There’s a Houzz or Houzz Pro tool for every aspect of running a renovation firm, from marketing your business, attracting leads and communicating with clients to managing a project from start to finish.
In fact, there are so many tools, you might be finding it difficult to navigate them all. So in this series, we’ll be looking at a particular aspect of your business and highlighting which Houzz features can help. This time, we’re focusing on attracting new clients.
1. Increase your online visibility
Tools to use: Targeted Advertising and Website Services
If homeowners want to find a renovation pro, they’ll invariably search online, so it makes sense to ensure your web presence is up to scratch.
If you’re listed on Houzz, your profile is a good place to start. Upload quality photos of all your projects, so users can find your business while looking for visual inspiration for their renovations, and include detailed explanations of each project in order to show potential clients what your business can do.
Reviews are also important for building a reputation and generating trust among your target audience. “We get a lot of inquiries on Houzz telling us they love our reviews, and that we’re the kind of company they want to work with,” Amit Malhotra of Aflux Designs says. “In fact, we’ve now grown so much thanks to Houzz’s marketing efforts, it’s no longer feasible for us to take on one-room designs; we now only do full property renovations or builds.”
You can also use the Houzz Pro Website Services team to build your website. The team will take care of creating, hosting, and optimising your website for free as part of an Ultimate Houzz Pro subscription.
2. Organise your lead generation
Tools to use: CRM tools
It’s fantastic to have lots of leads, but it can also be difficult to stay on top of them. So a tool to help you keep track of leads, with reminders to follow up on inquiries, is invaluable if you want to grow your business.
If you’re finding this aspect of running a business tricky, consider using the Houzz Pro CRM feature to get organised and ensure you’re making the most of each opportunity.
The tool will allow you to keep track of all your leads on one dashboard, so you can see all their details at a glance, whether they came through Houzz or another source, and what stage of the sales process they’re at. You can also connect your calendar to your leads dashboard to enable you to quickly set up a meeting with the potential client.
The tool has been incredibly useful for Amit’s team. “Houzz Pro has improved how we communicate with potential clients, keeping a database and a record of who we’ve contacted and what stage the lead is at,” he says. “100% we wouldn’t have grown as much as we have without the combination of our profile and the management software to streamline our business processes.”
3. Get proposals and estimates over before the competition
Tools to use: Estimate Builder, Takeoffs, Proposals and Sourcing
For many homeowners, their choice of renovation pro can be influenced by the speed and accuracy of the estimates they receive, so it pays to have an efficient system for producing quotes. Calculating each project from scratch and generating an estimate from this information can be incredibly time-consuming, though, so it’s useful to set up some templates that you can use again and again.
The Houzz Pro Estimate Builder is ideal, as it lets you create detailed estimates from scratch or from a template, which you can then quickly send over to potential clients for their approval. And for builders, the Takeoff tool makes the process even easier, as you can create a plan in super-fast time and add the information to the estimate.
Allen Cribb from Cribb Constructions says this tool is a game-changer. “Without it, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do, as it helps us to work out everything on a client’s plans and to keep so much data on file,” he says. “We can see what it cost us last time and what it’s going to cost us this time. Its ability to count over plans in a hurry is massive.”
Designers, meanwhile, can combine the Proposals templates with the Product Clipper feature, where they can quickly add items to a product library and then incorporate these with their prices into a proposal.
4. Start a newsletter campaign
Tool to use: Email Marketing Tools
Email campaigns with information, offers and details of your latest projects are a great way to increase leads. Frequent communications help to maintain a connection with previous clients and nurture relationships with potential new customers.
“Some people sign up to our email list before they purchase their homes and contact us once they’re ready,” interior designer Yoko Kloeden says. “Quite often, this can take more than a year and, during that time, we can keep the relationship going and keep us fresh in their minds with our news and updates.”
To make the process of sending emails easy, take a look at the Houzz Email Marketing Tool, which enables you to create communications using a range of pre-designed templates or one you’ve designed yourself. You can also build an email list using your existing leads, clients and suppliers or create your own, and then get insights into your email’s performance to see what’s working well.
