Rewind Series - Revisiting Brand Awareness: What's Changed Since 2023
Rewind Series: Building Brand Awareness — What’s Changed Since 2023 (and What Still Matters)
Brand awareness is one of the most misunderstood — and most powerful — components of marketing for home improvement contractors.
In our latest Rewind Series episode, we revisited our October 2023 conversation on building brand awareness and evaluated it through today’s 2025 landscape. The result? While the why hasn’t changed, the how absolutely has.
Here’s what contractors need to know now.
What’s Still True About Brand Awareness
1. Reputation Is the Foundation
No amount of marketing can fix a bad customer experience. Reviews, word-of-mouth, and consistency still form the bedrock of brand awareness.
2. Brand Awareness ≠ Lead Generation
Brand awareness builds trust, familiarity, and credibility. It supports lead generation — but it doesn’t produce immediate, trackable ROI the way ads do.
3. Community Presence Still Works
Local sponsorships, events, and genuine involvement continue to create recognition and trust within your service area.
4. Direct Traffic Is a Key Signal
When homeowners type your business name directly into Google or your URL into their browser, brand awareness is doing its job.
5. Level One Contractors Should Prioritize Lead Gen First
If your business isn’t operationally stable, brand awareness spending won’t save you. Lead generation comes first.
What’s Changed Since 2023
Google Now Rewards Brands More Than Ever
With AI Overviews and entity-based search, Google prioritizes businesses that are clearly defined, frequently mentioned, and locally recognized.
Mentions on:
- Local blogs
- Community sites
- News outlets
- Event listings
…now act as powerful brand signals.
Social Media Is a Trust Checkpoint
Homeowners actively review social profiles before contacting contractors. Outdated or inactive accounts can cost you business — even if everything else looks good.
Video Is No Longer Optional
Short, authentic job-site videos outperform static posts by a wide margin. Seven to twenty seconds of real, local footage can generate thousands of views.
Homeowners Follow a Trust-First Funnel
Buyers now build trust before they reach out — reviewing photos, reviews, videos, team culture, and community involvement.
Brand Awareness Is Easier to Measure
While still imperfect, contractors can now track brand growth through:
- Direct traffic
- Branded search volume
- Google Business Profile activity
- Local social reach
- Local mentions and links
Action Steps for Contractors Moving into 2026
To build brand awareness effectively:
- Post 3–4 short local videos per week
- Sponsor one micro-level local event per quarter
- Submit every sponsorship or event to a local outlet like Patch
- Add a brand assurance section to your homepage
- Track branded search and direct traffic monthly in GA4
Done consistently — even imperfectly — these steps create real momentum.
Final Takeaway
Brand awareness isn’t about being everywhere. It’s about being recognizable, trustworthy, and visible where it matters most — your local market.
When brand awareness is done right, you’ll feel it in:
- Higher-quality leads
- Shorter sales cycles
- Stronger close rates
🎧 Listen to the full episode of Digital Marketing for Contractors for the complete breakdown.
Audio only version of the podcast here.
Podcast Transcript
Welcome to Digital Marketing for Contractors, a podcast for home improvement contractors to help you crush your lead goals and take your business to the next level. Join us each episode as we give you powerful insights and practical tips on the best digital marketing strategies to help you grow your home improvement business. Let’s get started.
Caitlyn Noble:
Welcome back to Digital Marketing for Contractors Podcast, the rewind series. We’re spending the next few weeks resurfacing our most popular episodes of all time and revisiting them with a fresh 2025 insight.
Janet Mobley:
Okay, so today we are rewinding all the way back to October 2023. The air was crisp, the leaves were falling, and we published an episode on building brand awareness, which you guys loved because it’s one of the most downloaded episodes of the year. And honestly, it’s still one of the topics we talk about the most with our clients.
Caitlyn Noble:
A lot has changed since we last recorded that episode. The marketing landscape, homeowner behavior, Google has definitely changed. Basically everything.
Janet Mobley:
Yeah. The world has changed since October 2023. Yes. But some of that episode still hold up, some parts of that episode still hold up perfectly. Um, and today we’re gonna break down what is still true that was true then and is true now, and what is different? What did we say then that’s now changed? And what are the action steps that you can take right now heading into 2026?
Caitlyn Noble:
All right, Janet, let’s rewind. In 2023, we defined brand awareness pretty simply. How aware is the general public in your service area aware of your company? I yeah. Do people know who you are, basically? Yeah. Do they think positively about you? Could they pick you out of a lineup?
Janet Mobley:
So exactly. And back then we talked about the big national examples, like Lowe’s and Home Depot. Um, you know, everybody knows Lowe’s, everybody knows Home Depot, and we were making a comparison, like what would it take for you to get to a point where people in your community were like, oh yeah, I know that company. And so we talked about things like community involvement, sponsoring, you know, youth athletic teams, hosting events, showing up in your neighborhood, um, building a reputation, and making sure you’re known before somebody needs your services.
Caitlyn Noble:
Um and we also said something that we still repeat all the time: brand awareness is not lead generation. It’s trust building, it’s reputation, it’s visibility, it’s that, oh yeah, I’ve heard of them moment.
Janet Mobley:
And in that OG episode two plus years ago, we talked about different maturity levels of companies where these are our labels, not, you know, we came up with them. They’re we tried to come up with really fun names, but we failed. So we just call them level one, level two, and level three contractors. And in that first episode, we broke down, um, I actually think we did it in a series. Yeah. What does brand awareness look like for a level one contractor versus a level two contractor and and and a level three contractor? Because you need a stable operation before you can start pouring time and money into your awareness plays. So we just acknowledge that. If you are, you know, one or two people and you are installing the jobs and billing the jobs and selling the jobs, and you’re likely not sponsoring local little league teams. And that’s where those differences between the levels come in. So that’s kind of a quick rehash of what we talked about back in 2023. And again, that was an episode that you guys tell us that you loved. So thanks. What’s gonna what are we gonna talk about now that you know two plus years has have gone by, what’s different, what’s changed, what’s stayed the same.
