The January rush starts in November: what kitchen remodelers should set up this month
Consultation requests for kitchens peak in January and February. The firms that win that window set up their ads, follow-up and showroom calendar in November. Here is the checklist.
The best six weeks of the year for a kitchen remodeler's lead flow are the first six weeks of the year. Homeowners host the holidays in a kitchen they have been tolerating, and by the first week of January they are on their phones at night looking for someone to fix it. Consultation requests in most markets run 40 to 80 percent above the monthly average in January and February.
Most firms meet that wave with whatever marketing was running in December, which is usually not much. The ones that take the whole window set things up in November. Here is what that looks like.
Decide the January budget now
If your Google Ads spend has been $3,000 a month, January and February should be $4,500 to $5,500, and the increase should be scheduled before the holidays so it is live on January 2. Searches for "kitchen remodeling contractor" climb in the first week of the year, and the account that is already running with a clean negative list and a working landing page takes those at a lower cost than the one that gets turned up on January 15.
Fund it from December. Drop December's spend to the brand campaign and retargeting, and move the difference. Same quarterly total, matched to when people are looking. The seasonality guide has the full-year shape.
Fix the follow-up before the volume arrives
A firm that replies to every form within an hour in October will take two days in January unless someone owns it. Set up two things now: missed-call text-back on the main line, and an automatic text reply to every consultation form that names a person and gives a callback window. Then decide who makes the calls in January and block their calendar for it.
At a $45,000 average project and a 25 percent close rate, every consultation request is worth about $11,000 in expected revenue. Losing three a week to slow replies in January is a bad way to start the year. The follow-up guide has the scripts, and the calculator will show you the number for your own firm.
Get the spring build slots on the calendar
Cabinet lead times of 6 to 12 weeks mean a January consultation that signs in February builds in April or May. Count how many projects you can start in April and May, and sell exactly that many. "We have four spring build slots left" is true, specific and more persuasive than any discount. Put it in the January ads, the January email and the showroom.
Send one email in early December
To past clients and every open lead from the year: one finished project with its price range, a sentence about spring build slots, and the consultation offer. Send it the first week of December, before inboxes fill with sales. The homeowner who reads it on December 26, standing in the kitchen that just hosted 14 people, is the one who books.
If you do not have the list in one place, this is the month to build it. Past clients, open leads from Houzz, Meta and the website, and referral partners, each tagged, each with consent checked. The list is the cheapest marketing asset you own and most firms have it in four inboxes.
Refresh the reviews and the profile
The homeowner comparing three firms in January reads the last five reviews on each. If yours are from June, that is a signal. Go back through every project finished since September and send the two-text review ask from the reviews guide. Add the fall projects to the Google profile as photos and posts. The median kitchen remodeler has 9 reviews; four new ones in December moves you past a lot of the firms you will be compared against.
List your hours while you are in the profile, including Saturday appointments if you take them. 29.5% of kitchen remodelers show none, and January is when couples look at kitchens together on Saturday mornings.
Cut the winter reels
Every project finished this fall should produce one 20-second before-and-after reel with the designer's voice. Cut six of them in November and schedule them for January and February on Meta, with the consultation offer and the spring build slots in the caption. The Meta guide covers the format and the form.
The checklist
- January and February ad budget scheduled, live January 2
- Text-back and form reply running, one person assigned to inbound in January
- Spring build slots counted and written into ads, email and showroom
- One email to past clients and open leads, first week of December
- Review ask sent for every fall completion, fall photos on the profile, hours listed
- Six reels cut and scheduled
Two of those take an afternoon. All six take a week in November. The payoff is the best six weeks of next year, taken on purpose instead of by accident.
If you would rather have it set up for you, any one of these is a service in the free 14-day trial, and November is a sensible month to start one.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, kitchen remodeling companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor