Avoid These Common Service Area Mistakes in Home Service Marketing

Service areas are critical for successful home service lead campaigns, but many marketers repeat the same common mistakes we've observed during Goodzer’s 15 years in business.

It might seem simple: throw some zip codes into a spreadsheet and save it. But overlooking certain nuances can seriously impact your campaign performance:

• Zip Codes vs. Radius-Based Areas: Radius-based targeting is easy but rarely optimal. It cuts through zip code and city boundaries, doesn’t align well with driving distances, and ad platforms often struggle with accurately pinpointing user locations at radius boundaries. For precision and flexibility, zip code targeting usually works best.
• Keeping Service Areas Up-to-Date: Service areas frequently change. We see this constantly: marketing departments, dispatch teams, answering services, and lead providers all operate from different, outdated versions. Avoid confusion by establishing a clear update process, designating responsibility, and maintaining one central source of truth. Easy to implement with cloud-based spreadsheets and automated updates.
• Define Service Areas by Service Line: If you run multiple service lines or don't serve all areas uniformly, clearly define these distinctions. Communicate this information explicitly to your lead providers and advertising platforms. Not every platform can handle this detail — Goodzer does.
• Canadian Postal Codes (FSA vs. LDU): For digital campaigns targeting Canada, remember that postal codes consist of FSA (Forward Sortation Area) and LDU (Local Delivery Unit), for example, M6H 2B9. LDUs are very precise (sometimes covering just one side of a short street) and are useful for direct mail. However, they’re generally not practical for digital marketing. Stick with FSAs instead.
• Train Your Dispatch Team: Ensure your dispatchers thoroughly understand your service areas. Nothing kills customer trust quicker than responding, "And where is that?" when callers mention their city. Conversely, showing local area knowledge builds trust.

We hope these tips will help you improve your campaign performance and avoid common pitfalls, and if you're looking for exclusive inbound call leads for your home service business, check us out.