Caitlyn Noble:
So what’s still true? We’ll start with some good news. A lot of what we said in 2023 is still true, like the fundamentals haven’t changed.
Janet Mobley:
Yeah, so one fundamental is reputation. So reputation is still the foundation of brand awareness. If your reviews are bad, if your customer experience is inconsistent, um, if you are uh, you know, if you’re just bad at delivering service to people, neighbors and homeowners will talk. And no amount of sponsorships or billboards, PCC ads, PPC ads, no amount of kind of after-the-fact fix is going to um repair an underlying bad foundation, which is a bad reputation. So your brand awareness has built on a foundation of what kind of reputation do you have in your community?
Caitlyn Noble:
Absolutely. Still true. Brand awareness supports lead generation, but it is not measured like lead generation. You shouldn’t expect a direct ROI report from that little league sponsorship. Yeah, we actually get a lot of questions about that.
Janet Mobley:
Yeah, you guys contractors, you’re always like, We love you because you love the numbers, but man, if you spend a dime, you want three back. Yes. And I get it. I do too. But there are some times that you’re gonna spend money on brand awareness, and it’s gonna be very difficult to track dollar for dollar back to something like that little league sponsorship. But it’s in that brand awareness category. Absolutely. So the thing that is still true, it was true then and true today, community engagement matters. Showing up locally still works, and local trust is earned through human interaction. Absolutely.
Caitlyn Noble:
And last, oh, we got a couple more. Uh, also still true, direct traffic is one of the best ways to measure whether your brand awareness efforts are working. So if you listen to the last episode, we broke back down GA4. You can learn where uh traffic to your website comes from. Direct traffic is the best way to measure your brand awareness. When people type your name directly into Google, that is brand awareness doing its job. When they directly type in your website, that is brand awareness doing its job.
Janet Mobley:
Absolutely. And, you know, I’ve had those conversations with contractors. When we when we get somebody, especially a new client and we’re onboarding, and let’s say they’ve got like a really unique name. Often it’s like the name of the, you know, the last name of the founder, and it could be a really unique name. If we see a significant amount of traffic where people are going and taking the time to spell that weird name and that long URL, that is your brand awareness. Nobody is gonna go type that in unless they didn’t already know your business. So good job on connecting that back to GA4, Caitlin. Thank you. So the last thing that is that was true in 2023 in that original episode that is still true today. If you are a level one contractor, spending money on brand awareness is not your priority. No, brand awareness is not a life raft, it is not going to save you. Lead generation is where you need to be focusing money. So any spending on these like hard-to-measure, um community outreach, billboards, and stuff like that. If you don’t have your lead gen dialed in and you’re spending money as a level one contractor on brand awareness, you’re spending it in the wrong place. It’s not going to connect.
Caitlyn Noble:
Um, okay, so y’all, what’s different now? Um, because the truth is the 2025 landscape is very different than the one we were talking about back in 2023.
Janet Mobley:
Yeah. So the first difference is 2025 versus 2023. Google now rewards brands more than ever. Yes, yes, yes. So huge. Yeah. So this one is huge. Today, Google AI overviews are they’re honing in on things that you’re quote known for as indicators about your brand. So the more users are are using those AI overviews, if you don’t have your brand defined in a way online that is sending signals to the Google AI bots, and you know, where you’re not deliberately saying what you’re known for, then you’re not going to show up on search as much. Um, like it’s that just wasn’t even a thing we were talking about two years ago. Gosh, no. So I know that we just spent time talking about like brand is in your community, but now we’ve kind of pivoted to like, what how is Google defining brand online? Yeah, that’s rewarding.
Caitlyn Noble:
Yeah. So I mean, Janet just said it, but this means if your business is mentioned on local blogs, community sites, news, outlets, directories, you are going to get a serious advantage, which goes back to those sponsorships. The moment you sponsor, you know, the Midnight Magic Christmas parade, you’re gonna be linked on all over the internet.
Janet Mobley:
You know what’s funny to me about this? And yeah, AI is wild and crazy, and we’re all trying to wrap our heads around it. And we’re sitting here talking about how like being mentioned on local blogs and community sites is gonna boost your visibility on AI. But to me, that’s not it’s kind of like what’s old is new again, because these are what we used to call backlinks. Yeah, oh and it’s how totally it’s how we you know helped our clients with their search engine visibility. Totally. So we’re not calling them backlinks anymore. Google’s calling it branding. Sure. And instead of being quote number one on Google, what you want to be what you want to strive for is to get mentioned in their AI generated response. 100%. This is the era of entity-based search. So Google is ranking brands, not just websites.
Caitlyn Noble:
So action step for y’all listening, you should be considering quarterly micro PR campaigns. Sponsor something, support something, host something, and submit it to a patch. If you don’t know what a patch is, look up patch. It’s a it’s a great free resource. Your local news, your chamber of commerce, neighborhood associations, every mention equals a brand signal. Why don’t you go ahead and tell people what patches? Oh my god, Janet. I will gladly tell you what patches. Um and I will link to it on the website when you guys are coming to our website to listen. On the show notes. I’m just gonna give you the official. It’s basically um it’s it’s not like an RSS. It’s but it’s similar. It’s allows you to just post local news, events, discussions. Um it’s just it’s it’s just a network. It’s it’s a network if you don’t know what it is.
Janet Mobley:
So local communities are able to post like uh I don’t know, uh high school football scores or a cake bake sale. Absolutely, yeah, exactly. Um that is a good online PR play and it connects with your geography.
Caitlyn Noble:
It absolutely does. So patch exactly like you think we’re spelling it. Um reference number two. Wow, social media has become a trust step, not a marketing step. In 2023, we said post consistently, but now homeowners actually check your social before they contact you.
