The 12 Most Effective Home Services Promotion Ideas

Getting the word out about your business is vital to your long-term success. For those in the home services space, promotion isn’t just about spreading your message—it’s also about hammering home differentiators that are vital in your industry.

Home service providers go into their clients’ personal spaces. They do work on people’s homes—their most valuable asset. Connecting with leads and prospects is about proving your trustworthiness, expertise, and value.

If you’re looking for home services promotion ideas, you’ve come to the right place. These 12 tactics can help you connect with new leads and build trust.

Table of contents

1. Design a customer referral program
2. Run a limited-time offer
3. Work with an influencer
4. Attend local events
5. Share promotions in online neighborhood communities
6. Try digital advertising
7. Send direct mail offers
8. Establish a subscription service
9. Start a social media contest or giveaway
10. Run a larger contest or sweepstakes
11. Partner with another local business
12. Create special offers for your email mailing list

12 best promotion ideas for home services businesses

Let’s take a deeper look at these top promotion ideas for home service businesses.

1. Design a customer referral program

A referral program, which provides an incentive to existing customers who refer friends and family, is an excellent promotion idea for businesses in the home services space.

People trust their friends to tell them about high-quality and reliable providers. That’s why so many consumers weigh a personal recommendation heavily. Leads who come to you through referral will already have a baseline level of trust in you.

Perhaps that explains the long-term benefits of referral programs. Customers who come to businesses via referrals are likelier to stick around and have a 16% higher customer lifetime value.

More than half of marketers say a referral program has lowered their cost per lead, and 78% of those same marketers say it resulted in a higher quality of lead.

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2. Run a limited-time offer

Urgency is a powerful tool in a marketer’s promotional toolkit. When you have a promotion that’s always running, people get complacent. They let it sit there—comfortable in the feeling it will always be available—and they might never actually take advantage of it.

However, when you run a promotion for a concrete period, people know they must act now. If someone’s been on the fence about booking a service, a limited-time offer can encourage them to finally make a move.

There are many ways to design your limited-time offer. You might build it around:

• A holiday (a 48-hour Memorial Day sale)
• A milestone for your business (a 10-day offer for your 10th anniversary)
• A local event (a 26-hour promotion in honor of the local marathon)
• A slow time for your seasonal business (an HVAC company might create a promotional offer during shoulder season)

3. Work with an influencer

Influencer marketing isn’t only for international brands with a nine-figure marketing budget. Research has shown that micro-influencers (those with thousands, rather than millions, of followers) generate more engagement at a lower cost than macro-influencers.

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That’s because these micro-influencers have already cultivated a niche following; when you find one that speaks to the audience you want to reach, you end up with a highly targeted campaign.

Plus, consumers trust the micro-influencers they follow; 69% say they’d trust a recommendation from an influencer over information coming directly from a business.

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4. Attend local events

Most home services businesses work within a specific geography. Sometimes, the best way to promote your business with those who live where you work is to get out and meet them in person!

Making face-to-face connections can also help build trust. When leads get to know the people behind your business, they feel like they’re working with individuals rather than a faceless brand.

There are several ways to meet those in your community. You might:

• Get a booth at a local fair or expo
• Act as an event sponsor
• Serve as a judge on a panel at a local contest
• Donate your services to a local charity event (for example, offering a free service package to the silent auction)

To make the most out of your appearances at local events, follow up with the people you meet there after the fact. Invite people to sign up for your email mailing list, and consider sharing a special discount code with those you meet.

5. Share promotions in online neighborhood communities

If you can’t attend the next in-person community event, consider connecting with your neighbors online instead.

Dozens of online communities may serve your city, town, or neighborhood. Whether it’s a Facebook group, the Nextdoor app, or the local Subreddit, people are finding ways to connect online with those who live nearby.

The top post on the Nashville Reddit is a thread for small business recommendations.

By establishing your presence in these digital communities, you get to know your neighbors and promote your business. Post in the local Facebook group touting your services, or respond to neighbors who’ve asked for advice in your area of expertise. Nextdoor even offers advertising for local businesses.

6. Try digital advertising

This is a big category, but there are plenty of opportunities for home services promotion in the digital advertising space. Whether you advertise on social media, search platforms, or display ads, digital advertising allows you to show your message to people who fit the criteria you define.

Audience targeting with digital advertising is precise. Social media networks and search engines have a lot of user data, which presents a significant benefit for advertisers. If you want to reach millennial homeowners in the Dallas metro area, Google and Meta know which users fit that description.

