How Pool Builders Can Use Content Marketing to Sell More Pools
—
The Content Team,
HALSTEAD.
Table of Contents Click Here to Show
Reaching your target customer may feel elusive in the congested market for luxurious inground pools, as this status symbol is gaining popularity in the suburban lifestyle. The swimming pool construction market will reach a market size of $10B by 2030 (a $3B increase over a decade)—making an already competitive market even more so. Standing out from the competition and selling more pools requires an effective and scalable digital marketing strategy that encourages potential customers to set their hearts on a custom pool built by your firm in their backyards—but how is that achieved?
Two Frustrating Marketing Challenges that Pool Contractors Face
Pool marketing is challenging; a pool is a large purchase and a permanent and customized one. The customer journey takes considerable time, requiring consistent efforts to meet the potential customer along each phase of the journey, most of which happens online before they contact you. In our experience working with high-end pool builders for over 10 years, there are two common mistakes they make before contacting us.
Mistake #1: Providing Limited Information Online
Many homeowners with the disposable income to afford a custom pool are savvy online researchers, but you want to avoid making any promising prospect work too hard to find the information they need. Leading firms have an abundance of helpful content online, which is key to their success.
If customers are going to choose your services over the competition, they need to come across information and visuals on your website or social media channels that will help them make this important decision—and these communication methods need to be easy to find.
Mistake #2: Lacking a Solid Plan for Digital Marketing Efforts
Despite popular belief, updating your Facebook business page isn’t a strategy. Social media marketing is a rapidly evolving environment that requires systematic research and planning to ensure your efforts reach the right audience via the most effective platforms. Even if your business provides valuable information and resources, they’ll mean nothing if not delivered on the proper distribution channels. Luxury pool builders with an impressive online presence didn’t establish that by accident but decided to pursue strategic content marketing.
What’s the Key to Building a Luxury Pool Builder Brand Online?
Most customers’ first impression comes from viewing content on your website or social media accounts. Your business’s online image is integral to attracting the right audience, and if you want the perception of your business to be positive, a strategic approach is critical.
Content marketing is a digital strategy that involves creating and distributing photos, videos, and written words via your website, social media, and emails. Influential marketing shares information not only about specific types of projects but experiences.
Consider showing potential customers how this significant investment can enhance their property and provide everyday enjoyment in terms of an improved view and luxuriousness, along with health and entertainment benefits tailored to their way of life.
How to Create Content that Sets You Apart From the Competition
Do you have a high-end luxury brand that enables spa-like outdoor living, or is your company more about fun, family-friendly pools that prioritize safety and versatility? With such an intimidating decision-making process, homeowners must be confident that the company they’ll work with is trustworthy, knowledgeable, and highly experienced in pool designs and installations. Your online image is important because, to the average homeowner, your company looks just like everyone else.
The top high-end luxury pool builders use content marketing to create an online image demonstrating industry expertise. Content marketing is a term thrown around a lot, but what does it mean tactically?
-
3 CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGIES THAT ALL LEADING POOL CONTRACTORS IMPLEMENT
Compelling content helps your prospects visualize a pool becoming a part of their daily lives and helps keep your business top of mind. There are three things that leading pool builders implement no matter what.
1. They Produce Relevant & Helpful Content
Creating relevant and helpful content for your target audience requires understanding your customer persona and anticipating their needs throughout the customer journey. Think about the questions prospects ask and create content that centers around those answers. You will get plenty of ideas with search engine optimization (SEO) research on the topic, which will tell you what people are searching online and can guide your content creation efforts.
For example, a person in the awareness stage of the customer journey may search “what are the different types of inground pools,” which is why the largest grossing pool builder in the United States features a blog post on their website with this exact title. When a prospect in their service area performs a Google search for this question, this article will likely be at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). It answers their questions and introduces them to the company.
2. Their Content Is Optimized
SEO requires a strategy to do it right, which you can learn more about in our complete guide about SEO for landscapers and pool contractors, and this includes focusing on the quality of content rather than keyword stuffing. That is how target customers will be able to find your search-optimized content online quickly. Everything from your title to headings and photo anchor text to metadata can optimize your content.