Janet Mobley:
Yeah, that’s right. It’s part of their decision journey, and they want to see are you real? Do you have employees that look trustworthy? Are you active? Are you working in local neighborhoods? And I am just gonna give a shout out that I know I can get salty and talk about like what’s old is new again. This is legit as the resident old codger in the room. Two years ago, I would have rolled my eyes if you said, Oh my god, people check your socials before they, you know, contact you. I would have rolled your eye my eyes and said, I don’t do that. And I am saying I do that now. You do, I do that now. Yeah. Where, you know, if I’m thinking about buying something, I and I guess I’m I’m kind of like processing this thought out loud while we’re um recording this. Like you know I don’t post a lot on social. You know I’m not on social that much. So like, why did my buying behavior change? And I think honestly, it’s because there’s so many scams these days. Yeah. That if it’s a company that I haven’t, if I don’t know them that well, I really want to make sure like anybody can throw up a website and look like a business. Yeah, and it can be a pretty good looking website and it can be a hundred percent a scam. Yes. But it’s a little bit more difficult to have like an authentic social presence that has deep content that goes back with a lot of local engagement. I think that’s a lot harder to fake. You can’t, you know. I mean, you probably could if you were smarter than we were, but but like I guess I just want to tell listeners social media is no longer it is part of your marketing mix, but it is part of that trust step. Yeah, even for cranky old people like me.
Caitlyn Noble:
You’ve gotta do it. You have got to do it. If you’re not going to sponsor a local event or anything like that, just make sure you’re posting on social. Yeah. Um, like Janet said, this is the new validation step. Uh yeah, to Janet’s point, if your last post was from 2022, that’s gonna hurt your trust.
Janet Mobley:
I’ll give you an example from this past weekend. Yeah. It was we’re recording the week after Thanksgiving. My husband and I were out of town. Um, we were staying in another part of North Carolina that we frequent, but you know, we don’t necessarily know all of the restaurants. So we’d already done the Thanksgiving meal and we wanted to go get uh get a get food in downtown Banner Elk, which if you don’t know where Banner Elk is, it’s in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. And so I was like, I wonder if anything’s I wonder if their hours are different, you know, because it’s it’s a small community, it’s not the most online community. You can’t just look at their Google Business profile and look at the open hours and know for sure that the Friday after Thanksgiving these small family-run businesses are gonna be open. Sure. So I found this this restaurant that looked really cool, and I, for the life of me, could not, I couldn’t figure out like, are they actually open? Exactly. And I went to their social media profile and it had not been updated since last summer. No, they’re closed then. Well, we ended up making a reservation and going somewhere else. Drove right by this restaurant that was broad daylight open, uh serving drinks. Okay. Well but but they missed they missed getting my money. They could have had my money. Totally. And they could have had me as a repeat customer. Now I’m probably gonna forget about them. Yeah. But their socials were way out of date.
Caitlyn Noble:
Totally.
Janet Mobley:
And so I thought they’re not even in business anymore. No, let’s not waste our time. So that’s just my little story.
Caitlyn Noble:
It’s a relevant story, though. It is, it’s so relevant. Um, action step, y’all. I mean, this is aggressive, but it will help. Use a simple four post weekly brand kit. So uh community or local involvement, job progress video. We’re gonna talk about more about video in a second, customer review, and uh like just post a customer review and then share something about your employee, uh, an employee or your team, spotlight them.
Janet Mobley:
So you’re saying what every week, yes, hit these four points on your socials: community, job progress, customer review, employee spotlights. And you’re posting four times a week.
Caitlyn Noble:
If you can, and if you you need help, you’re we’ve got uh teen social media department here. So um number three, that’s different from two years ago.
Janet Mobley:
Wait, I wanted to go back to your she loves social, your action step. So this this kind of recipe of posting these four things, I see in your notes here that that you said that you came up with this recipe because it hits every trust trigger.
Caitlyn Noble:
You got it. Yeah.
Janet Mobley:
Oh, thank you.
Caitlyn Noble:
I just wanted to don’t miss that note. Yeah, it does hit every because you’re showing that you support the community, whether you’ve actually gone out and like physically sponsored something or not. Why don’t you share something that’s happening fun, like the local worm festival? Yeah, or like the local high school team won their basketball game, you know? Um so obviously reviews, we talked about sharing who your company is and then video. Let’s talk about video because it’s not an option anymore. This is the third difference between 2023 and now absolutely is.
Janet Mobley:
Yeah, if 2023 was the year that video was helpful, uh 2025 is the year that video is mandatory in seven. Yeah.
Caitlyn Noble:
All of the future listeners, please take video, TikTok, Meta, YouTube Shorts, even Google Business Profile now pushes video content. True story. I left a Google Business review with a video. No, you didn’t. I absolutely did, and it gets a ton of traction. So it’s very important. Was it a good was it a good review or a bad review? It was a great review. It was a great review. Not a scorched earth. No, not a scorched earth, but don’t get me started. That’s actually a fantastic idea. Oh, I bet you’d get a lot of clicks on that.
Janet Mobley:
Yeah, so if you’re sitting there thinking, good God, another thing on my plate, I don’t want to be doing video, you don’t need cinematic production. No, some of our clients can get 10 to 20,000 local views with a seven-second job site clip. This is something taken with a smartphone. Yes. You know, a lot of these um the um the little editor, God, I’m showing my age.
Caitlyn Noble:
Where it’s like I don’t know if I can help you.
Janet Mobley:
The thing goes back and forth. What do you call it? Y’all, I don’t know. You take a video, like you’ve got a toddler. You take a video of your toddler, and then it’s like a loop where the video clip goes back and forth.
Caitlyn Noble:
Yeah, um, boomerang.
Janet Mobley:
Boomerang. Wake Jesus.
Caitlyn Noble:
Wow.
Janet Mobley:
Boomerang. It’s built into your phone. Old people like me don’t know what the hell the name of it is. Same. But something like that posted online about your company from your job site with your smartphone. Yeah. You can get 20,000 local views.
Caitlyn Noble:
I mean, I will shout out um I know he’s a listener, he’s a client as well. He just did a video recently standing in front of just different variations of shingles that his company sells. Sexy. It was so sexy. And y’all, it’s great content. It’s it’s the owner in front of real product. It’s wonderful. So, action step. Record. Y’all can do this. You can do 10 seconds. 10 to 20 second on site video per day. If you, the owner listening, is not on on site, reward the people who are on site by recording those videos. That’s it. One clip, 10 times more visibility. Than any static post. That’s a fact.
