Navigating the 2023 Home Renovation Downturn: Zeroing in on the Elite

If you’re in the home remodeling industry, you already know 2023 has seen a home renovation downturn. Americans are simply spending less on home improvement projects. For high-end remodeling firms, interior designers, and architects, that means providing exceptional services and relying on word-of-mouth marketing is no longer enough.

You need to build a more robust lead pipeline that you can dial up or down as needed to reach your business goals. And that means effective, proactive digital marketing that connects with more high net worth individuals (HNWI). Here’s the approach we recommend to reach this exclusive niche audience.

Do your audience research

Effective marketing with a strong ROI depends on delivering the right message, to the right audience, at the right time. To figure out the message and the delivery, you and your marketing team need to have a clear understanding of that audience.

Your current audience

Think of the favorite customers you’ve had recently, the ones you’d clone for more business if you could. The patterns they share will give you a good sketch of an audience persona. For more detailed insight, survey current and recent customers to learn about their experiences. You’ll also want to dive into any analytics you have, through e.g. Google Analytics and your marketing platforms.

Your ideal audience

If the audience you’re reaching isn’t the audience you want – for example, you’re getting inquiries from lower-budget prospects – do some more digging. Find out where your target audience spends time, and learn as much as you can about their lifestyle, values, needs, hopes, and pain points.

For example, for a home renovation audience, you’ll need to know details like:

How much time they spend at home vs. at the office
What they spend their time doing at home
What they want to be able to do at home
What’s getting in the way of that goal

Nail your brand messaging and visuals

Once you understand the person you’re trying to reach, you can create messaging that they’ll find compelling. This is almost impossible to do from inside your own business! So don’t be afraid to talk to a messaging strategist for a clear outside perspective.
Together with your messaging strategist and copywriter, your designer can then create a website branding strategy that clicks for your HNWI audience. This niche needs to see a website that mirrors the high-end client experience they expect!

Plan for website user experience

Your website experience needs to be as sophisticated as the clientele you’re targeting. For example:

Follow accessibility standards

Any website today should follow accessibility standards, including WCAG’s international guidelines for text-to-background contrast. The more accessible your marketing is, the bigger your pool of qualified leads, and the more potential sales in your pipeline. (And it’s just the right thing to do.)
But it’s especially important with an audience that’s mature enough to have built some wealth, and may not have the eagle eyes of a 20-year-old web designer. If your audience can’t read your website, they’re not going to convert!
A few easy things to look out for:

Avoid fancy fonts that are hard to read in the intended size, color, and context.
Make sure any text over images is clearly legible.
If you have the hex codes for your brand’s proposed background and font colors, you can test combinations with WebAIM’s Contrast Checker.

Use high-end visuals and messaging

In such a competitive market, you can’t afford to blend into the background. A slick portfolio that says nothing about your client experience or brand personality is not going to cut it. This means custom brand photography and brand design, as well as strategic messaging foundations and engaging website copy. All these creative aspects of your website experience are extensions of your brand experience, and should feel as compelling as your product or service itself.

Design a streamlined user flow

Along with a well-planned page experience, you want smooth navigation throughout your website. Your visitor should be able to find whatever they need within 3 clicks of entering your website. This is true for any audience, but it’s especially important for a HNWI audience that’s used to being catered to.

Add strategic search engine marketing

There are a few simple SEO strategies you can leverage to reach more of your target audience. For instance:

Increase your text-to-HTML ratio

Many websites in the remodeling industry have very little text on the page relative to the amount of code needed to display the page. Adding strategic, well-organized body copy makes it easier for Google to understand and recommend your site.

Send PPC ads to a quality landing page

Successful pay-per-click (PPC) ads require a combination of compelling ad creative, and a high-quality landing page. This can be a standalone landing page built to maximize campaign conversions, or it can be a dedicated page on your website.

Leverage keywords through content marketing

Identify top-performing keywords in your niche with tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs, and use those insights to guide your content marketing strategy. You’ll want to focus on content that not only hits competitive keywords, but provides real value to your audience.

Partnering with a marketing agency

Partnering with the right digital marketing firm to put all these strategies into place now can give you a huge competitive advantage in this tight market. And long-term, you’ll be the brand that today’s reluctant consumers remember when they’re ready to spend more freely. Schedule a free consult to get started – we’ll give you a comprehensive website and SEO audit, so you can improve your digital marketing ROI.