The future of your lead generation relies on you to reach customers on Facebook

Social media platforms have been transforming the way everyone in the world does business. Comedians, makeup artists, wedding photographers, and real estate agents have all seen a shift in their customers wanting to find and interact with them online. But can you get home service leads from it?

A lot of contractors think that social media is not for them because it doesn’t produce the very glamorous photos or hilarious anecdotes we see so many professionals posting on online. But they’re just not giving themselves enough credit for their creativity.

Facebook in particular, although it casts a very wide net of users—especially those in the “homeowner/homebuyer” demographic—seems to be a place for adorable dogs and vacation photos. The content on Facebook is way more versatile than you may think. If you are only seeing dogs and vacations then you’re only getting a narrow picture, based on your network and viewing habits.

If that’s why you personally draw the line at marketing on Facebook, then you’ve got to know: Facebook is a tremendously valuable marketing tool for just about anyone in the home services industry.

4 Steps to Marketing your Home Services Business on Facebook

Step 1: Create A Compelling Page

I am going to assume that you have already setup and created your Facebook Business page (if not get on that now!). The most important aspect of setting up a business page is to fill out as much information as you can on your business. The more information you provide the better off that you will be.

In addition, you have to upload a logo and at least 3 photos of you, your team, your trucks, or a recent job. A Facebook page with no photos will never convert!

Secondly, be careful when you choose the category of business. We suggest “Local Business” or “Company” for construction companies because getting too specific keep people from finding the page.

Step 2: Build a Genuine Following

Start by inviting your current customers to like your page. You may want to invite friends and family too, but we recommend keeping the invites to serious prospects only. This is for two reason:

Sending invites to your entire network is considered disingenuous on social media and you may find your account being ignored by friends who don’t want to receive updates.

Personalized invites can be used to reach out to past customers who are more likely to spread the word about your page by “sharing” it. Spend your time planting those seeds, rather than chasing unlikely prospects.

Step 3: Create and Curate a Variety of Content

Create valuable, quality content for your Facebook account by showing your personality—and yes, your inherent creativity!

Here are some examples of what to post over a week, to keep content fresh and varied:

• Share before and after photos of your proudest projects. Much like the one below:
• Create videos that show off your latest work or a happy moment from the day.
• Link to press releases about your industry—news that customers should know!
• Feature an employee of the week and allow them to “take over” the page for a day—set some rules of play if you do this.
• Pose open ended questions to learn more about your target market.

Step 4: Use Facebook ads

Create and share ads through Facebook’s ads and promotions tools. Ads can be used to promote services.
 
If you notice your advertisement is doing well, you can increase the budget and extend the campaign period; likewise, you can cut short a campaign that is not getting traction. We recommend paying attention when creating the ad to make sure you target the ad toward only those who live in the area you serve.

The “promote post” function will boost the number of people who see a particular post. Promoting a post isn’t guaranteed to win you more followers, but a well-created post does get a lot of attention—think of all the memes put out by companies that get shared and re-shared daily.

Facebook is a quick and easy way to get potential new leads for home service contractors – such as window leads, mold leads, and plumbing leads. While many consumers are still not using it find home service contractors right now, we feel that more and more will be doing so in the future.