The most common option to generate home inspection leads is to rely on real estate agents to refer clients. It has been a great way of obtaining referrals over the years as these are warm leads, not cold ones you need to nurture to finally convert into clients.
However, the strategies you can use are not limited to realtors. You might be able to bring in new leads by exploring new business avenues or working with new tactics and alternatives in today’s marketing.
Inbound marketing opens the door to new growth and is on what you should be focusing on the most. In this way, you won’t be forcing leads. You will be bringing them naturally and productively without spending that much money.
Sometimes, you don’t even need to spend the money as long as you work around the right strategies and optimize them accordingly.
Some of the lead generation strategies we like are based on it but are not the only ones we use.
We consider that your lead generation process will be better when you are able to combine enough methods and boost your efforts. After all, this is basic science: you need more than one strategy. Thus, we will be sharing the ones we have found so far and work perfectly for your business and niche.
Common First: Attend Real Estate Open Houses
Real estate open houses are a must for any successful agent and, therefore, quite frequent even in areas you don’t think are that profitable.
Home inspectors might consider attending if their schedules permit and if they want to find the best leads in the market.
Why is this strategy at the top of home inspectors? Because before committing to purchase a home, many of these potential homebuyers will seek a certified inspector.
You’ll be able to leave many business cards during the open house, and many will make sure to take them, especially if they are considering purchasing them.
Besides the clients, you must keep in mind that buyers are not the actual ones attending most of the open houses. Most of them are realtors to see if they can find their clients’ new homes.
Note the names of the agencies represented and take photos of the cards they offer as they can connect you to your next potential customers. Introduce yourself to the agent hosting the open house and let them know you are a professional home inspector.
Leave some business cards to agents that may be interested in home inspections for clients. Always thank them for their permission.
Once you return to the office, you will have potential clients’ contact information, email addresses, and phone numbers.
You should act fast, as many agents will soon have clients that need a home inspector. You might be able to work with multiple clients from the same real estate agent, and they could end up being your home inspection clients.
Valuable Information Is Always Top
You should have a website to promote your home inspection business.
Your website visitors are likely to be looking for information about home inspection services in their area or relevant information that can solve some problems, even if it doesn’t involve a pro for the service.
They may also have visited other websites of home inspectors. It’s a great way to get their attention. This will allow you to gather valuable information that can help you convert site visitors into hot home inspection leads. Of course, this is as long as you are offering valuable information worth their time.
An ebook or pamphlet on the role of home inspections within the world of residential realty is an example of a useful, informative, and timely topic. It’s also free, so many people will be able to download it in exchange for their contact info.
It is impossible to give away something for nothing as their contact info is often not what they would consider an actual price.
Ask for details such as their name and email address to be a condition of downloading the eBook or content.
Of course, you can also create a blog or section to share content, so you connect with more people and continue driving traffic to your website.
Join Professional Organizations
It’s a great way for home inspectors to get marketing tips and tricks from professionals as they can help you keep up with the latest marketing trends in the home inspection sector.
One of the top organizations we can recommend is InterNACHI. Its members are permitted to use the InterNACHI Logo, a powerful credential that you can add to your business cards or other marketing materials.
InterNACHI membership is available to home inspectors who have received their certification via International Certification Associates’ online training.
Another way to generate leads is to be listed in a directory for home inspection services. Hire an Inspector is one of the most popular home inspection directories.
It brings together real estate agents, lenders, and homebuyers, as well as other people looking for home inspection services. A Hire an Inspector directory listing costs $200 per annum, but ICA graduates get free lifetime listings.
You can find home inspection leads almost anywhere. Referrals from satisfied clients often lead to new customers. One chance encounter at a home-improvement store could lead to a new client. You never know who might find the right person for your business card.
Although lead generation is a continuous project, there are always hot leads available for home inspectors who are determined.
Brand Consistency Is Everything
Homebuyers expect consistency and excellence from the company that is going to inspect their potential future home. Therefore, you need to show consistency in who you are and what your brand offers.
