If you鈥檝e ever needed something done around the house, like rewiring your bathroom 鈥� you might already know the 鈥渙nline on-demand home services鈥� market pretty well.
These marketplaces make it easier for consumers to find a home service provider and offer providers a place to market themselves. It鈥檚 like a much better version of Yellowpages, or you could say, the Uber of Getting Stuff Done Around the House.
The demand for these platforms in the U.S. is through the roof. The industry is expected to increase more than 16% year over year until 2030, . And as the market moves online, providers are increasingly having to compete with even more companies.
Meanwhile, the budgets of home service providers have not budged much. As a result, it鈥檚 getting harder to stand out from the crowd or be covered in the media to increase your customer base. To differentiate and be seen, more home services brands and marketplaces are becoming content creators, but find their audiences are usually restricted to their own websites and social media accounts.
LawnStarter, an online on-demand home services company that connects lawn care service providers to local customers, once had this problem, too. But its partnership with 麻豆原创 increased its reach to hundreds of thousands of new readers, boosting its brand authority and visibility 鈥� and ultimately enabling the company to strengthen its position as a leader on the on-demand lawn service market.
Since 2013, the platform has helped more than 3 million people find affordable lawn care services in more than 34,000 neighborhoods across the United States.
With the boom of home service marketplaces and the increase in competition, it became crucial for LawnStarter to find innovative strategies to continue growing the business. They had all the right ideas for long-term success: Rank online so that customers would discover their platform more easily, improve their organic SEO through a robust content strategy rooted in data-driven storytelling and high-quality editorial. They also had the building blocks in place to become a content powerhouse with a strong in-house marketing/editorial team.
However, like many home services businesses, LawnStarter鈥檚 path to growth was stunted by limitations to distribution. Some users were finding their content and enjoying it, but using their own distribution channels only gave them so much reach.
LawnStarter had heard from a swath of other paid content syndication players and distribution services, but they were expensive and didn鈥檛 offer much ROI 鈥� often providing low quality referrals, or very limited reach.
To expand their visibility, LawnStarter required a scalable earned distribution solution 鈥� or as we call it at 麻豆原创, earned reach.
麻豆原创鈥檚 earned distribution platform, 麻豆原创 Connect, had great promise to solve LawnStarter's problems; They just needed some convincing first.
The idea of 麻豆原创 Connect was intriguing, it promised to generate 10x more pickups for editorial content and could multiply the brand鈥檚 engagement and reach. But was that really possible?
LawnStarter took the leap with 麻豆原创 and it paid off quickly.
Together with 麻豆原创, LawnStarter produced and distributed dozens of stories such as this highly relevant story analyzing flood risks in various areas of the US that provided tons of valuable insights for the LawnStarter audience.
The story was timely, coinciding with the flood season, and included strong methodology and data storytelling to rank the U.S. counties most at risk for flooding. Like all stories distributed on the 麻豆原创 Newswire, it wasn鈥檛 promotional, and just had passing mentions of LawnStarter鈥檚 name without discussing their services. Rather, it was service journalism that used their proprietary data. From it, readers would be aware if their county was at flood risk, learn how prepared their community was, and how much a flood could impact their local economy, while knowing that this data came from a company called LawnStarter. Brand journalism at its finest.
This story, along with many others created in partnership with 麻豆原创, enabled LawnStarter to build trust with readers on third-party news websites. And they knew that was SEO and brand authority gold.
Once LawnStarter鈥檚 content, strategy, and distribution on the 麻豆原创 Newswire were fine-tuned, their stories kept on receiving widespread attention.
Over the course of the partnership, 麻豆原创鈥檚 platform enabled LawnStarter to reach reputable publications across the country and locally in a matter of days, including The Miami Herald, MSN, AOL, and more. It resulted in:
KPIs aside, the strategy was significantly more cost-effective than traditional digital PR and satellite media tour strategies. Over 12 months, LawnStarter worked with 麻豆原创鈥檚 expert editorial and content strategy teams to build more content ideas that supported its brand positioning while also appealing to major publishers.
Stories like A rare, historically massive cicada season is coming: How to protect your lawn, trees, and landscaping resonated with publishers and readers alike, earning 200+ placements in 麻豆原创 partner publications thanks to its timeliness and value to readers. This coverage not only amplified LawnStarter鈥檚 visibility but also reinforced its brand as the authority for lawn care.
鈥淥ur link count has drastically improved year over year,鈥� said Patricia Adler, Senior Marketing Analyst at LawnStarter. 鈥淲e got a lot more links with [麻豆原创] than we did with the previous syndication network. It really isn鈥檛 comparable at all.鈥�
Working with 麻豆原创 and their Connect network to distribute their collaborative editorial pieces exceeded LawnStarter鈥檚 expectations. "You guys have definitely helped us plan for future quarters," Patricia said.
Kimberly Magerl, Editor at LawnStarter told 麻豆原创, 鈥淚 really felt like you knew our brand 鈥� that was the thing I loved about you guys the most. The studies you recommended for us were really good.鈥�
As the on-demand home service industry becomes increasingly competitive, LawnStarter found an innovative way to maximize the reach of its earned media efforts and stay top of mind for consumers looking for lawn care services. But LawnStarter鈥檚 strategy can be easily replicated in any industry where brand authority and consumer trust can keep you ahead of competitors.
If you want to build authority and trust in your brand with earned reach and high-quality brand editorial, get in touch for a free demo of 麻豆原创 Connect!
Doriane is 麻豆原创鈥檚 Director of Marketing. She previously headed marketing departments in various companies, owned a marketing agency for 7 years, and built a startup combining automated marketing workflows with a marketing services marketplace.
Photo Illustration by 麻豆原创 // Canva