While SEO helps optimize your content for organic search, paid ads optimize it even more. Paid social ads help you widen your reach to bring in more prospects. These two methods work hand in hand.
3. They Invest in Professional Videos and Photos
A highly refined online presence is crucial. A simple search for a pool contractor in your area can return heaps of options, and homeowners will likely scratch you off their list at the first sign of inadequacy. These inadequacies could be grammar errors or typos in written content or low-quality photos and videos.
Professionally produced videography and photography are especially important for high-end pool contractors, and customers expect them in today’s digital environment. Having never invested in a pool before, many buyers do not realize all the customization possibilities—and what better way to show them than using a drone to capture colorful photos and videos of that $200K lagoon-style pool project you recently completed?
Combine this media with professionally written case studies that help the customer create an emotional connection, and you have a highly effective content marketing strategy that will lead to more sales. It’s a scalable marketing effort that helps you reach more of your target audience, and it continues to work as time progresses.
Surprising Partnerships Pool Contractors Can Make to Scale Content Marketing Efforts
Content that is easy to find, meets a need, and is consistently delivered across various distribution channels, including social media and your website, requires a high volume of content creation. Forming partnerships with manufacturers to share content can benefit all parties, including the customer.
Collaboration enables customers to see multiple examples of how a particular type of pool could meet their practical needs and change the atmosphere of their home or the quality of their lifestyle by providing various real-life examples. For example, a partnership with a paver manufacturer might mean being able to share their professional photos of a beautiful infinity pool with an expansive paver pool deck that overlooks a lakeside view. These photos would be helpful if you are trying to reach customers in a lakeside neighborhood.
Amazing Tips to Build Collaboration With Manufacturers
A collaborative, strategic connection between the parties involved in creating and installing pools can catapult customer exposure, which is key to growth. We’ve seen this occur firsthand at HALSTEAD as we’ve developed co-op opportunities between manufacturers and contractors. The two can learn from each other, build off their marketing efforts, and see their content and customer outreach explode.
-
TIP #1: BECOME A RESOURCE
Inquire about marketing imagery and sharing opportunities from your manufacturers. Likewise, offer up imagery from the projects you are proud of that showcase the products you know they want to promote.
Be sure that your company name is attached. You do not have to try to do this with limited marketing capabilities. Teaming up with marketing experts who can advise on current trends in quality, professional content, and social media advertising can be a great place to start.
-
TIP #2: BE STRATEGIC
Set the tone of the partnership with a clear plan. Together, your cooperation will work to amass quality content showing off your handiwork on social media, including written content, photos, and videos. You can expect your content to transform over time.
Social media exposure lets customers ask questions about your pools and processes and offer immediate feedback on the content. Customize the content according to the input and answer questions in real-time.
People love giving feedback on social media, which provides you with a stream of reviews and an understanding of your customers’ needs and opinions. It also provides valuable information that informs your daily content so that your hashtags, photos, and positive reviews reach potential customers. This information is priceless and may even influence customer-driven change that boosts sales.
-
TIP #3: SPLIT COSTS
Cooperating with manufacturers can allow you to split the cost of photos and videos. At HALSTEAD, our vast co-op experience gives pool contractors a leg up on navigating these partnerships. If your business markets and represents the manufacturer well, the manufacturer is more likely to participate—and that’s something we can help you with. Each party can then earn access to use the co-branded content, with their joint distribution of the content reaching various audiences on numerous social media platforms.
For example, a pool manufacturer and dealer coordinating marketing strategies and funds can use videos and photos of successful installations as part of an online portfolio. This portfolio can be split into mini-clips and dispersed across other social media platforms.
Marketing methods have evolved rapidly and continue to grow, primarily due to the influence of social media. The ability to tailor content to reach a specific demographic requires consistent research and revision. Collaboration and the increased online exposure these methods achieve can catapult your business in all the right directions.