DigitalKOG’s highly experienced team of lead generating experts, or LEADOLOGISTS™ as we like to call them, have nurtured and engineered leads for over two decades for more than 150+ home improvement companies.
This includes for clients in decking, garden supplies and home energy, and a series of Kitchen, Bedroom and Bathroom businesses, just as we’ve recently begun doing for Avanti, a new account win and one of the Midlands’ foremost fitted home furniture designers.
So, no digital marketing agency knows the home improvement industry quite like us.
On average, we deliver 13500+ quality home improvement leads per month, including for the Conservatory Outlet Network and its 27 regional dealerships, for whom we have consistently, and very successfully, driven high volumes of consumer enquiries, most notably during the pandemic.
Its UK-wide conservatory, window and door Retailers experienced a collective uplift of enquiries of 150% in 2020, resulting in a total sales windfall of £28m, smashing all previous annual sales records.
Sales performances in 2021 within the Network also far exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
For example, between January and June 2021, we helped 5 Star Windows, Doors & Conservatories, which serves Worcestershire and the surrounding counties, to generate retail sales of almost £6m. This figure represented an incredible 127% increase compared with the same period in 2020 and was 49.8% higher than in 2019.
It was thanks to our persistence that they, along with the other Dealers, continued to invest in marketing during Covid, at a time when many businesses shied away from doing this in such uncertain times, that they profited so greatly. We implored them to stick to their guns because we identified that with consumers stuck at home, they had more disposable income to spend on renovation projects.
But inevitably, the home improvement boom was never going to last forever.
Is home improvement spend taking a nosedive?
As the world opened up again, customer demand began to drop, and at present, the sector is being hit hard by the rise in household bills (energy costs alone have more than doubled in just 12 months), which is seeing increasing numbers put investment into home improvements on hold.
This has thrown up a throng of challenges for companies within the sector – I’m sure some of these sound familiar?
- Increased worry about sustaining sales volumes due to market pressures
- A costly sales team who need to be fed a range of leads regularly
- Expensive bricks and mortar showrooms that need consistent footfall
- Sales funnels that have extended research phases and lengthier conversion timescales
- Current trends impacting consumer needs/decision-making
These are challenges we understand, and with our proven LEADOLOGY™ approach, are helping our home improvement clients to overcome so that their growth doesn’t stall and only continues.
We lead with a multi-channel, data-driven approach, always developing and investing in new ideas for our clients that deliver.
Conversion is the name of the game
Although the marketplace has reduced in volume, including in the KBB sector, that does not have to affect your revenue if we can ensure all those leads are captured from the right customers. We are finding that when we push for “higher” quality customers, we see conversion rates increase.
Steven Ormand, Managing Director at DigitalKOG: “Lead generation campaign success could be negatively impacted by the current squeeze on household finances, however, there is still a high proportion of customers who won’t feel the pinch as significantly. So, it is even more reason for us to ensure we work on generating quality leads from the right customers, rather than focusing our attention on the quantity of leads.”
Here’s our six recommended things for you to focus on:
1. Know your customer inside and out
It’s never been more important to understand who your converting customer is. Being able to identify their key drivers, barriers to purchase and influencing factors is invaluable to our lead generation strategy and messaging. Luckily, with data from our LEADOLOGY™ Centre, our dedicated Online Lead Management & Research Facility, based in Newcastle, we have access to a clear customer profile for converting customers. Investing in gaining extra insight from your customer service team to inform strategies, ensures you reduce waste and deliver more optimised campaigns.
2. Test, Test and Test again
Incremental gains are the name of the game. Even a 0.1% conversion rate change can be the difference between a £36k kitchen and £0 purchases. Keep trialling new messaging, different ad formats, new keywords and tweaking those copy lines to hit every opportunity to cut through with the customer and get the lead.
3. Be patient and believe
The research phase will extend in this period, with consumers often weighing up the commitment to invest. It’s true that familiarity breeds loyalty, so keep pushing with consistent messaging, don’t deviate from your multichannel approach and keep developing ideas that will generate a two-way conversation. When the time is right, you need to be top of that list for the consumer.
4. Don’t focus on the end of the sales funnel at the cost of nurturing your customers
No-one buys such a considered purchase on a single click. Leads need to be worked hard to overcome barriers. You’ve got to build relationships with email marketing, deliver inspiring content, promote benefits in your lead messaging and have flexible sales processes to shorten the journey to conversion. It might be costly, but multiple touch points will deliver.
5. Be brave, innovate and invest now
The research phase will extend in this period, with consumers often weighing up the commitment to invest. It’s true that familiarity breeds loyalty, so keep pushing with consistent messaging, don’t deviate from your multichannel approach and keep developing ideas that will generate a two-way conversation. When the time is right, you need to be top of that list for the consumer.
6. Work those leads even harder
We understand that the value of a lead sits in the conversion to appointment. When working on those customer enquiry call backs, perseverance is key. The latest data provided by our LEADOLOGY™ Centre, shows that the difference between stopping at five call backs or continuing to seven, can be as much as 3% more conversions, an average of £20,000 in revenue that has been missed out on.
Click here to find out more about how DigitalKOG can help your KBB business adapt and thrive in difficult market conditions, like we have for so many of your contemporaries and competitors. You can also use the form at the bottom of the page to arrange an appointment to discuss it with a LEADOLOGIST™.