Janet Mobley:
Okay. So difference number four between what we were saying in 2023 and what we’re saying now is homeowner behavior, that’s buyer’s behavior, has shifted to a trust first funnel. Caitlin, what in the world do those words mean? I think I know what they mean, but you’re going to explain it.
Caitlyn Noble:
Thank you, Janet. Trust first funnel. Um, this one might be the biggest shift because in 2023, people compared two to three contractors in this year, 2025, and I’m sure it’s going to be happening in 2026. They build trust before they even reach out. There’s that funnel.
Janet Mobley:
So the homeowners need to feel like they know the company before they’re comfortable contacting us. Is that what you’re saying? Yeah. Okay. So where are they looking? Yeah. So that means that homeowners, this is before they fill out a form, before they call you, they’re going to look at your online reviews. Yes. They’re going to look at your photos. They’re going to look at your social media. They’re going to look at your staff. They’re going to look at your culture and your neighborhood presence. And you know what else they’d look at? Those 10-second videos. Yeah, they are. And then they’ll call a company that they trust. Yes. Not necessarily the one with the cheapest quote. That’s absolutely true. And those are your ideal customers. Those are your ideal customers because they’re not going to like haggle you for the best possible price. So, Caitlin, what is the action step here?
Caitlyn Noble:
If we’re living in a trust-first world, you have to have to have to add a brand assurance section to your homepage. This is going to include local awards, sponsorships, community involvement, employee photos, please take them, partnerships, local recognition badges, instant trust booster right on your homepage. It doesn’t have to take up too much space. Put it up a little bit higher. It’s an absolute necessity. No. Okay. And I mean I got carried away.
Janet Mobley:
I got slapped down. She’s crazy. Okay, so difference number five between what we said in 2023 about brand awareness and what we’re saying today in December of 2023. Wait. We know. I had a brain fart. What did I just say? Difference number five. She went off script.
Caitlyn Noble:
That’s what happened.
Janet Mobley:
Between what we said in 2023 and what we’re saying now in December 2025. I know it tripped me up. It’s difference number five in the years 2025. Too many numbers.
Caitlyn Noble:
So y’all, we it was hard to measure brand awareness. In 2023. Yeah. I mean, it’s not perfect now, but it’s definitely better. Between GBP, which is Google Business Profile Insights, branded search numbers, local impression data, social analytics. We can actually see how awareness grows. And we couldn’t see that in 2020. No. We absolutely couldn’t. So that’s better. That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s a lot better. Um, I Jan, I stole your thunder, but I’ll go ahead and tell you guys what a good action step is. Um, this is something you should be reporting on if you’re listening. Um, create a brand awareness scorecard that tracks direct traffic, branded search volume, GBP calls and direction request, local social reach, and then local backlinks and mentions. This becomes your brand health check. That sounds like an awesome downloadable PDF. So if you are listening and you’re thinking, okay, what do I actually need to do? Here’s your quick start list.
Janet Mobley:
So if you did the five things that we just outlined, even if you do them imperfectly, your brand awareness will grow dramatically. And you’ll feel it in your direct traffic, your website conversions, and the quality of leads coming in. Wonderful.
Caitlyn Noble:
Um, okay, guys, if you want help assessing where your brand stands now and what your next steps should be, we have a free brand awareness checklist.
Janet Mobley:
Say it isn’t so. It’s so so. I know listeners are not gonna believe this, but I honestly didn’t know that we had made a downloadable checklist when we started recording this, and I was thinking, this would actually be an awesome checklist. And she did, she did obviously didn’t read the script ahead. No, I never read the script ahead. Why would I? I wanted to be authentic.
Caitlyn Noble:
You’re you’re okay.
Janet Mobley:
So you can download this amazing PDF that I thought I had invented five minutes ago, but I didn’t. Somebody else invented it and then went and made it, and then made it so that you could download it. Woohoo! So go to Fatcatstrategies.com brand and it shows you the exact framework that we use with our level two and level three clients to help them build true market dominance.
Caitlyn Noble:
Go download it. It’s free. Fatcatstrategies.com backslash brand will also be linked to the show notes, and it’ll give you a super clear roadmap.
Janet Mobley:
So thank you for joining us again for another episode. And this episode is part of our rewind series where we’re reviewing and recapping some of our most popular content from the past few years. We hope you enjoyed revisiting this topic with a 2025 lens on what’s new, different, and what’s changed.
Caitlyn Noble:
And next week we’re going to rewind yet another listener favorite. You won’t want to miss it. Hit subscribe and we’ll see you next time. Bye.
Read MoreLess
Janet:
Yeah. So let’s talk about the two big headlines that we’ve been reading and talking about here inside of Fat Cat. And those two headlines come from two different sources. Source number one is the National Association of Home Builders and source number two is the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. So on one hand you’ve got the Home Builders Association that has this actually honestly a little bit gloomy headline coming out of it. It’s not even a little bit it’s just straight up gloomy. So the National Association of Home Builders said that July of 2025 marked the 16 consecutive months of a falling housing market index. So that means every month for 16 months, the index that they track and that kind of tracks like the health of the home building industry, that index is trending down. And we all know, even though I said a lot of words, if you’re looking at a chart, you want the line to go up to the right, not down. And so the home builders are saying lines going down. And in fact, 38% of builders who were surveyed in July reported that they are actually cutting their prices. And that’s the highest percent of home builders reporting on that since they started tracking it in 2022. So that’s on the kind of the negative side of the coin. Now let’s talk about the flip side of that. So that’s the news coming out of the National Association of Home Builders. If we look at one of my favorite sources, which is Harvard has I don’t even know if it’s called a department. I kind of picture it like a magic building. It’s called the Joint Center for Housing Studies. There’s a whole website that anybody can go and look at, and this center does just a ton of analysis and really solid writing, and they put out infographics all about housing in the United States. And that looks at total housing inventory, who owns it, demographics, trends, what’s being built. Part of that Joint Center for Housing Studies includes some really amazing analysis on the remodeling industry, which is what you guys care about. And in fact, they have, this center has what they call LIRA, L-I-R-A. That is the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity. They look at a bunch of numbers, they crunch them, and then they give us a forecast. That forecast is predicting that Q1 of 2026, we’re going to see an uptick in remodeling activity. Praise. So if we put these two thoughts together, I’d love to get your input on this, Caitlin. It kind of makes sense to me. If we’re not building as many homes, people still want to live and eat inside. That means they’re going to be remodeling more. Right. So to me, as a non-economist, non-math nerd. Sure. I just think it’s totally logical that if you see some sort of crunch in housing, you’re going to see an uptick in remodeling.
