By Matt Koop
Ding!!! sounds the microwave. You see, this is the sound that the millennial generation grew up with, from hot pockets to mac n cheese, no “cooking” required.
How does this apply to contracting, you might ask? Simple. If you can’t relate to your customers, then how are you ever going to get them to trust you?
The landscape of homeowners looking for home service companies to help them has begun to shift. While the majority of clientele continues to be those ages 40 and up, millennials are buying homes every day and account for a rapidly growing 40% of the market. When it comes to marketing to these individuals, as well as get them to entrust you with their home, technicians and business owners may find it difficult to understand what the younger generation is looking for.
At the moment, most home service contractors are nearing 60 years of age, so there is a generational gap between the individuals fixing issues and those who are clients. There has to be a shift in focus when it comes to marketing to millennials because they see things differently than those from the X or Y generations. In addition, they control a large amount of money when it comes to income. Understanding how they make decisions will be paramount for keeping your home service company growing in the future.
With older clientele aging out of the house buying market, millennials will quickly become the majority of the customers for the industry. Capturing their attention and communicating with them effectively in order to keep business flowing in your direction is essential.
The Elevator Pitch
With many of the marketing methods in the industry being taught for 20 or 30 years now, there is a question as to whether the effects are as good as they should be. If you go back in time, you may find a large portion of the people teaching contractors how to market to their local and online communities are still teaching the same way now that they did years ago. Those methods today tend to focus on the company and less on the clients they are trying to acquire. This leaves many of the ads geared toward establishing an image for the company, instead of relating to the new generations. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that style of marketing will give us the results we want on millennials.
Millennials have grown up in a microwave society where they want things done quickly so they can move on to the next exciting adventure. If we are going to market ourselves to this generation, we are going to have to grab their attention quickly and in an interesting fashion. We should consider going back to the world of the elevator pitch.
As contractors, we have about 5 to 15 seconds to make an impression that grabs their attention. We live in a fast-paced world, and paying Facebook or Google alone to market to these individuals doesn’t guarantee the results you need. Centering our message on the elevator method, where you bring them along one step at a time, should help you have a higher chance of capturing the attention of millennials on a regular basis.
The Social Media Connection
I believe that contractors need to have a presence on social media today because millennials are looking for companies that allow them to be a part of their community or family. Social media may provide the platform for us to do just that. For example, we at The New Flat Rate have helped our members host a “Smile of the Day” program on Facebook and other social sites. That enabled them to connect with prospects on a nonresistant level because we are not trying to “sell” them anything. We are just helping them feel a part of a community that cares, instead of just another ATM.
In the old days, when we were marketing to Generation X or higher, it was a little simpler. Those individuals were constantly busy, so putting up an ad that says “buy now” would’ve gotten the message across, and they would’ve most likely purchased the item right then. Millennials seem to get annoyed when they see an ad because they are constantly seeing them on social media. So, we emphasize social media drops that are not ad-based, allowing you to slip in an ad ever so often in front of an audience that now feels like part of the family!
For marketing to millennials, we believe that as much as 80 percent of the focus should be on building a social media community that gives you family-like relationships that not only become your clients, but also that go to bat for you in their realm of influence, sharing your name to every corner of your market.
Appealing to Millennials
One of the biggest mistakes contractors make when trying to reach the younger generation is assuming the client knows and understands everything that the contractor does. That is the number one relationship killer between those generation gaps. We have to understand that millennials grew up in a different time and may have been focused on other activities that did not include understanding how a water heater works.
If we begin speaking in technical terms that the client doesn’t understand, they will ultimately look it up on the Internet. That could result in them finding information that either isn’t true or is counterproductive to the work the contractor needs to perform.
So, the biggest question continues to be, how do we bridge that communication gap while we are in their homes? The answer to that question is simplifying the discussion. Most millennials don’t care about the technical terminology. They want to know that the contractor understands what the problem is and knows how to take care of it. They are less concerned about what is going to be done technically.
We have to stop the information overload when speaking with millennials. We have to get better at answering questions in fewer words and as simple as possible. If you don’t provide enough information to satisfy their question, they will ask another one. It is as simple as that.
Matt Koop is Vice President of Training and Implementation for The New Flat Rate, a home service menu-selling system designed to put profit directly into the hands of plumbing, electrical, and HVAC contractors. For more information visit www.thenewflatrate.com or email [email protected]