Endless Customers For Your Home Service Business

In a rapidly changing digital landscape, home service businesses need new strategies to thrive. Marketing expert Marcus Sheridan shares cutting edge insights on becoming the most trusted brand in your market.

The digital marketing landscape for home service businesses is undergoing a massive transformation. SEO alone won’t cut it anymore, and those who don’t adapt risk being left behind. In a recent conversation with marketing strategist and bestselling author Marcus Sheridan. we explored how home service companies can position themselves for success in 2025 and beyond.

The Changing Digital Landscape

“SEO people that rely only on SEO are about to get thumped in the head. The Google search experience is declining while AI search is rising. Consider these alarming trends:

• Google search click-through rates have plunged from 75-80% to below 20% for top-ranked results.
• Companies are spending 24% more on Google ads in 2024 to get the same results as 2023.
• 75-80% of buyers prefer a seller-free sales experience.

As consumers shift to AI search tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, home service businesses need to focus on becoming “known and trusted brands” that AI will recommend.

The Four Pillars of a Known and Trusted Brand

According to Sheridan, there are four fundamental pillars to becoming a known and trusted brand that AI will recommend:

1. Say What Others Won’t Say

Be willing to discuss topics your competitors avoid. Focus on “The Big Five” subjects consumers research most:

• Cost
• Problems
• Comparisons
• Reviews
• Best

“That hasn’t changed,” notes Sheridan. “If anything, it’s only increasing.”

2. Show What Others Won’t Show

Embrace video content and think like a media company. “There’s a very strong argument that your YouTube page is going to be more important than your website in 5-10 years,” says Sheridan.

Home services are inherently visual, making them perfect for this medium. Document your work, showcase your processes, and explain the why behind what you do.

3. Sell How Others Won’t Sell

Modern buyers want control over their purchasing journey. The key is embracing self-service tools:

1. Self-Configuration Tools: Allow customers to visually build and design their projects.
2. Self-Assessment Tools: Provide interactive assessments that give customers scores or grades.
3. Self-Selection Tools: Help customers make choices with interactive recommendation tools.
4. Self-Scheduling Tools: Let customers schedule appointments without talking to someone.
5. Self-Pricing Tools: Offer instant estimates through interactive pricing calculators.

“Pricing estimators when used increase lead flow by 300-500%,” Sheridan reveals. “90% of home services companies are going to have a pricing estimator tool on their website within the next five years.”

4. Be More Human Than Others

Put a face to your brand through personal content. Show the humans behind your business through social media, videos, and personalized communication.

You’ve got to have a human face behind the brand, Sheridan emphasizes.

Assignment Selling: The Secret Weapon

One of Sheridan’s most powerful concepts is assignment selling the strategic use of content in the sales process.

During his time running River Pools, Sheridan discovered customers who consumed 30+ pages of website content before the first appointment bought at an 80% rate, compared to just 25% for those who didn’t.

The approach is simple: When a lead comes in, send them educational content before the appointment and explicitly ask them to review it. This ensures prospects are well-informed before you meet, leading to:

• Faster sales cycles
• Higher closing rates
• Better-qualified leads
• Fewer objections

What you’re trying to do is make sure that all doubt, fear, worry, concern are eliminated before you sit down with them.

Building Revenue Teams

To implement these strategies effectively, Sheridan recommends forming revenue teams that break down the traditional silos between sales and marketing:

• Meet weekly with representatives from both sales and marketing
• Discuss content that needs to be produced based on sales feedback
• Identify common questions, objections, and concerns from prospects
• Leverage your best subject matter experts from the sales team

With AI tools, one person can do more like the work of three to five people five years ago, making this approach more feasible than ever for smaller businesses.

Embracing AI and Digital Avatars

The future of customer interaction is already here. Sheridan’s pool company uses AI assistants to handle after-hours inquiries, providing immediate responses when prospects fill out contact forms.

Speed to lead is such a big part of our success in home services, he notes. The first company that has a conversation with the prospect wins the business more than seven out of ten times.

Coming soon: digital avatars that can interact with website visitors in real-time through video. You’re going to see that in 2025, Sheridan predicts.

For businesses concerned about the human touch, Sheridan offers this perspective: People don’t care who they’re talking to as long as their need or problem is met. In fact, many customers prefer AI interactions because they can ask questions without fear of judgment.

Creating Human Content in an AI World

While embracing AI, it’s essential that your content maintains a human touch. Sheridan recommends:

• Writing in first-person style.
• Including customer stories and experiences.
• Referencing your location and specific market.
• Showing empathy and understanding of customer concerns.

If you could copy and paste that article and it could go on any website in the world, you have just wet the bed, Sheridan says bluntly.

The Future Belongs to the Adaptable

The digital transformation happening now is more significant than many realize. It is we’re going through the biggest transformation we’ve ever seen, much bigger than the internet, bigger than electricity even, says Sheridan.

Those who adapt will thrive; those who don’t will struggle. As Sheridan puts it, The digital Davids always slay the Goliaths.