options front-and-center on your website. Did we already mention that needs to be mobile-optimized? Yes, I believe we did.

5. Nail the Free and Easy Stuff

There are a few things that are absolute must-dos for service companies, and thankfully they cost nothing. The most important is your Google My Business listing. This is what will appear when potential customers search for your type of service in your area. Take the time to do it right, and take advantage of all of the free features. See below about reviews. We can’t say enough about the importance of reviews, which is why we’re building the suspense.

In addition to Google My Business, pursue all of the inbound links and citations you can get. Everything from a listing in your local neighborhood improvement society website, to links from manufacturing partners, and any other listings you can get for no charge. Inbound links are extremely powerful for SEO and will help your listing appear earlier in web searches.

6. Encourage and Celebrate Online Reviews

Try this exercise: Do a Google search for your service category + your area. For example, ‘window installers Portland,’ as shown above. As you can see, all of the key players are proudly displaying their Google reviews. Both the star rating and the number of reviews. Which would you trust?

Do you want to be on that list, or left off of it? Or worse, if you make it on the list, what if your reviews were conspicuously absent? A prospective customer might call all of the businesses on the list, but who are they calling first? Add reviews to your website listing and display them on your site. It will help you compete.

7. Stay in Touch

As an installation company, a monthly newsletter might be a bit too frequent for your customers, as your installations are likely a one-and-done, long term investment. But it doesn’t hurt to send an email quarterly or so, featuring the absolute best of your stories, before-and-afters, and mentioning any promotions you have going.

It can be a great way to fill your calendar during slower periods when customers forward your offer on to family members and neighbors.

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