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You can even try your hand at retargeting, showing promotions to those who have already engaged with your business. Sometimes serving a promotional message to leads who know you can encourage them to book a service.

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7. Send direct mail offers

Because you work within a specific geographic area, another effective promotional tactic to try is direct mail. Send a mailer to everyone within the towns or cities you serve.

Direct mail can effectively leap off the page or screen and grab a lead’s attention. Research from the USPS shows that direct mail remains an effective channel, even with younger recipients, who appreciate the novelty of physical media. Print ads are also highly trusted; 76% of consumers say they trust mailers or catalogs.

Because your direct mailers exist in the real world, you can get creative with what you send. Yes, a postcard with a discount offer certainly works, but you’re not limited to a 4×6” card. If you offer home cleaning services, maybe you send a super-absorbent towel with your logo. A plumber might send homeowners a flat plastic drain snake with a reminder to call them when they face a problem they can’t solve.

8. Establish a subscription service

This won’t be the right fit for every home services business, but many in this space offer recurring services. If you’re an HVAC company that provides bi-annual system cleanings, a landscaper that cuts grass weekly during the warm months, or a house cleaner that visits every two weeks, you can create a subscription service.

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Subscriptions are a win-win. They make it easier for your customers to get the recurring service they need without worrying about remembering to schedule service or pay invoices. Subscriptions also guarantee you recurring revenue for your business.

9. Start a social media contest or giveaway

Running a social media contest or giveaway is a great way to boost engagement and expand your reach online.

Design your contest so that part of the game involves entrants tagging friends or soliciting votes. For example, a contractor might ask entrants to share a photo of the quirkiest feature of their home. Whichever picture generates the most likes wins, and the winner gets a prize or discount on future service.

As followers post images of their avocado-green refrigerators and 1950s pink bathroom tile, they’ll reshare the post with friends to drum up more votes. This introduces your business to new second and third-degree connections, who may become followers and maybe even future customers!

10. Run a larger contest or sweepstakes

If you want to take things a step further, consider running a larger contest or sweepstakes that can be promoted across channels—display ads, email, and social.

A custom promotion with a big, exciting prize gets wider attention than a contest that’s only run via social media. These promotions can reach people who aren’t on your social platform of choice, and digital advertising techniques allow you to target your ads toward a highly relevant audience.

When people see your custom promotion offer, they can enter by giving you their contact information. This allows you to grow your mailing list, stay in touch, and build trust with these leads over time.

11. Partner with another local business

Establishing a relationship with other local business owners can benefit you both. These brands want to do the same thing as you: Grow a successful business in your area. Why not work together to do it?

The best partnerships are often with businesses in adjacent industries, not direct competitors. A contractor probably has a network that includes plumbers, electricians, and HVAC pros. A house cleaning business might partner with a contractor to offer post-construction cleaning services.

The key is to look for a business with which you can share networks. They can meet your customers, you can meet theirs, and it benefits both of you. Plus, as with referrals from past customers, you get to connect with new leads through another business they already trust—instantly making you seem more trustworthy, too.

12. Create special offers for your email mailing list

It may seem old-school, but email remains an incredibly effective, low-cost way to reach your audience.

There are dozens of ways to approach promotion with your email mailing list. You might send all of your email subscribers a special, limited-time offer. Or, you may segment your list and make promotional offers only to certain people.

Perhaps you send an offer to past customers you haven’t seen in a while. Or, you may include a promotional deal in your welcome email sequence to encourage new connections to book with you right away.

Home services promotion ideas to spark interest and build trust

No matter how and where you choose to promote your business, the ultimate goal remains the same: to instill a positive impression of your brand in your audience’s mind and (ultimately) to get them to book a service with you.

Promotion, and marketing in general, is about consistency over time, so don’t be discouraged if your efforts don’t bear fruit right away. Instead, continue to experiment with your tactics and expand your promotional repertoire to find the most effective ways to build trust and engage your audience.

Best home services promotion ideas to try:

1. Design a customer referral program
2. Run a limited-time offer
3. Work with an influencer
4. Attend local events
5. Share promotions in online neighborhood communities
6. Try digital advertising
7. Send direct mail offers
8. Establish a subscription service
9. Start a social media contest or giveaway
10. Run a larger contest or sweepstakes
11. Partner with another local business
12. Create special offers for your email mailing list