Caitlyn:
Always.
Janet:
We’ve
Caitlyn:
been doing this for a long time, Janet. I mean, it’s going to ebb and flow, and that’s what we’ve been telling our clients, too, is, yeah, this year, if you’re listening to it, I mean, and you’re shaking your head, like, this has not been the best year in terms of lead generation, you name it, for just digital presence. A lot has been shaken both, you know, out of our control, in our control, And I think it’s funny that these two headlines do conflict. But I also think that it’s something to look forward to and something we’re coaching as we’re preparing for 2026 is do the legwork now. We know prices have dropped. We know things have slowed down. That means you cannot stop marketing. You cannot stop marketing your business. You just you can’t. And I’m tying it, of course, selfishly back to what we do here. Right. But it’s easy to hold back and pull back when things are not going well. well. We’ve seen many, many, many companies make that mistake. This is not the time to do that. Harvard’s telling us,
Janet:
yeah, there’s going to be more interest in remodeling. And in fact, I’m just going to go ahead and segue into the next section and look at, there’s some new lists that have come out and a few surveys that I think sort of bolster our argument here that even though things may look a little gloomy on the house building side, there’s room to be hopeful on the remodeling side so what’s the first um what’s the top of the list here when we’re moving into looking at surveys and some lists that have been published
Caitlyn:
yeah no totally and i’m reflecting back on um i didn’t talk about what i was going to say in the last segment oh do it now but yeah i’ll go ahead and do it so uh my husband works for a fortune 500 company which does help um segue into the next conversation we’re going to have and they do all new builds new home builds. I don’t want to go into too many details. They’re all over the country, right? They’re all over the country, national company, huge company. And they’ve only focused on building homes. And the insulation that goes is one of those things that they do. Yeah, they install
Janet:
insulation. I know Janet can explain it better than what
Caitlyn:
I can. They
Janet:
install, they’re insulation installers, which is really hard to say.
Caitlyn:
Yeah, no. And so like to tie back to these two headlines, they just made an announcement that they have added on a remodeling division to that portion of their company. Because
Janet:
they saw their business with new home construction
Caitlyn:
slow down. 100%. It has. It’s completely slowed down. Again, I can’t give away too much, but they’ve had to go through a lot of different changes as well to adapt to this slower period, which is absolutely accurate. But they’re optimistic about what’s going to come by adding on this remodeling division. So the
Janet:
conversations that you’re having around your kitchen table mirror what we’re seeing. 100%. 100% that we’re talking about on this podcast and that we see at work. Yes,
Caitlyn:
yeah, and whether they’re actually happening or I’m just snooping. So anyway, so back to the surveys, and we talked about the Fortune 500. The Qualified Remodeler, if you’re listening and don’t know, you should know, they come out with a list of the top 500 companies in terms of what they install, dollar volume, how many years they’ve been in business, what associations they’re involved in, certifications, etc. So it’s a really, really solid list of companies that ranks the top remodelers every single year.
Janet:
Yeah, and that list just came out. We love it when that list comes out. Again, listener, if you’re not aware of this list, it’s a great resource. I think it’s a great resource for smaller companies to aspire. You know, you look at some of the bigger companies that maybe you’ve never heard of. Maybe they’re six states away from you. And you can look at their website, look at what they’re doing Maybe learn from companies who’ve blazed a trail ahead of you that are, you know, maybe they’re in the top 15 or 20 or even top 100 of this top 500. We just think it’s such an amazing resource for this industry. We love it when this list comes out. And if you’re not aware of it, go check it out. Go check it out. Qualified Remodeler Top 500. Top
Caitlyn:
500. It comes out every year. You obviously have to submit information that you have to be willing to share with the world. Yeah. But it did report that there were nearly 25 billion remodeling sales. I’m not even saying that the right way, but like there was about… $25
Janet:
billion in remodeling was spent in the United States across 2.2 million completed jobs. Correct,
Caitlyn:
correct. So that’s
Janet:
amazing. That’s a lot of remodeling activity.
Caitlyn:
That’s fantastic. And that’s coming just from those 500 companies who submitted, you know, to be on this list. Correct. So beyond numbers, one of the biggest takeaways is how companies are not just doing single services anymore. If you go to that list, which I hope you do, you’re going to see, I mean, I promise you the top 15, maybe the top 50 are offering multiple services like roofing, siding, windows, baths. It’s not just one and done. And this supports, Janet, a couple of other surveys that we have to share.
Janet:
Well, it does. It doesn’t just support the surveys. It supports some of the trends that we’ve seen in terms of search with the major platforms. But before we get to that, let’s wrap up some of the other surveys. That’s a good point. So we’ve got Qualified Remodeler has published its new list. We’ve got two other headlines that we wanted to share. The American Institute of Architects has recently published a survey that they did with their members. 62% of the architects surveyed report an uptick in adu projects so those are accessory dwelling units yes which to me that kind of goes back to this whole housing thing it does you know if if we’re not building enough houses people got to live somewhere and i think there’s an interest in folks building these accessory dwelling units and renting them out having them be mother-in-law suites correct so if you are a gc and you can build one of these guys maybe there’s an adu in your future
Caitlyn:
yeah so i think that’s super important and like again as an add-on project like as an add-on service
Janet:
yes additions so the other survey i wanted to hit on is house h-o-u-z-z the website we all know and love house surveyed 22 000 homeowners through their website and 54 of those surveyed reported that they did some sort of kitchen or bath project in 2024 so that’s over half now That doesn’t surprise me because you’re asking people who are on house, and they’re probably on house because they’re looking at cabinet colors.
