Hey protractors, welcome back to the Marketing Minute.
Today, I’m excited, we’re going to be talking about the 21st century homeowner and how they think.
Times have changed. I know I don’t need to go into this. I know that you know this. If you are an older person reading this, you’ve watched the change. If you’re a millennial or younger, you have grown up in the change. The fact is times have changed and that means the way that homeowners have changed drastically.
So I want to talk to you about it from the perspective of the homeowner who is looking for help with their home and I want you to get into their head or inside their day-to-day life and start thinking like them, so that you can be a professional contractor to them. So that you can attract them to you rather than chasing them down with bow and arrow, guns and you know, hand grenades.
You want to attract the 21st century homeowner to you, right? And your online presence, if you do it right, can be set up in such a way that it will do that. So I want to talk to you about how 21st century homeowners think.
How 21st Century Homeowners Think When Looking For a Contractor
#1. Homeowners Think Smartphone First
We have apps for everything, right? We have apps that help us sleep, we have apps that help us eat, we have apps for helping us stay healthy. We have apps that track this and apps that track that and we are a smartphone people, right? And that his how your homeowners and your neighborhood are living their lives. According to some very recent studies put out by google, 87% of people have their smartphone at their side, day and night. While 91% of them turn to their phone for ideas in the middle of a task.
Do you see what that’s saying? I mean like I said, I know you already know this because you’re living in the same world as your neighbors, as the homeowners around you. But 87% have a smartphone and they turn to it day and night and 91% turn to their phone for ideas, even when they’re in the middle of a task.
That means their phone is always with them, they’re carrying around their phone, around their home as they’re walking around.
I mean this happens to me and my wife all the time. We’re sitting in our kitchen … Or, I’m sitting there and she’s washing the dishes or whatever, very rarely am I washing the dishes and she’s sitting there. But I’m sitting there and we’ll be talking about some subject, right and something comes up and I’ll be on my phone. And I will invariably start googling or looking up what it is we’re talking about if we need more information on a subject. That is the way it is.
A homeowner, especially a woman who is in her kitchen day in and day out and is thinking of remodeling her kitchen or remodeling the home, she has that phone in her hand all the time. She’s using it for everything, she’s going to it, right?
So I want you to think about that.
The first point is that your neighbors, the homeowners around you are carrying their phone around with them at all times.
Now, the question is how can you make sure that your business gets placed in front of them in such a way that develops trust in their minds. How can you be the one that’s in that little smartphone that says, “hi, I know you’ve got questions, I’ve got the answers you’re looking for,” right? And that brings us to point number two.
#2. 21st Century Homeowners Research First
We’re at a different stage now where we, I’m including myself with millennials and younger now, we like to do our research before we make purchases. We want to feel like we’re in control of our purchasing behavior.
Very rarely but sometimes, we’ll make impulse buys because signage or a really good salesman gets our wallet out of our pockets and the credit card entered. But that doesn’t happen near as much.
We want to go home, we want to sit down, we want to do some research, we want to look up different lines of product and read blogs and check reviews and ask around and see what other opinions are and get all this research compiled and then, make our decision and then we feel like we’re in control.
Recently I asked my wife a question, I said, “Rachel, pretend that I have no construction background and I don’t know anything about remodeling and then imagine that we’re getting ready to do a total kitchen remodel and you’re looking for help to get it done. How would you find a contractor that you wanted to work with to help you accomplish this task?”
And she said, “well, first I would ask around and find out who other people recommend.”
“So would you just grab up your phone and call those people right away?” I asked.
And she said, “No, I would first go to the internet and look them up and then I would try to find out any information I could about that contractor by reading the online content they made available to me.”
You might be thinking, well she’s your wife so she’s going to give you the answer that you want but that’s not necessarily the case.
I have talked to many people in our local hometown or across the nation and asked similar questions. You know, “how do you do your research? How do you determine who you’re going to call?” The answer is the same. “We will do our research online.”
Having a referral doesn’t guarantee a phone call.
So I guess the point here is just having a referral doesn’t necessarily guarantee those people are going to call you. Just because Suzy told Jenny that she recommends you, doesn’t necessarily mean Jenny is just going to pick up the phone and call you. You see what I mean? Jenny wants to do some research… and furthermore, she might go, “okay I want to go look up best remodeling firm online,” and maybe she can’t find you.
You need to be there online and present your business in a way that gives her those questions she’s looking for. I guess that’s the point. 21st century homeowners want to do their research first and after that, if they’ve decided they like you and trust you enough, they’ll pick up the phone and call you.
#3. Modern Homeowners Want It Quick!
We live in a microwave society, we live in an age when we want everything quick. I mean the hour long movie is now down to 15 second stories on Instagram or 10 second clips on Snapchat. You know what I’m saying? The entertainment we go to on our phones is short little clips now, Youtube style.
Yeah we all still enjoy a long movie from time to time but the daily entertainment are more quick snap bites… and how that translates to a homeowner who is doing research online, on their phone, is they want it to be quick.
- They want to get their answers.
- They don’t want to have to go digging.
- They don’t want a website that doesn’t load.
- They don’t want to come to a website and see that spinning wheel in the middle of the screen just spinning and spinning and spinning or they’ll back out, they’ll go back to the search results and choose a different search result.
If your website is slow and they back out and go back to search results, you know who they’re going to pull up next? It’s your competitor.
So, is it worth having a slow website? It’s not.
Homeowners want things to be quick to load, quick to produce, quick to answer their questions.
There was an additional Google survey that said 70% of people that took the survey, said they would switch to a different site if the current site takes too long to load. So that’s how 21st century homeowners think.
Instant information is critical and it’s only going that way more in the future and it’s important that you understand this. It’s important that you start thinking… and getting inside the mind of your ideal client and think like they think.
Modern homeowners:
- have a smartphone with them at all times,
- they like to do their research, they want to feel like they’re in control of their research
- and they want things to be quick.
So those are three things that you need to provide when you are providing an online presence.
All right guys that wraps up today’s Marketing Minute and that’s about all I have for you this week, all of you protractors have a great west of your week and go out there in your communities and make a difference.
Be professional, be upbeat, go in there on purpose to help your communities and we’ll see you in the next episode.