Is your business getting the most value out of your marketing efforts, or are you left wondering how to meet your 2025 revenue goals when faced with the rapidly increasing costs of digital advertising?
To help contractors navigate the current state of home services marketing, Scorpion’s Andrew Adams and ServiceTitan’s Sarah Ghirardo join two business owners in the trades to discuss proven strategies for attracting and retaining customers in today's competitive landscape.
In this webinar recap, the four industry experts share actionable insights into effective digital marketing tactics, traditional methods that still work, and emerging trends shaping the future of home services marketing.
Let’s get to it.
Shifts in Marketing and Consumer Expectations
“In a world of increasing skepticism, how can home services businesses authentically demonstrate their expertise and value to potential customers?” asks Adams, the Director of Integrated Marketing at Scorpion.
Since homeowners already seem skeptical of most home service contractors, it often comes down to doing little things right from the start, says Patrick Fee, co-founder and co-owner of Mr. Drain Plumbing in Sacramento, California.
He suggests building strong brand awareness with field vehicles wrapped in your business logo and employees wearing matching shirts or uniforms that clearly display your brand name. Create videos of your team in action and share them on social media channels. And use the powerful technology of ServiceTitan to send customer notifications with a headshot of the technician coming to their home along with a short bio.
“Once you're there in the home, don't try to be a salesman. Do your job: Educate, educate, educate,” Fee says. “Focus on giving options to the customer. Don't just bully them into one specific thing. You’ve got to give them choices and then let them be in charge of their own destiny. Let them decide on a solution that fits their wallet, and then get to work on that task.”
Setting up customer notifications in ServiceTitan is simple and easy to do, Fee says, but it’s also something businesses often overlook. He also suggests setting up automated surveys and happy calls at the end of every customer’s appointment.
“I receive countless calls every week from customers, just thanking me for those small little things. And that's what builds trust,” Fee says. “Once you have that trust, you can cash in on the equity of that because the customer feels the value of your service.”
>>According to a recent consumer survey by Scorpion, 54% of consumers will decide on a home services provider within four hours of researching options.
“How do home services companies use technology and automated processes to ensure you’re capturing demand, responding to leads, and booking quickly?” Adams asks.
At Continental Plumbing Services in New Port Richey, Florida, a speedy response is key to success, says Amy Hort, who owns the business with her husband. She also utilizes the ServiceTitan integration with Scorpion to automate the process.
“You have to be ready for them,” Hort says of taking action on potential leads. “We don’t live in a time anymore where we all have answering machines that we check when we get into the office in the morning. It just doesn't work that way anymore. So, you have to be prepared, you have to have processes in place for your team members.”
Those processes include using an AI-powered chatbot or web contact forms to engage with customers or book appointments via the chatbot to email.
“Online booking is another really great way to meet your customers where they're at and to get to them quickly,” Hort says. “They go through the steps and within minutes they're set, and it comes right into ServiceTitan beautifully.”
And with potential leads coming in through a variety of channels, be sure to create written processes for your team to follow on how quickly they respond to chats, web forms, online bookings, emails, etc.
“Whether you're using technology or you're relying on your team members to do that, make sure you have a written process for it,” Hort suggests.
The Continental team checks all of its channels regularly and relies on the ServiceTitan-Scorpion integration to automate the process for better efficiency.
“If a web form is filled out on our website, it’s immediately put into a booking,” Hort explains. “It's in the job booking screen, so I already know it's there and we can check the audit trail. I know who's been working on it, I know who has responded to that person via chat or via phone call. And even for the ones that drop off, at least we still have the information captured. We can still continue to follow up with those people.”
>>According to the Scorpion consumer survey, 64% of consumers only consider hiring service providers with at least a 4 out of 5 star rating.
When building your brand or growing your reputation, encouraging customers to leave reviews and responding to both positive and negative reviews is extremely important, says Ghirardo, ServiceTitan Director of Marketing Pro Content.
“We know the No. 1 thing we have to do is deliver extraordinary service,” Ghirardo says. “The other thing is you want to have AI and automation set up. Using AI and automation is the next level to scale.”
Any customer feedback is a gift, both Ghirardo and Adams say, so pay attention to your reviews.
“Negative reviews are hard to deal with and they're frustrating as a business,” Adams says. “But sometimes there’s legitimate feedback in there that can help you be better and provide a better service for your customers.”
Automating the review process with ServiceTitan helps Continental Plumbing stay on top of all customer reviews, and Hort uses ChatGPT to craft timely responses to reviews.
“If you're not already using ChatGPT for your review responses, you should be,” Hort says. “It really helps ChatGPT learn your brand voice. Now ChatGPT knows a whole lot about who Continental Plumbing is and what we want to deliver to our customers.”
With Marketing Pro Reputation Management, you can automatically send review requests to customers once a job is completed, then use AI or RTI (Response to Intervention) to address customer feedback. Fee says ChatGPT is built right into the Marketing Pro review responses.
“It learns your brand, builds it in there, and it'll respond to the different sources,” Fee says. “Respond quickly because, positive or negative, speed is of the essence. You can just automate all that stuff, and then you can set up alerts within ServiceTitan. You can fully automate all these systems and set it and forget it, which is a beautiful thing and allows you to respond quicker than anyone else in your area.”
>>Ready to get started with Marketing Pro? Book a demo and receive a $100 gift card.
Understanding Success and Creating Data-Driven Marketing Strategies
With advertising costs becoming more expensive, Adams asks, “How do you evaluate your marketing strategies and their overall impact on the business?”
Costs are definitely going up, especially in the last few years, Hort says.
