Earlier this year, ServiceTitan partnered with Scorpion as its preferred digital marketing provider to help contractors utilize the full functionality of Marketing Pro to attract more leads, acquire more customers, and generate repeat business through more efficient and effective marketing campaigns.
“At ServiceTitan, we're here to bring technology to the trades,” says David Hoffman, who oversees Marketing Pro as ServiceTitan Senior Director of Product. “But sometimes that's not enough, and we need a partner to actually provide services to get the most out of our software.”
As the leading provider of digital marketing solutions for local businesses, Scorpion fit the bill.
“You've built a phenomenal marketing automation tool,” Scorpion Vice President of Partnerships Kirby Oscar says of Marketing Pro. “Scorpion's got a massive service organization, and I think the rubber is really going to meet the road with this partnership. There's so much we can do together to really drive lower-cost [marketing] revenue to the trades.”
In a recent webinar, Hoffman and Oscar join forces to explain the benefits of a ServiceTitan + Scorpion partnership, such as:
Greater lead conversions with powerful tools like online scheduling, AI chat, and more
Better ROI on digital advertising spend
Improved reporting on marketing investments, attribution, and performance
End-to-end lead management that keeps customers in the ServiceTitan platform
Expert services to support customer retention and acquisition marketing
“ServiceTitan did such a good job at building customer data in an SMB (small- and medium-sized business) market, and the trades have really never been able to do customer marketing at scale. So, there's a huge opportunity here,” Oscar says.
Let’s dig in.
How trends in homes services affect marketing
Today’s home services marketing trends show pay-per-click (PPC) advertising costs on the rise, with the average cost per click hovering around $2 for Google Ads and $1.86 for Facebook Ads, and costs varying from around $1 to over $30 per click, according to this Forbes guide.
“Every single day, we service thousands of HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contractors who are asking us questions like ‘How do they keep up?’ ‘How do they keep scaling?’ ‘What can we do to help them grow more efficiently?’” Oscar explains.
Enter ServiceTitan Marketing Pro.
“You guys built this phenomenal database. Now, what do we do with it? How do we actually leverage all this powerful customer data?” Oscar says.
Home services contractors bring a goldmine of existing customers to the table when developing a solid marketing strategy, Hoffman says, and campaigns that engage the existing database offer a higher return on investment.
“When you pay for a Marketing Pro email subscription, you may get three, four, or five jobs out of it. It's kind of a flat cost versus this PPC cost, which is really more of a per-lead cost,” Hoffman says. “So, there really is a lot of ROI to be had out of your existing database.”
Another current trend affecting contractors, Oscar says, is email marketing. Contractors rely on strategic email marketing to reach homeowners who need system replacements to drive higher revenue. Direct mail, a traditional form of advertising, is also seeing a resurgence.
“More people are at home, more people are checking the mail, more people are looking at the direct mail that's coming to their home,” Oscar says. “There's really been a revitalization of those marketing tactics.”
As an example of a successful Marketing Pro email campaign, Oscar says, Scorpion tested a spring tune-up campaign for a contractor servicing customers in the Northeast, setting it up as a one-time campaign to run for 30 days.
“We delivered $80,000 in top-line revenue from that one campaign,” Oscar says. “Frankly, I was just shocked at the engagement.”
Unlocking the power of Marketing Pro
The main idea behind Marketing Pro is to make marketing automation, powered by your own customer data, accessible to businesses in the trades.
“What that means is having a marketing solution for everything, from email and marketing to your existing customers, to Reputation and Google Ads, and using your data to get the most out of each part of your marketing pipeline,” Hoffman says.
With Marketing Pro, users can:
Target the right customer at the right time with your data
Use your data to drive automated marketing and accelerate ROI
Make better business decisions with deeper insights
Deliver an amazing customer experience across the entire lifecycle
Some home services companies struggle with sending any type of marketing campaign, let alone employ anyone with the time or expertise to develop strategic seasonal marketing campaigns or segment specific target audiences.
“There could be some challenges for an in-house marketer. There's been a need for ongoing support, and I think that's where Scorpion comes in,” Hoffman says.
Oscar says Scorpion is most excited about showing small-business customers, or those with little to no marketing departments, how to use a powerful marketing tool to drive growth, send the right messaging, and build a stronger brand.
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“Some of the things you'll start to see with our managed services are holistic marketing strategies, from your PPC efforts and other advertising all the way down to the coordination of your seasonal campaigns,” Oscar says. “It’s really just doing holistic marketing for our clients, which at the end of the day is going to help them more efficiently grow.”
What’s included in Scorpion marketing services?
“In coordinating with ServiceTitan, you guys have done a lot of research on what's working and what's not,” Oscar says. “When we came up with a mixture of campaigns that we wanted to run, those packages we put together, they're really based on best practices from thousands of customers who have already used this product.
“For us, it’s about how we layer in expertise around the creative, branding and content creation,” he adds.
Scorpion marketing services will focus on email writing, SMS text messaging, and developing direct mail campaigns.
“Emails are hard. How do you capture something that quickly and get people to click through?” Oscar points out. “That's an artform, and that's what we're here for. SMS can also be a really powerful tool.
“Mass marketing was terrible 10 years ago via email and now it's gotten more targeted, more interesting. The writing is much better. The calls to action are much better,” he adds. “I think SMS is on the same track, and we're going to be here to capture that in partnership with you.”
The specific benefits of Scorpion managed marketing services include:
Hands-on support from an account manager
Comprehensive strategy
Audience targeting and segmentation
Onboarding and setup support
Marketing best practices and compliance
Personalized content
Competitive analysis
Recommendations based on data
Promotional and automated campaigns
And more!
Hoffman agrees SMS marketing offers a wide range of new opportunities for home services businesses, and utilizing Marketing Pro combined with Scorpion marketing services for SMS, email, and direct mail campaigns will help companies achieve their marketing revenue goals.
“At the end of the day, these are things experts can do for you, and that's why ServiceTitan came to Scorpion to work on this. We're really excited to fulfill the need, and I think there's so much more we can do collectively together,” Oscar says.
What’s coming soon?
As ServiceTitan and Scorpion develop their partnership, the two companies plan to integrate each other’s services to fill any gaps where Marketing Pro lacks a current solution. Managed services for email marketing campaigns is step one. Next comes integrating the automation of Marketing Pro - Ads Optimizer with Scorpion’s hands-on services.
“Right now, Ads Optimizer can alert you when you have too much capacity or too little capacity, and what should you do with your ads budget when that happens? Well, with Scorpion, you don't have to worry about it. They're going to handle it for you,” Hoffman explains.
The integration will allow Scorpion to receive the alerts and manage your accounts in real-time, so you never overpay for advertising that’s no longer working.
“There’s a lot of ROI there,” Hoffman says.
Two other features coming soon include AI-powered SEO and conversion-optimized websites, both of which combine the power of ServiceTitan’s cloud-based platform with Scorpion’s digital website designing expertise.
For instance, Marketing Pro - Reputation will be aligned with Scorpion’s AI-powered SEO engine to rank websites faster and generate more leads. And ServiceTitan will be able to seamlessly integrate Scheduling Pro into Scorpion-designed websites for a better customer experience.
“We're trying to find ways to automate and deliver the best results for the client. And now we're going to be able to do that together,” Oscar says. “In this partnership, I think the data we'll be able to pull back and the recommendations our marketing team is going to be able to make to clients so they can stay ahead of the curve is going to be second to none.”
