Should My Business Be On Houzz?

Posted by David Chism | Fri, Feb 22, 2013

 Should My Business Be On Houzz?
Updat­ed 9/29/2016: This blog was orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten in ear­ly 2013 when Houzz was still pret­ty new to home­own­ers and the build­ing indus­try. They also just start­ed their adver­tis­ing plat­forms. As you can see, there are quite a bit of com­ments about peo­ple’s expe­ri­ence with adver­tis­ing on Houzz. To save you some time, please note that adver­tis­ing on Houzz is not for every­one. I think for the small ser­vice busi­ness­es, Houzz will most like­ly dis­ap­point you. You will not get a good ROI if you invest in Houzz Pro+. It will also depend on how much com­pe­ti­tion is already adver­tis­ing in your mar­ket, the reviews they have and over­all portfolio.  I think if you are a larg­er com­pa­ny or are look­ing at brand­ing in a lot of dif­fer­ent areas (have a big­ger bud­get) invest­ing in Houzz Pro+ has some val­ue. I have a num­ber of my clients (annu­al rev­enue over $1M) that typ­i­cal­ly invest $250 – 500 a month with Houzz. This is a long term deci­sion for these guys to make sure they are seen more and more in their mar­ket, on and offline.  Below is my orig­i­nal 2013 post. 

Pin­ter­est and Houzz Intro

In 2009, a lit­tle web­site called Pin­ter­est popped up. Pin­ter­est is a social media site that allows peo­ple to col­lect and orga­nize” things (pic­tures) they love. The buzz words for Pin­ter­est are pin,” repin” and boards.” This site has grown pop­u­lar for the female audi­ence, near­ly 80 – 90% of its users (as of late 2012). My wife uses Pin­ter­est almost dai­ly to get ideas for dec­o­rat­ing, orga­niz­ing, gluten-free recipes and more. It was not long after I start­ed test­ing out Pin­ter­est when I heard of anoth­er social site called Houzz​.com.

What Is Houzz?

When I first stum­bled upon Houzz, my first thought was, Houzz​.com is the Pin­ter­est for the design and remod­el­ing indus­try.” Instead of pin­ning” a pic­ture to your board, like you do in Pin­ter­est, a user will add the pho­to to an Ide­abook.” So one might cre­ate Ide­abooks that are called Cab­i­net Ideas” or Nurs­ery Room” etc. A per­son will find a col­or that he or she likes and slide it into the prop­er Ide­abook. The cred­it for that pho­to always goes back to the com­pa­ny that uploaded it. A year ago, most remod­el­ers, painters, design­ers and archi­tects did not know what Houzz​.com was! Today, almost all of them do and so do a grow­ing num­ber of home­own­ers. Houzz is an inter­nal search engine for the design and home build­ing mar­ket. A home­own­ers can type in key­words such as cab­i­nets,” green walls for bed­room,” murals for kid’s room,” hard­ware ideas for mod­ern kitchen” etc. Then pic­tures that have been prop­er­ly labeled with key­words and descrip­tions begin to show up in the search results. It is a very cool idea! The oth­er thing Houzz does is allow home­own­ers and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als to look to hire a pro. Houzz has cre­at­ed a busi­ness direc­to­ry for a grow­ing num­ber of met­ro­pol­i­tan cities. Houzz busi­ness pro­files also allow your cus­tomers to post a review about your com­pa­ny. [cap­tion id=“attachment_1779” align=“aligncenter” width=“813”] Exam­ple of a pho­to of a painter who uploaded this pho­to of a project recently…and it has been added to over 6,000 ide­abooks and counting.[/caption]

So Should My Busi­ness Be On Houzz?

Yes and No! It takes a lot of effort to get involved with Houzz. If you are an inte­ri­or design­er, a design build firm or an archi­tect, I think Houzz is cru­cial for your busi­ness. If you are a paint­ing con­trac­tor, Houzz is also a good idea but will require a bit of a time com­mit­ment. One has to take good qual­i­ty pho­tos, have a plan for upload­ing those pho­tos on a reg­u­lar basis (not just once), has to enter key­words for the best pho­tos and get involved in using all the oth­er fea­tures Houzz has to offer. Houzz has rolled out spe­cial adver­tis­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties as well. I’d rec­om­mend build­ing up your port­fo­lio with a good amount of pho­tos and then start look­ing at the cost of ads. You can also spend time answer­ing ques­tions peo­ple have about their home. This is a good way to engage with peo­ple and help brand your com­pa­ny. This is a very brief blog arti­cle on Houzz. There is lots more to know! Curi­ous though, who is using Houzz now? Any results from your efforts?

About David Chism

David Chism started his business out of a passion for helping small contracting businesses grow, be more profitable and become better known to their target clients. One lifelong hobby of David is using techie gadgets. So this blog is a place where he writes about technology, marketing ideas, just for fun (humor), personal thoughts on small business and more.

     
   
       

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