One of the most interesting clients I’ve ever worked with is in the construction niche and we had a fascinating journey together of product shifting that pivoted the whole company around in order to save it.
The client is “homexpert.co.il” – “המומחה” (‘Hamumhe’ – Hebrew)
- Executed a highly effective, budget-conscious campaign in collaboration with a major ceramic supplier. Implemented a targeted registration process with segmentation to focus on qualified leads, resulting in a high conversion rate and significant return on investment.
- Proposed and implemented a significant shift in the company’s business model, transitioning from an index website to an expert escorting service. This pivot allowed for monetization through a percentage-based revenue-sharing model with professional contractors, ensuring a win-win situation for both parties.
- Led the rebuilding of the website to align with the new escorting service, optimizing the user experience and ensuring seamless integration with professional suppliers. Developed a robust platform that facilitated efficient matchmaking between homeowners and contractors.
Implemented a comprehensive sales strategy, prioritizing qualified leads and nurturing customer relationships throughout the home-building process. Ensured seamless communication and customer satisfaction to maximize CLV (customer lifetime value).
- Achieved phenomenal outcomes, including the identification of high-value projects and the ongoing success of the campaign. Continuously tracked and optimized key metrics to drive growth and profitability.
How it began
When I started homexpert’s CEO Gavriel Toren asked for my help with his emerging company which was an index website that was supposed to help people find their professional suppliers for the construction or renovation prosses.
I started as a digital marketing expert and my job was to find a way to make this business profitable.
The business model was very clear, people search for the professionals on the website and the professionals will pay a monthly subscription to rank higher on the website with their golden profile card.
The traffic to the website was relying on Google’s organic traffic.
The problems my market research reviled
As I was researching the market and the business there were a few problems with this business that occurred to me, those are the main 3:
- Too high a competitive niche against well-established competitors in the field with a lot more budget and time in the market that gives a better value proposition for the user.
- There was almost no traffic from Google’s organic search that the website relied on.
- The most crucial one is that the professionals didn’t want to pay ahead for that without knowing if they’ll get any paying clients.
The fact that the target audience wasn’t willing to pay for this kind of service almost get the company to collapse.
How I saved the Homexpert
While I was researching the market I had a few conversations with professional contractors that we wanted to collaborate with.
In those conversations, a new idea popped up.
The contractors were willing to pay a percentage of the closed deals they make with the potential clients that Homexpert lead to them.
So I talked to the CEO (Gvriel) and proposed a different approach that requires rebuilding the website, he understood the potential of this and was very open-minded about my ideas and we pivot to an escorting service.
The company pivot and the huge product shift
The new product that succeeds in the market is an expert escorting service for people that wanted to build a home themselves, that way Homexpert could know for sure the deal with the professional suppliers was closed and could cut the affiliation fees correctly.
The main reason why I thought it will work much better is when you build a house you need more than just one supplier, and after you finish with one you need some other professional expert, and most of the time you don’t even know who you need or want they needed for.
The go-to-market strategy
At this stage, there was almost no budget left so I had to create a very effective campaign to start with.
So we made a collaboration with one of the biggest ceramic suppliers in Israel and I created a giveaway campaign.
I took in mind that a lot of the leads will be not relevant because people just wanted to win, but I wanted to invest the sales team’s time in the relevant ones, so I added a step to segment the leads.
The registration to the giveaway was open to everyone and I added one segmenting question to the registration form: “Do you want to get an offer for ceramics?” and double-downed on those who signed us that they want to get an offer by calling them first and creating an automatic lookalike audience of the relevant ones.
The results
The results were phenomenal.
We tracked down projects that just got approved by the municipals which have the highest customers’ lifetime value (LTV).
To the day that I wrote this post, Honexpert is still collecting the fruits of that campaign.
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