Customers will be turned away if they find inconsistency when searching for a home inspector.
Every interaction between you and your ideal customer must reflect their experience with your company.
Brand consistency can be a complex topic that can lead to many outcomes. These questions and tips can help you evaluate the brand consistency of your business. It all depends on your needs but can be great starting points or maybe everything you need:
- What’s the visual appeal of your brand?
You may have an outdated logo and marketing collateral. Before you embark on a rebranding journey, make sure you have the funds and the time to replace your marketing collateral with the new design.
- What looks and feel can you use to market yourself?
You can also check if your brand elements and logo match the product. Your logo and design should reflect the product no matter who you are in the industry.
- Do your website and social media pages have consistency?
There are often inconsistencies between social media profiles and company websites. Your website may have a stunning logo and beautiful content, but potential clients might be put off by outdated photos and low-quality content on your Facebook page.
- What are clients looking for when they visit your company website?
Many companies ignore their digital footprint, often unintentionally. This is the biggest hazard of brand inconsistency.
Practice regularly going online to verify that your company name matches the correct spelling. You might be unaware of the outdated contact information or an older logo in an online directory.
Create Your Own Website
Your website is your most powerful marketing tool, especially when everyone is searching online today for any service, including a home inspection.
It is where potential clients go first when they decide whether or not to do business with your company. It must load quickly and be responsive. It should be optimized to local SEO as well.
These are just a few more tips that will help you create a strong website:
- High-quality photography and video.
- Customers’ testimonials.
- The prominent display of calls-to-action.
- There are many ways you can reach you, including email, phone, and social media.
- Interactive map and directions page.
- Blog and other resources that can be useful to potential clients
For home inspectors, strong websites are crucial for a successful marketing strategy. They are the foundation for all marketing activities.
Video Content Attracts High-Quality Leads
If there’s something important to remember is: you need to hire a professional to capture pictures and videos of your product/process. But don’t forget the other benefits that digital video can offer.
You want to allow your potential leads to see more videos, photos, and content in the writing form. Why? You’d be amazed at the number of people who enjoy learning how your process of inspecting properties works.
Just think about it in this way:
- You can make your prospects feel more connected through virtual tours and video walkthroughs.
- Customer testimonials: A recorded video of satisfied customers. Tell potential clients what it was like working alongside you and how satisfied they are with the house you inspect in terms of doing a great job finding any issues or, even better, none.
- Some videos of how you run the entire process and showing how they can identify some common problems in a property won’t make you lose clients; it will be the opposite.
- You can show some properties that are open to visit (maybe open houses) and that you have inspected for others so people can know what to expect from them. Again, this won’t make you lose clients but show how reliable your business is.
Your website is the first place potential customers will go for information. These details and answers can be provided via video.
Work With Social Media and PPC
It is important to understand the two main types of social media marketing for new home inspectors, engagers, and drivers. Advertising opportunities can be paid to drive traffic and engagement for your website.
Marketing “engagers,” while they provide valuable and meaningful content that builds brands, are often offered paid advertising opportunities.
Pay-per-click advertising (also known as drivers) is a great way to get traffic to your website. Your social media profiles pages can be used to share content with potential customers (engagers).
Facebook and other social media platforms can drive more traffic to your site. Targeting ads can keep your brand front-and-center for potential customers, even after they make a purchase. You will get more organic traffic if you create great, relevant, and useful content that is relevant to your target audience.
This will establish you as an authority or thought leader within your niche.
It may seem daunting to use social media to help home inspectors. However, it can be an excellent way to reach potential sales and marketing leads and build relationships online with customers.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest allow you to reach new audiences and grow closer with them. You can also offer unique customer support.
Social media allows users to view conversations and respond to them. Twitter, for example, may let users discuss local brands or companies without mentioning them. These conversations and the sentiment they generate can be very helpful for your business.