Caitlyn:
Yeah, you’re on Pinterest because you’re trying to plan a wedding. You’re on house because you’re
Janet:
planning a bathroom remodel.
Caitlyn:
Yes, but still. So over half of those people still renovated in 2024.
Janet:
Now, the one thing that also mirrors what we’ve seen is, according to the survey results, the median budget for those projects dropped about $4,000 compared to 2023 so more than half of people are remodeling but they’re spending slightly less on the overall project ties back to what the
Caitlyn:
hba was saying about builders having to cut their prices yes so that goes hand in hand
Janet:
yes
Caitlyn:
um kitchens though remain the most popular
Janet:
yeah on on house even though you know the architects are telling us that they’re seeing an uptick in adus when people are surveyed on house the number one thing that they want to remodel is their kitchen
Caitlyn:
Yep. Followed by primary bathrooms. So just a couple of things to note, like in terms of, are you offering those services? Are you thinking about offering those services? Is there, there’s an interest in the market for you to offer those? There is definitely an interest. That’s a great point. So because we’re digital marketers, we obviously love these surveys. We love these resources. Most of them did come directly from pro remodeler linked back to those specific sources. Anyways, we always recommend reference google search trends um that’s where we live and breathe to make a lot of decisions uh from your seo to your pbc to what’s working on your website etc google search trends it’s a free tool you can use it um go find it what we saw uh diy kitchen and diy bathroom searches so somebody who physically goes to google and searches on terms related to doing it themselves correct are way down from COVID peaks.
Janet:
That doesn’t surprise me. It doesn’t surprise me at all. People were stuck
Caitlyn:
at home. You were at home. You
Janet:
were hating your bathroom. You were hating your kitchen. Yeah, I think to me the theme here with all of this, you know, the news coming out of the home builders, the news coming out of the Harvard Center for, you know, looking at remodeling, there’s still projects to be done. Right. But it is not the peak of COVID. No. Where, I mean, during the peak of COVID, we were all stuck at home or so many people who had maybe never worked from home before are suddenly working from home five days a week.
Caitlyn:
Hating their home.
Janet:
Hating their home. Their kids are going to school from home. If you’re listening to this and you were in business, then you know it. Yeah. You know that you were as busy as you wanted to be.
Caitlyn:
That 2021 year was phenomenal. Yes. Yes.
Janet:
And we were kind of all riding that crest from 2021. Really? Until like mid-2024. What
Caitlyn:
did it say? Since 2022. That was one of the years when the pricing started to decrease. On new home builds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On new home builds. Yeah, home builds, yes. Sorry. I’m talking about remodeling. Yeah, sorry. I thought it was… Anyways. Anyways. Lots of numbers. Lots of numbers.
Janet:
We got a little bit confused. Huge interest. Huge opportunity in the country to make money doing remodeling. That opportunity is still there. But… The leads are going to be a little bit harder to come by. Yes. There’s going to be more competition and your marketing is going to have to be really on point. But the good news is that not as many people are searching on DIY anymore. No. If they’re going to do a project, they want to hire somebody. So that’s kind of like where, you know, that’s our read on the pulse right now. That there’s still opportunities, but, you know, I mean, I’ll just tell a personal story in the middle of COVID it was prices cutting on projects on projects I thought it was on homes 38% of builders reported cutting prices but those are on new home builds just new home builds
Caitlyn:
yes It doesn’t matter. In our show notes, we’ll have the links to all of these resources.
Janet:
I would love it for somebody to come on and argue with us about numbers.
Caitlyn:
I was just reading this like, oh, we’ve just had to cut prices. But anyways, on new home builds. On new home builds. Janet’s going to keep going. We were talking about a personal story about these surveys and the
Janet:
headlines. So, I mean, the way I relate to… The opportunity and strong remodeling industry in COVID, during the middle of COVID, I personally did this more than once. Sitting at a stoplight, I see a truck with a brand on it, some kind of remodeling service that I need with a phone number. I was taking pictures of trucks on the highway and at stoplights and honestly like if I saw somebody in my neighborhood I’d go marching my happy ass up in the middle of their driveway and trying to distract that contractor while he’s working on somebody else’s job because I literally could not get anybody to call me back you know I had gutters that needed to be replaced my driveway needed to be repaved there were things I wanted done I was calling folks I was filling out forms you were nobody was calling me back listener that day is not today homeowners are not tracking you down at a stoplight to get your phone number so there are still leads out there but you’re going to have to work harder to get them you’re going to have to be a better marketer you’re going to have to have an online presence you’re going to have to have multiple lead sources and all news items that we’re looking at and industry analysts are showing that same thing that there’s still demand there but it’s not the rah-rah that it was in 2020 21, 22, and even like really the most of 2023. Yeah. And so when we look at that top 500 list, the companies that we see performing the best are those more mature companies that might have multiple offerings. Their marketing is on point. They might be running TV ads. They’ve got a canvassing game. They’ve got a strong, they did not
Caitlyn:
stop their marketing.
Janet:
They did not stop their marketing. They’ve got a strong call center. It’s, where we see companies struggling the most are those smaller companies that may not have the ability to staff a call center. That’s right. They’re not able to, you know, have that speed to lead reply. They have seen the cost of their third party leads that they’re buying from like Angie’s List and Home Advisor. They’ve seen the cost of those go up and the quality go down. All of those are indicators of a slight cooling in remodeling, but But it doesn’t mean there’s not opportunity there. There’s still opportunity. And some of these studies are indicating that first quarter 2026, it’s going to be a little bit on the uptick.
Caitlyn:
That’s fantastic. So hunker down, hang tight. We’ll let you guys know if any of those stats change.
