Mobile Marketing for Home Improvement Lead Generation

May 6th, 2011 | Posted by Tom Audette

Recently the team here at Three Deep has been discussing the impact of mobile marketing and SMS text technology on marketing, and brainstorming potential applications for our Clients. We feel that SMS technology, if properly deployed within the home improvement industry, could become a “game changer” not only from a lead acquistion standpoint, but also by allowing companies to better communicate with its customers, prospects and employees.

SMS is now regarded as the fastest form of communication with a potential Client. Consider these statistics:

Text message use has increased 107% just in the last year (1)
89% of Americans own a mobile phone (2)
More than 72% of mobile phone users send and receive text messages (3)
90% of all text messages are read within the first three minutes of delivery (4)
Around the world, SMS is used by four billion mobile users, who sent five trillion messages in 2009, and it continues to grow unabated. By 2013 the volume of messages sent will double to 10 trillion. (5)

Because home improvement business owners are historically slow to adopt new technologies, there is a huge opportunity for a progressive, marketing focused company to incorporate SMS text messaging into their operations; especially for lead generation.

Many home improvement companies use a sweepstakes as a way to initially gather consumer information. Companies will promote their sweepstakes online, on TV and radio and at shows and events. Once entered, companies will market to their sweepstakes entrants and set sales appointments. By adding a Text to Win option to their contests, a company could add a method of entry and gather additional consumers that may not have responded to their other forms of entry. If a company were to promote Text to Win at their shows and events, on their trucks, billboards and other advertisements – they could drastically increase the number of entries received.

Text to Win campaigns are now quite common and have received consumer acceptance in other industries. Such a campaign would entail a company promoting a short code such as Text “Win” to 12345. Immediately after receiving the inbound text, an automated response text would be sent saying “Thank you for your entry, in order to complete your registration click here.” The link would take the entrant to a landing page asking the prospect to provide their name, address, phone number, email address, etc. Once entered, the company would receive this contact information via email.

In addition to lead generation, SMS technology allows a company to communicate with their customers and prospects faster than any other available method. Possible SMS applications include:

Send Appointment Confirmations immediately to a prospects phone, rather than an email address that they may not check as frequently.
Receive estimate requests immediately from neighbors of current jobs who respond to job signs or trucks
Send special offers, coupons or special invitations to upcoming company events to loyal past customers.
Receive Appointment results from sales reps immediately following the appointment allowing for faster follow up from the contact center.
Send or receive information real time from the job site.

If you are a home improvement contractor interested in getting on board the mobile revolution, please fill out the form below for more information.