Optimize your Website for Google Ranking
Google uses many algorithms to determine which websites will appear when you type a phrase or word in its search engine.
SEO (search engine optimization) is optimizing your website, so it appears in search results more often using common keywords that people are familiar with.
Let’s say your company ranks #1 in a search “home inspection Miami FL.” This is because your company offers services in the area and has been targeting this keyword together with other similar keywords. This is SEO’s power.
Include these keywords in your search engine optimization to ensure you rank for these phrases and get your company to top searches engines.
- Your pages’ title.
- Copy your homepage.
- Add keywords to your content that focuses on custom homes in the area.
These steps will demonstrate to search engines like Google that your site provides relevant content for users who are searching for that keyword. It is not enough to simply “stuff your website” with a keyword to expect high rankings.
You must provide the keywords customers search for to get the desired ranking.
You can also use “off-page” signals to improve your site’s rank. The most important links are those from authoritative websites. Websites that have many links are more likely to be ranked high in search engine results.
Therefore, SEO strategies for home inspectors include more than optimizing your site for personal use. They also include earning links from other sites.
Engaging and Informative Content
Engaging content is a great way to market online, and we have mentioned it on the strategies so far, but to what extent?
You must know that this content could be blog posts or videos, infographics, or any other form, but the ultimate goal of this content is to educate and inform.
The visuals, as we said earlier, are well worth the effort. We will focus on the written content and blogs that most people overlook in this part whatsoever.
Content can help educate customers about specific topics. You can help someone find out how long it takes for a home inspection by the info on your website.
Visitors and potential leads assume that your page answers the question in detail and ranks well in search results. If the question is well answered, visitors will spend more time on your site, become interested in your company, and sign up for your email.
They may then choose to have their properties inspected by you without delay.
However, sales are not possible by content alone. However, it can help to increase awareness and improve your SEO. This will increase your sales pipeline. It is important to create content. Content marketing has become an integral part of almost all online marketing plans.
Users will find you via social media and Google search results. Information is what users are most interested in. When done right, content marketing can be an effective lead generation strategy.
This refers to creating informative and relevant content for your website.
This can be done in blog posts or articles, but you must still be consistent. Boring content is not a good idea. Instead, you want your content to be interesting and useful to your readers.
People will trust you more if you can give them information. This will make them high-quality leads.
Use the Automation Lead Generation Tools
We know lead generation can be exhausting, and all the strategies we have mentioned so far will take lots of your time in order to be “useful” for your business.
Fortunately for you, the next section, automating your home inspection marketing strategies with your sales team, will be a delight. It will allow you to spend less time and still get better results.
Sending emails, contacting leads, making sure you collect the right contact info, and more. Imagine all these processes being automated. It’s possible if you have the right tools. Sales teams can use tools to speed up the process and ensure they are saving time the most.
Maybe you are your own sales team.
The best investment your company can make is to have a Customer Relationship Manager (also called a CRM). This platform allows you to organize and manage all of your contacts. All team members have access to information, including prospects, clients, real estate agents, and vendors.
Many CRMs offer tools to automate marketing. Even if your CRM already exists, make sure it is functional. Set reminders for staff to remind them of the available automation tools.
You can save time and money by using tools such as Trello and email automation to post content on social media. You can use most of them for free until your business grows or you start generating leads daily.
Don’t Be Afraid of Asking for Review
Internet marketing is all about reviews if you want to make sure your efforts are worth it.
Your online ranking will rise dramatically if you have 50+ reviews and at least four stars. Google and Bing will notice that you care about your clients when you have good reviews.
It is in their best interest to refer more people to your company as they will take what you’ve got so far.
How to get those reviews? After your home inspection, send a follow-up email. Always thank your client and ask for their review. Most are quite happy to do it as long as you ask politely.
If you have problems with it, you can always set an incentive, like discounts for the next service if they leave a review.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Home Inspection Business
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers.Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Home Inspection Business Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Home Inspection Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.