Janet:
Okay, so let’s talk about platforms. And what do we mean by platforms? Platforms are the big tech companies. Meta, which is Facebook and Instagram. Google, we all know Google. And then AI is not really a platform. It’s technology and there’s a bunch of companies out there, but there’s news to share on the platform. On the digital marketing side
Caitlyn:
of the tools that we are using, that you’re maybe using. Yeah, so Caitlin, what is up with Meta? Well, thank God I was on vacation, to be honest. Yeah, it was super confusing. I think I was it was the Friday right before Labor Day, which is just cruel. And there was a bunch of alerts that went out um through the meta platform advertising platform alerting uh anybody who was advertising like whoa whoa whoa you’ve got to start paying up
Janet:
front for your ads which okay in 25 years what is how long i’ve been doing it you’ve been doing it say 15 years yeah have you ever seen a digital platform ask for advertisers to pay up front
Caitlyn:
god no i mean like i’m sitting here thinking of things that i pay up front for it’s certainly not Facebook ads.
Janet:
No, I don’t even know how that would work because digital ads are based on the activity, whether you’re clicking, whether the ad was displayed to somebody, whether the video was shown. So how do you bill in advance for that?
Caitlyn:
So you can’t, and Meta took that back, undid it, hit the undo button.
Janet:
So they made this big stink the Friday before Labor Day, and then come Tuesday, they were like, Like, psych, we didn’t mean any of that.
Caitlyn:
This is hard. And let’s not do that. We have other things to worry about. So that was a quick thing with meta. I think a takeaway there is, you know, whether it’s you or your agency in the platform and you’re getting alerted from any of these resources that you are paying a lot of money to use, take a beat, pause. A lot of it isn’t as, I’m trying to say this the best way because it’s, it’s not a big of a fire that you think it is. Let the holiday weekend pass.
Janet:
Yeah.
Caitlyn:
If it gets shut down, it won’t. I’m just like, I want your
Janet:
money. They’re not going to shut down your
Caitlyn:
account. Right, right, right, right. And many times you always see this, this is like a tactic that’s just spam and it’s just bad. So always consult with your agency or somebody before you click and commit to anything like giving Facebook money up front because that’s the last thing Facebook needs.
Janet:
Just like you don’t want to get scammed by fake people on Facebook. You don’t want to get scammed by the actual Facebook
Caitlyn:
either. Thank you. Let’s not. Let’s not. Let’s not. Let’s not. Other things with Meta, just to let you know whether you care or you don’t care, they shifted from a min-max spend setting to average spend limits. So this is interesting. I haven’t been as close in the Meta advertising platform, like on the back end, because there’s experts that we have on our team that do that. But that being said, that’s interesting because this is now probably going to hurt performance on peak days, like after storms for roofing contractors. So instead of having those min-max spin settings to just having average, yeah, I’m out here processing out loud kind of the repercussions. I think what it means is
Janet:
you could have your ads stop showing on a day when you really want them to show because it’s being averaged out over the month rather than allowing to have peaks and valleys throughout the month.
Caitlyn:
Right, right. You can’t see my face, but I’m trying to process why they would do that.
Janet:
Yeah, we don’t know.
Caitlyn:
So instead of optimizing for high engagement days like Janet said, it could actually cap spend which reaches you at a limit. So just keep an eye on that. Yeah,
Janet:
your spend could get cut off. Let’s say by, I don’t know, 3 o’clock in the afternoon, when your audience likes to come home after work and that’s when you have historically gotten more engagement absolutely yeah so we don’t know what’s what’s up with we don’t know what the hell’s going on with meta but like they made this weird announcement last week and now they’ve got this shift from min budget settings to average which we think could hurt i mean we have roofers who tell us like hey look at the weather totally if there’s an ice storm coming oh yeah you know let’s let’s run ads. Let’s, um,
Caitlyn:
I’ll, I’ll say this. And I, I mean, we recommend meta to clients with, it’s, it, it’s not, it doesn’t answer everything. It’s not the cure. No, it’s not going to be your end all be all. It’s part of the whole solution. It’s part of the whole solution. And so like, we’re saying what’s up with meta. If you’re on the fence about meta right now, I mean, I don’t think you’re missing a lot. Um, yeah, it’s that, I guess that’s the headline. So,
Janet:
Yeah. I just, we like to follow what’s going on with the platforms. Yeah, totally. And I kind of chuckled with that whole, like.
Caitlyn:
That’s insane.
Janet:
Let’s make a big deal out of it, and then let’s turn around three days later and go, never mind.
Caitlyn:
I don’t even mean it. What time on Friday? That’s just terrible.
Janet:
Yeah, right before Labor Day weekend.
Caitlyn:
Okay, something else that’s really fun, fun, quote unquote fun, that we hear a ton from, and this is critical. This is so, so, so, so critical. Review management. is dominating across industries. This isn’t news. You guys know this. If you’re, again, a remodeling contractor and you don’t have reviews, I am quite unsure how you’re in business. Not to just be… Yeah, but
Janet:
I think the headline is the platforms, specifically Google, are taking it even a step further. Even more serious. So we know that reviews have been critical to service businesses for years. Have to be. But… There’s a new study coming out of Yext, Y-E-X-T, which is another industry analyst that we follow. Yes. This group studied 8.7 million Google searches to see how local business profiles, those Google business profiles, how they show up across different industries. And what they found is that if you are slow to respond to reviews that can negatively impact whether or not your business shows up in searches on maps and for that Google local business
Caitlyn:
profile. while so I’m going to say that again because yes I went on a riff about how important it is to get reviews but now not only is it important to get those reviews you have to respond to those and quickly in a timely fashion right like very fast
Janet:
so this what this what this study is telling us and what’s even weirder about it is it seems to vary by region yeah by region so in the northeast let’s say you’re a painter and you’re in Connecticut. If you take two weeks to respond to somebody that leaves you a review, that’s not going to have as big of an impact on whether or not your painting business shows up when someone searches for a painter. It’s not going to have as big of an impact as if you were in Atlanta. So in the South and the West, if you are slow to respond to reviews, that could make it so that your Google business profile just doesn’t even show up. when people are searching for your services. It’s crazy. And then in the Midwest, what the survey found is that even if you get a review on the weekend and you’re slow in responding, it can hurt your online visibility. Yeah, that’s insane. So we’ll put links to all this stuff in the show notes. I was frankly surprised at this. We’ve always known reviews are critical. We preach it to our clients, get reviews. The news headline here is, Not only get the reviews, but you have to respond to them, both the positive and the negatives, and you have to do it lickety split.
