A Few Tips When Advertising on Angie's List

A Lit­tle Background

When Ang­ie’s List start­ed back in 1995, it was a time when the inter­net was just begin­ning to become a fix­ture in homes. Con­sumers paid an annu­al mem­ber­ship fee to access a list of con­trac­tors that had been eval­u­at­ed by its mem­ber­ship. It was an excel­lent concept.

I was not real­ly intro­duced to Ang­ie’s List as a con­trac­tor until I was work­ing for my dad’s paint­ing busi­ness fif­teen years ago. Even ear­ly on, I did not get many, if any calls about how to get on the list. I just fig­ured the only way on the list was if a con­sumer used our ser­vices and wrote a report about his or her experience.

Fea­ture Your Company

Then, out of the blue, it seemed Ang­ie’s List real­ly took off! Con­trac­tors start­ed get­ting calls from sales­peo­ple explain­ing they had a cou­ple good reports on the list and won­dered if they want­ed to con­sid­er ​“fea­tur­ing their com­pa­ny” to help more Ang­ie’s List mem­bers see those great reports. Sounds great, right? We all won­dered, ​“What does fea­tured mean?” Was it free? NOPE. The word ​“fea­ture” is a term Ang­ie’s List con­tin­ues to use to replace the com­mon word we all know as ​“adver­tise.”

Tips Before Adver­tis­ing on Ang­ie’s List

Adver­tis­ing on Ang­ie’s List can, in many cas­es, be a very effec­tive strat­e­gy for your con­tract­ing com­pa­ny. The key­word here is ​“can.” Before you sign a con­tract, here are a few tips to think about.

• Review the cur­rent list: Ask your rep to review the active list. You can get a guest pass to review what con­sumers see. This is gold­en before decid­ing to adver­tise. You can see who the top rat­ed com­peti­tors are on the list, or check out your com­pa­ny’s stats.

• Check how many reviews the top 5 com­pa­nies have on the list: If the top-rat­ed con­trac­tors have more reviews (i.e. reports) than you, this could be a prob­lem. It depends on how much effort it will take to get you more reviews. Let’s say the top com­pa­nies have 35 – 75 reports on inte­ri­or paint­ing and you have 5 total reports. Chances are, a con­sumer review­ing Ang­ie’s List will tend to select more top rat­ed com­pa­nies. So if you are 30+ reviews behind on the list when you signed up to fea­ture your com­pa­ny, a con­sumer will prob­a­bly still hire the com­pa­nies with more reports than you. Now they might call and get a bid from you, but the more reports you have, the better!

• Work on Get­ting more reports: If you real­ly want Ang­ie’s List to work for you, be patient. Spend some time build­ing up your reports on the list. Ask your cus­tomers to join Ang­ie’s List and write up a review of their expe­ri­ence. I have had a num­ber of con­trac­tors slow­ly build their rep­u­ta­tion on Ang­ie’s List, and it has def­i­nite­ly paid off. They get lots of qual­i­fied leads, but it did not hap­pen overnight. In many cas­es, it has tak­en years. Those who have had the most suc­cess start­ed on Ang­ie’s List when their ser­vice area was not so sat­u­rat­ed with con­trac­tors as well. 

• Review your geolo­ca­tion and demo­graph­ic care­ful­ly: If you are using a Cus­tomer Rela­tion­ship Man­age­ment pro­gram (CRM) then run a report to deter­mine where most of your jobs are com­ing from and how much rev­enue you’ve col­lect­ed from those areas. Don’t guess on this! Ang­ie’s List pro­vides adver­tis­ing in dif­fer­ent met­ro­pol­i­tan zones. So a city like San Diego, might have 6 or more zones: Cen­tral, South, East, North, Coastal, etc. You can ask your rep for the cost to adver­tise in all zones or just the ones you know you are more like­ly to have a brand pres­ence and sell more jobs. Your rep can give you a list of how many active mem­bers are in each zone. The more zones you pur­chase, the bet­ter dis­counts and pric­ing you’ll get to adver­tise. Yet remem­ber, it is not about how many peo­ple you are reach­ing with Ang­ie’s List. It is all about 1) who is your ide­al cus­tomer, 2) loca­tion of that cus­tomer and 3) do you have a good and sol­id pres­ence on Ang­ie’s List before you sign a con­tract. You will not be seen a lot more because you are pay­ing to be on the list. 

IN A NUT­SHELL: If you spend mon­ey to pro­mote your com­pa­ny on ANG­IE’S LIST and are not the top rat­ed con­trac­tor or the mar­ket is over sat­u­rat­ed, you might be wast­ing your mar­ket­ing dollars.

• Nego­ti­ate: If all the tips above go over well and you have a great rep­u­ta­tion on Ang­ie’s List at the begin­ning, then you just might want to con­sid­er mov­ing for­ward with spend­ing some adver­tis­ing dol­lars with this com­pa­ny. This is where you want to be extra care­ful though. They have room to nego­ti­ate, so don’t sign up too fast. Take your time and get the cost to where you feel most comfortable.

Word of Cau­tion on Renewals

If you sign up for adver­tis­ing with Ang­ie’s List, you will have to review and renew your account every year. This is the most frus­trat­ing part of work­ing with this com­pa­ny. This is just my opin­ion, but I think this is real­ly where Ang­ie’s List makes their mon­ey and tends to cause prob­lems with most con­trac­tors: renewals.

If you are pay­ing $2,500 annu­al­ly, Ang­ie’s List will review your account and give you an update on any increase in Ang­ie’s List mem­ber­ships the past 12 months. If there was an increase, then your renew­al will increase as well. The biggest increase I saw from a client of mine went from around $21,000 a year to $36,000.

Obvi­ous­ly it is hard to bud­get for such an increase, and every one of my clients has dread­ed the renew­al process, yes every one of them! This is where you have to do more nego­ti­at­ing and vocal­ize your con­cerns. I have always sug­gest­ed to my clients to not put all their eggs in one bas­ket. So I typ­i­cal­ly do not advise sign­ing up for the renew­al with­out mak­ing some changes. Work with­in your bud­get. If you have to cut back, that is fine. If you have $5,000 for Ang­ie’s List and they want $10,000, just tell them what you can do. They will work with you to per­haps cut back your zones and mar­ket to few­er members.

Your Thoughts

I wrote this blog because I have had a lot of con­trac­tors ask me about Ang­ie’s List and how best to use it for mar­ket­ing their ser­vices. I have a num­ber of clients crush­ing it on the list: they get tons of leads and busi­ness from Ang­ie’s List. I have oth­ers who have signed up before ask­ing me about it and wast­ing hun­dreds and hun­dreds a month with very lit­tle if any busi­ness from the list. So just spend­ing mon­ey on Ang­ie’s List does not mean you will get a good ROI. You always have to think care­ful­ly about any type of adver­tis­ing you do for your business.

I hope you find this post help­ful. Let me know your thoughts on Ang­ie’s List: pros and cons. Who knows, maybe they will read this post and make changes to bet­ter ser­vice your needs.