icm20

ICM January-February 2017

Marketing... Thinking about using Angie’s List? Read this first Angie’s List was launched in 1995 after one of its co-founders was having troubling finding an HVAC specialist in suburban Columbus, OH. He’d used a service in his previous home in Indianapolis that was essentially a neighborhood newsletter that pointed out good local contractors each month. When he moved, he looked for a similar service. Finding none, he called on his former intern and recent college graduate, Angie Hicks, and proposed she start one. Twenty-one years later, that service, Angie’s List, helps more than 4.5 million homeowners find reliable local HVAC specialists and just about anyone else they might need to keep their homes in good working order. About 2,400 heating and cooling contractors and about 100 home heating oil companies nationwide have multiple, recent consumer reviews on Angie’s List. Some of those companies have as few as two reviews; others have hundreds. How to join the Angie’s List system Companies can have their profile information listed on Angie’s List to give homeowners searching for a contractor a place to start. However, it’s the companies with good grades on multiple, recent reviews that are most often selected. Why? Because when consumers turn to Angie’s List for help, they’re looking for companies with great reputations. Getting a review on Angie’s List requires a company to have a customer submit their story about their hiring experience. Members are required to honestly relate their own experience, giving grades for how well the companies met expectations for quality work, responsiveness, price and professionalism. Some present the bare facts; others present great detail about their experience. Angie’s List uses internal tools and human review to ensure the evaluations meet their standards for authenticity and have a team who investigate any red flags, whether they’re triggered inside the company or come from contractors. They also have an annual, independent audit to ensure the standards are met and that all reviews are treated the same whether they’re about advertisers or non-advertisers. There is no cost to companies for these reviews. Nor is there a cost to register your company on the Angie’s List website, which you can do at: http://www. angieslistbusinesscenter.com/ Advertising with Angie’s List Once a company has at least two current reviews that give them at least an overall grade of B, they become eligible to advertise their services and participate in eCommerce on the Angie’s List marketplace. In addition to grades, advertisers have to pass a criminal background check and agree to adhere to high standards of customer service. If their grade average drops, their advertising is revoked. Advertising and eCommerce participation includes a wide variety of options. You can advertise at the neighborhood level or national level, or markets in between, or by keywords or in the company’s Call Center. The price range is literally from hundreds of dollars to several thousands of dollars. The good news here is that the company rebuilt its advertising model early in 2016. They now have teams called Client Success, who focus on learning companies’ business needs and tailoring an appropriate ad spend to it. Angie’s List handled about $52 million in eCommerce sales the first part of 2016. The most popular 20 ICM/January/February 2017


ICM January-February 2017
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