If you’re serious about leveraging the web to grow your business, I challenge you to answer these three questions:
- Where do you want to take your business over the next three years?
- What’s your online marketing strategy?
- How do you measure your progress?
I’m willing to bet you a beer (heck, make it a steak dinner) that you stumbled a bit with question two and three. And, if you’re honest with yourself, you’re probably not very confident in your answers (if you answered them at all). Hardly any business owner I talk to can answer those second two questions—at least not in a clear, direct, or coherent way!
If you fall into this category, you’ve got a major opportunity on your hands.
Thinking Strategically vs. Tactically
The most successful business owners I know take a strategic approach, rather than a tactical approach, to their business AND their online marketing. And if they don’t know what a good online marketing strategy looks like, they engage an expert to give them guidance.
So how exactly does this relate to Houzz?
I can (and will) show you the TACTICS for getting more leads and sales from your Houzz profile. But what will make a bigger impact on your business, in the long run, is incorporating Houzz into a well-prioritized online marketing strategy.
What’s Your Online Marketing Strategy?
Let’s go back to that second question—what’s your online marketing strategy?
Your answer (if you attempted it), might have included the basics. When I say “the basics,” I’m talking about:
- An optimized, mobile-friendly, high-ranking website with a beautiful, easy-to-use photo gallery and great content that converts more than 5% of visitors into leads.
- A Facebook page that is updated weekly with lots of unique content and an active community forming around the business (read: raving fans).
- An email database segmented in such a way that existing clients are given content that is different than prospects that have inquired, but haven’t signed on the dotted line—yet.
A lot of remodelers start working on the basics and get derailed putting out other fires. That’s understandable. That’s life as a small business owner.
However, if you’re really serious about maximizing the web’s potential as a growth engine for your business, your strategy must extend beyond the basics. Since you don’t have limitless amounts of time or money, the key is to prioritize.
Where to Start
In a word, Houzz. Assuming you have the basics above under control, the first place to extend your online presence is Houzz.
Houzz is one of the largest online platforms and communities for homeowners and home professionals. And unlike visual social sites like Pinterest, Houzz (in addition to expanding your brand reach and exposure) actually produces qualified leads!
And I don’t just mean inquiries through the Houzz platform. When we look at the Analytics data for our remodeling clients, their Houzz referral traffic typically:
- Is one of their top 10 sources of referral traffic
- Has a low bounce rate
- Has a high average number of pages per session and average session duration
- Converts at a high rate for traffic in their service area (upwards of 17%!)
Creating a Houzz Strategy
To get the most out of Houzz, you’re going to need to do more than just sign up for a profile and toss a few photos on there every now and then. You need:
A SMART Goal
What do you hope to get out of your Houzz marketing? Make sure your goal is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, “I want to increase my Houzz referral traffic by 100% by September 2015” or “I want to get 40 leads from Houzz by the end of the year.”
A Plan to Get You to Your Goal
How are you going to achieve your goal? Write out a 3 to 5-point plan. It might look something like this:
- Post two Houzz projects every month
- Post one Houzz ideabook each week
- Send three emails to previous clients each month requesting Houzz reviews
A Way to Track Your Progress
If you’ve set a goal that’s SMART, it shouldn’t be hard to track your progress (that’s the M part of SMART!). Whatever you do, make sure you don’t skip this step.
If you execute your plan and don’t reach your goal, try something else out. Could it be you just got the dosage wrong? Do you need to post four projects every month instead of two?
Continuously track, test, tweak, and repeat!
Stayed Tuned for Our Next Houzz Post
Now that I’ve got you thinking strategically, check out my next post where I give you a best practices guide for generating more business from Houzz.