“But the opportunity we have is so great because now we have so much data to look at those decisions,” she says. “It's not about the money, it's about spending it like you're shopping for anything else. You want to get the most for your money, and you want to get the best quality.
“It's really just about shifting your approach to what you do with those leads when you get them,” she adds. “There are some things that are ‘set it and forget it,’ as far as AI is concerned, but marketing is not. So, I also evaluate frequently.”
Continental relies on Scorpion as its marketing partner, which includes a regular evaluation of what’s working for the business or what isn’t.
“As an owner, one of my primary responsibilities is to make sure that that phone is ringing, and I need to ensure we have enough leads coming in that we can turn into work,” Hort says. “I'm evaluating that daily.”
For example, once a contact lead form is sent from the Scorpion website to ServiceTitan, your CSRs see an email with the customer’s information as well as a job booking in ServiceTitan. The system labels where the lead originated, such as a Scorpion web lead or chat, and ties that lead to specific campaigns.
“If I look at the data, it's helping me know how that's performing, versus if I was just responding to it out of the email, I wouldn't be able to track those things,” Hort says.
Ghirardo breaks it down further.
“Your marketing will only perform to your operations. And if your operations aren't in check, then your marketing will not perform,” Ghirardo says. “That's very good to call out.”
With Marketing Pro, users can also market to their existing client database.
“That is your gold mine,” Ghirardo says. “There's so much money and so many opportunities being left on the table, and it's really easy to capture it.”
To target your existing client base, she suggests automating email and SMS [text messages] as the lowest hanging fruit, and really thinking about the opportunities that occur throughout the entire customer journey.
“Because they’re everywhere, right? We can rehash the no and nurture the yes,” Ghirardo says. “But the landscape of search is completely changing. What we're seeing now is, it's not just about the nurture, it's about the offering. So, how do you make a customer sticky?
“The trends that are happening now are predictive maintenance and really owning the entire home. So, leveraging your automation and your tools to go after those segments and additional add-ons would really help you.”
At Mr. Drain Plumbing, Fee nurtures new customers and existing customers with a variety of marketing campaigns that Scorpion helped him set up inside ServiceTitan.
“The follow-up on estimates, multiple drip campaigns, thank you campaigns, monthly and quarterly newsletters, and educational content to our customers, sometimes with specials, sometimes with seasonal offerings,” Fee says.
“With the tools that both ServiceTitan and Scorpion's been able to provide with their integration, I've seen a 20% uptick across all platforms,” he adds. “Just across the board, up 20%. That's a huge, massive win for our operation.”
The 13-month-old business also earned $7 million in revenue in its first year, Fee says. While Mr. Drain Plumbing utilizes AI and smart tools in its marketing strategies, he says competing in the digital advertising space is not about trying to outbid the competition anymore.
“It's about targeted marketing these days,” Fee says. “You don't have to be No. 1 on the page space anymore. That's not even actually going to work best for you. That's just going to increase your cost for acquisition.”
Rather, Fee attributes his marketing success to two services provided by ServiceTitan and Scorpion. One is the Ads Optimizer in Marketing Pro.
“By reporting back the information of what we did for a customer to platforms like Google, we can start narrowing down that target, and they're going to start funneling the customers that match the profiles that we already have wins on,” he explains.
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The second is Scorpion’s revenue maps, which work with Ads Optimizer to target specific hotspot areas, demographics, and times of day for Mr. Drain to achieve the most marketing wins.
“All of these AI tools are allowing me to stop worrying about spending $300 to $400 per click on places like pay-per-click on Google. I've cut those costs four times and I've increased ROI by 4.5X,” Fee says.
With so many marketing automation tools at your disposal, why not take advantage of them? Hort remembers what it was like before AI, when marketing was more of a “shot in the dark.”
“We need more phone calls, so let's just feed more money into the machine, essentially, without knowing what you're going to get back out,” she says of past marketing strategies. “Now, being able to give the feedback through Google and really fine-tuning, you're getting a better-quality customer, which is what we all really want.”
Working with partners who know and understand your data will help you win faster, Ghirardo says, because they’re going to understand how to pivot faster.
“The environment of marketing and advertising is changing at the rapid speed of search, so having those partnerships and leaning in together, that's what it's about,” Ghirardo says.
>>Learn more about Scorpion’s digital marketing services.
2025 Marketing Strategies to Maximize Revenue
What are some new trends or marketing strategies that are predicted to pay off in 2025?
“The winners in 2025 are the ones that are going to leverage AI and automation,” Ghirardo says. “The other thing is, the ones that will win will provide a frictionless customer experience.
“The conversion needs to happen faster and faster, because that's what marketers create,” she adds.
To market better in 2025, consider the following:
Try an online scheduling tool like Scheduling Pro.
Enable chat widgets that allow customers to book online.
Make customers “sticky” through memberships or subscriptions.
Create educational content to show your expertise.
Go “super-hyperlocal” by sharing videos of your team on the job.
Fee’s strategy for Mr. Drain Plumbing in 2025 is to master all things social media when it comes to marketing for customers.
“It's a different sort of marketing, but there's a huge amount of ad revenue being spent in the social media space. Why are we in the home service industry not actively pursuing that?” Fee says. “It's just about getting out there, meeting your clients, creating content, gathering customer testimonials, filming your team in action, and just bombarding the social media space, the entire meta space, with a lot of wonderful, high-quality content. It's a great branding tool, but with enough time it can also start regularly generating large amounts of leads.”
The bottom line? Marketing is always changing, and businesses must evolve.
“That's why we have to get with the times, we have to embrace AI, we have to embrace speed to lead, we have to embrace responding to the reviews—because that's what our customers want. We have to be adaptive,” Fee says.
