Your Next Big Job Could Be Right Nextdoor

Posted on:

January 29, 2019

Most contractors I know understand the value of being the first to advertise on a new social media advertising platform. Fewer fishermen on the pond means more fish.

For example, when Facebook first sold ads, they were cheap, and the first contractors who used them saw exaggerated returns. Nowadays everybody advertises on Facebook, making it an expensive lead generator.

Well, a new social networking platform has emerged as the next “big thing” for contractors, and it’s one platform you need to incorporate into your marketing plan.

Nextdoor: What It Is and Why It’s So Valuable for HVAC Companies

Founded in 2010, Nextdoor is a social networking platform that 90 percent of American neighborhoods use to get a pulse on what’s happening around them. Conversations are limited to discussing local events, neighborhood safety, and home improvement topics, which makes it more valuable to HVAC companies than other social media platforms.

For example—on March 20, 2018, most of the discussions in my Twitter and Facebook feeds were about recent national and world events. On Nextdoor, my neighbors’ posts were focused on the recent snowstorm.

Not only are posts limited to local topics, but each member’s name and address is also verified by one of six methods to ensure safety and locality. Because of the verification process, recommendations on Nextdoor are more trusted than ones on Google, Facebook, or Yelp.

The Power of Local Recommendations

Referrals and word of mouth have traditionally been and still are HVAC companies’ primary source of generating leads and booking new jobs. Currently, 95 percent of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business, and 85 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. Approximately 30 percent of current Nextdoor posts are requests for recommendations, so just think about how many untapped leads are in that pool.

How Your Company Can Take Advantage of Nextdoor

If you’re looking to increase leads and booked jobs in 2019, you need to take advantage of Nextdoor.

The first step is to claim your local business page. To do this, you need to be an employee, owner, or an authorized representative of the business, and then follow these steps:

Search for your business’s Local Page at http://nextdoor.com/find-business
Click Claim to the right of your business
Choose to claim as a Business or as an Individual
Enter your name, business email address, and a password.
Once you claim your local page, Nextdoor will call your business to verify and give you a code. Enter that code into the prompt from your account and you’re all set.

How to Advertise on Nextdoor

Most ads on Nextdoor are from national brands like ADT, Lowe’s, or Ring because Nextdoor’s minimum investment level is $15,000 per month. Workarounds to that amount exist (for example, my agency, Blue Corona, has access to a much less expensive option for our clients), but they’re currently few and far between.

According to our preliminary tests, these ads work—one of our clients, an HVAC company in Maryland, has already seen a good amount of web form completions and solid booked leads. Nextdoor averages a 17 percent web-visit-to-lead conversion rate, which is higher than most websites.

How to Get the Most Out of Nextdoor Advertising

While Nextdoor’s ad platform tracks clicks and impressions, they miss the most important metrics like leads and booked jobs. In order to accurately measure the success of your campaigns, you’ll need to install extra tracking on your website and invest in the following:

Professional ad copywriting
A Nextdoor-specific landing page on your website
Tracking in Google Analytics to discover what happens after homeowners click your ad
Tracked phone lines for phone calls that result from your ad
Ad optimizations (like all digital advertising, your Nextdoor campaigns should be tracked, tested, tweaked, and re-launched to drive better results)

Final Takeaways

Most savvy global brands have figured out that being an early adopter of new, audience-relevant social media means less competition and a larger return on investment.

In 2012, Honda made a leap of faith and invested in advertising on a new social media platform, Pinterest. The brand’s posts reached 4.6 million individuals and garnered more than 16 million media impressions. Dell saw similar results after being an early adopter of Twitter in 2005, and Red Bull had the same experience on Instagram.

Nextdoor is no different.

Now, your company may be nothing like Honda, or Dell, or Red Bull—but the principle remains the same.

While every new digital platform comes with risks, the results our clients have gotten from Nextdoor is encouraging, to say the least. If you’re looking for a new strategy to get more local recommendations and increase booked jobs in specific neighborhoods, this is one platform you want to invest in, and soon—it won’t be long before your competitors discover this new source of leads and ad prices start going up.

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Ben Landers

President & CEO at Blue Corona

A passionate entrepreneur with more than ten years of experience in the digital marketing and analytics industry, Ben and the Blue Corona team have helped hundreds of companies accurately track and optimize their advertising campaign performance and get more leads and sales from the web.

After starting his career in online media, recruitment advertising, and software sales at HotJobs.com, Ben spent time in the telecommunications industry and later went on to become the East Coast regional manager of an advertising and marketing agency. Shortly thereafter, Ben met Bob Perini. Together, they developed the concept that would become Blue Corona.