Mobile, mobile, mobile. Small businesses today are bombarded by marketing opportunities that promise to get customers to respond and buy – right from their cell phones.
But the facts tell us that mobile marketing is, at best, a split decision for most small businesses.
My company serves hundreds of home improvement and home services companies across the country. Our clients market in specific geographic areas, usually serving customers in a 25-100 mile radius of their home base.
And when it comes to the value of mobile marketing, what I’ve seen in working with these clients is enlightening.
Let’s consider a hypothetical home improvement company that installs windows, roofing and siding in a 50-mile radius of its location. The company has experienced a noticeable increase in mobile traffic over the last 18 months, as more homeowners use their smartphones and iPads to do research anytime and anywhere. Mobile traffic to the company’s Web site as a percentage of overall traffic is growing.
Yet this company’s leads (and sales) from its mobile traffic haven’t increased in the same proportion. In fact, their conversions of traffic into sales tend to be 50% lower with mobile. Why would that be?
The first reason is that the products many home improvement companies sell come with a hefty price tag. Replacing all of the windows on a typical home can cost $15,000-$30,000. The costs of siding and roofing can also run into the five figures. In short, hiring a home improvement company for one of those jobs is a serious financial decision for most homeowners.
Which is why homeowners rarely make these are decisions based on research they do on mobile phones. Our analytics tell us that big-ticket, high-consideration purchases are much more likely researched on a desktop, or on a tablet, rather than on a smartphone. While smartphones have come a long way, their screens are simply too small and too difficult to do serious research.
Next, filling out forms on cell phones is still a major headache for the average homeowner. Even short forms with great usability suffer from “fat finger” typos. No one I know likes to fill out forms on a smartphone. Pardon the wordplay, but that process is still a work in process.
There are other factors. Mobile itself is a misnomer for many small businesses. Most tablets, like the iPad, offer an experience much closer to that of a desktop or laptop computer. Yet that distinction is often lost on both small businesses, and the vendors selling mobile marketing solutions to them. Just because users can lug tablets around with them, don’t lump tablets in with mobile phones. From the user perspective, they are apples and oranges.
I stated earlier that the value of mobile marketing for home services companies is a split decision. So, when can mobile marketing work?
The answer is when you’re targeting homeowners looking for home repair and emergency service work. Businesses like drain and clog repair companies, emergency plumbers, HVAC and air conditioning repair, fire and water damage firms have all made mobile marketing increasingly important part of their online efforts. The difference in consumer behavior explains why.
Whereas new windows are a high-consideration purchase with a high-ticket price, a flooding toilet is the homeowner’s problem right now. In most cases, homeowners don’t have time to go to Yelp to find three companies to call, do product research, get three quotes, and ultimately figure out who will do the perfect job. The water is heading for the hallway!
Speed is of the essence. In many cases, the first home services company the homeowner speaks with gets the job. And the quicker the homeowner does that, the better.
That means phone calls, and that means mobile. When it’s 15 degrees outside and the homeowner’s furnace breaks down, homeowners use their mobile phones considerably more often than for researching high-consideration purchases. In other words, prospects convert into customers at a significantly higher rate for emergency services.
That means high-visibility mobile marketing can be an easy win for the emergency services companies. Effective mobile marketing strategy and execution for these companies is not just important, it’s essential.
Ten years from now, these distinction may well be moot. By then, there will be a new generation of homeowners who grew up on smartphones, and wireless broadband access is de rigueur. And they may use their smartphones for researching all of their home improvement and home services needs.
But for the immediate future, think carefully about the nature of your customers’ buying processes and if and how mobile marketing fits into that. Because right now, mobile marketing for home improvement companies remains a very split decision.
Homeowner Connections Through Performance Online Advertising