Caitlyn:
Lickety split. I think the regional side of things and the industry side of things is weird. And I would take that with a grain of salt. Because, I mean, this was published, I just looked, like August 15th, 2025. Google’s going to do Google. They’re going to change what they’re going to change. But please, please, please, please respond to those reviews. We at Fat Cat have several tools that… offer a solution to respond to those quickly um but say you take
Janet:
that task off your plate
Caitlyn:
yeah that totally can take that task off your plate um so one reach out to your agency see if they have a a tool that to help you responding to reviews quickly because that’s so critical um if you don’t work with an agency you know it’s not in the budget right now assign a dedicated responder like i don’t know how many reviews you’re getting a day but just make sure you responses.
Janet:
Yeah, maybe it’s your office manager, the person who answers your phones, or even the person that does your bookkeeping.
Caitlyn:
I have the joy somehow of receiving an email every single time one of our clients gets a review. So you can have a setting that that person also gets a review or gets an email and they can just click.
Janet:
Go ahead and have some templated responses that they can copy and paste, make minor edits to because what this search engine journal report is telling us is that the timeliness in your response impacts your online visibility yeah absolutely um
Caitlyn:
were we going to mention something about
Janet:
yeah well there was something else here i’m looking at the show notes um you know while we’re doing this this roundup the summer roundup of like things that we’ve happened seen happen with the platform so we know that meta did the weird thing with billing google is doing something where they rank you based on how quickly you respond to reviews And then the third thing that we were going to mention is something kind of interesting that we’ve seen with AI-driven search. So this is either going on something like perplexity or chat GPT where you say like, hey, what’s a reputable exterior remodeling contractor in the Raleigh, North Carolina area or however you phrase that search. Those AI-powered search engines are now favoring companies that have multiple solutions more than they’re favoring companies that only do one thing or specialize in one thing. So for example, if you had a roofing company and the only thing you do is roofing, you don’t do windows, you don’t do gutters, and that’s what your website says, like everything on your website is about roofing and about nothing else. For a homeowner that’s using an AI search engine your company is not going to show up when another company that could be newer, younger, not as reputable, not as established, but they do window replacement, they build decks, they do siding and roofing. Because they offer more services, the AI bots are recommending those companies more so than these one-solution companies.
Caitlyn:
And let’s bring that back home, and maybe I’ll reference the right stat here. Isn’t that what the survey was saying? That the companies that are doing the best, I’m like making, like summarizing everything, the companies that are performing the best are offering multiple services.
Janet:
Yeah, that was one of the findings that came out of that Harvard study. Harvard study, yes.
Caitlyn:
So
Janet:
like that
Caitlyn:
tracks. Yeah. So not only is Google preferring you or any AI search. The AI generated search. AI meaning, like I was thinking Gemini AI. Yes, okay. OpenAI, Perplexity, whatever you’re using on search for AI. Those AI
Janet:
summaries, wherever you’re seeing them.
Caitlyn:
Your business is showing up if you have multiple services offered. But
Janet:
not showing up as strongly if you specialize in one service. It’s so interesting. I’m frankly kind of curious about… I mean, we have had such amazing relationships over the past 10 years with companies that only do bathrooms. Yeah. They just do…
Caitlyn:
Yeah.
Janet:
I mean, in those companies, like we’re still seeing those companies perform very strongly right now. So I’m just, I mean, it’s a little bit of a head scratcher. Like how does that AI preference for contractors that offer multiple services, what does that mean for one day bathroom contractors? I honestly don’t have an answer to that. Right.
Caitlyn:
And if you’re looking, I mean, we, I mean, I guess the thing we, I’m not going to riff too much on it, but I guess if you are, are looking for a bathroom remodeling company through AI. I would just be interested to see what shows up.
Janet:
Yeah, I don’t know.
Caitlyn:
I know. That’s what we’re, like, I know. Jane’s looking at me like, let’s, this is, yeah.
Janet:
Yeah, I mean, so my take on that is, again, so Caitlin, what you warned people when we were talking about meta-changing their billing practice, if you get some random email, before you freak out on any news item related to the internet, please take a beat. Please take a beat. It’s changing so fast, and yes, we’re seeing this kind of trend with AI generated search results. But at this moment, I don’t know that those are the predominant search results. People are still using Google the quote unquote old way. Yes. So your Google business profile is still king for now. Yes. As of September the 3rd, 2025. Yes. But it’s just something to watch. Yeah. It’s something to watch and it’s a rapidly evolving story. so
Caitlyn:
bottom line for the fall I think this was a good long episode lots of updates lots of opinions whether they’re right or wrong you know there are opinions and
Janet:
yeah
Caitlyn:
digital marketing is going to change we’re reading the news and chatting about it yeah we’re chatting about it I think Janet already nailed it you gotta make sure to work on your review game no matter what you have to set up a system to generate reviews and respond to those same day if not faster
Janet:
yeah and you know if we’re if we’re looking at the information coming out of um that harvard center for joint housing studies the prognostication is that remodeling is due for an uptick and a stronger year-over-year performance starting q1 next year yes which is what four months away um so keep marketing keep fighting for those jobs a little bit of sunshine might be uh yeah come into remodeling it will while home builders could still be struggling
Caitlyn:
yeah
Janet:
absolutely um well as always we’re here um yeah we’d love to hear feedback if you found this episode helpful or if you’d rather go back us to go back to talking about like one tactic at a time this is sort of a news roundup
Caitlyn:
news our first news roundup hopefully not the last um but as always please share this with your friend in the industry subscribe it’s so easy to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast so you do get notified I get a notification every Wednesday morning on my phone that a new digital marketing for contractors podcast has released so you can get that too if you subscribe to us and please speaking of reviews leave us a review that’s all we have until next time until next time y’all thank you thank you
Outro: Digital marketing for contractors is created by Fat Cat Strategies. For more information, visit fatcatstrategies.com.