Summer 2025 News Roundup: Remodeling Trends, Surveys & Digital Marketing Updates

In this special summer roundup episode, Janet and Caitlyn break down the latest news and research shaping the home improvement and remodeling industry. From builder confidence reports and Harvard’s remodeling forecasts to surveys from Qualified Remodeler, AIA, and Houzz, we connect the dots on what these shifts mean for your business. We also dive into the latest platform updates from Meta, Google, and AI-driven search—and how they’re already affecting contractors’ lead generation.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why housing slowdowns may actually fuel remodeling demand
• Key takeaways from industry surveys, including the TOP 500 list and homeowner spending trends
• How Meta’s budget setting changes could affect your ad performance
• Why reviews (and fast responses!) matter more than ever for local SEO visibility

Want to find out how we can create a custom digital marketing game plan for your contractor business? Schedule a call with us at fatcatstrategies.com.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

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Speaker 01: 0:11

Welcome to Digital Marketing for Contractors, a podcast for home improvement contractors to help you crush your lead goals and take your business to the next level. Join us each episode as we give you powerful insights and practical tips on the best digital marketing strategies to help you grow your home improvement business. Let's get started.

Janet: 0:32

Hello and welcome back. I'm Janet. I am the founder of Fat Cat and I've got, as always, or as often with me here, Caitlin, co-owner of Fat Cat Strategies. Say hey, Caitlin.

Caitlyn: 0:43

Hey, Caitlin here. So what are we doing today? We're doing something a little bit different. So as you know, this is our Digital Marketing for Contractors podcast. We are going to today give a roundup of basically what's going on in the industry. Is there news? Is there trends? What's going on in the digital marketing side things and we're going to try to do that in less than 30 minutes

Janet: 1:05

yeah so it's a little bit of a news roundup we've got some some some surveys that have come out some lists that have come out so and

Caitlyn: 1:13

we'd love your feedback if this is not helpful let us know but we're going to try to do it maybe monthly

Janet: 1:17

yeah we'll see

Caitlyn: 1:18

so a lot of news going on

Janet: 1:19

yeah there's news in the industry and we're just trying to help you stay on top of all the different things that we read and see and the things that come across our desk during the course of a day a lot of things come across our desk oh So many

Caitlyn: 1:33

things. And so that being said, I mean, summer obviously just came to an end. Labor Day was last weekend. Whenever you're listening to this, I mean, we're wrapping some things up. There were some headlines that are worth noting going into the fall from a couple of really credible sources, industry sources. Janet's going to share what those headlines are, and then we're going to talk a little bit about those.

Janet: 1:54

Yeah. So let's talk about the two big headlines that we've been reading and talking about here inside of Fat Cat. And those two headlines come from two different sources. Source number one is the National Association of Home Builders and source number two is the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. So on one hand you've got the Home Builders Association that has this actually honestly a little bit gloomy headline coming out of it. It's not even a little bit it's just straight up gloomy. So the National Association of Home Builders said that July of 2025 marked the 16 consecutive months of a falling housing market index. So that means every month for 16 months, the index that they track and that kind of tracks like the health of the home building industry, that index is trending down. And we all know, even though I said a lot of words, if you're looking at a chart, you want the line to go up to the right, not down. And so the home builders are saying lines going down. And in fact, 38% of builders who were surveyed in July reported that they are actually cutting their prices. And that's the highest percent of home builders reporting on that since they started tracking it in 2022. So that's on the kind of the negative side of the coin. Now let's talk about the flip side of that. So that's the news coming out of the National Association of Home Builders. If we look at one of my favorite sources, which is Harvard has I don't even know if it's called a department. I kind of picture it like a magic building. It's called the Joint Center for Housing Studies. There's a whole website that anybody can go and look at, and this center does just a ton of analysis and really solid writing, and they put out infographics all about housing in the United States. And that looks at total housing inventory, who owns it, demographics, trends, what's being built. Part of that Joint Center for Housing Studies includes some really amazing analysis on the remodeling industry, which is what you guys care about. And in fact, they have, this center has what they call LIRA, L-I-R-A. That is the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity. They look at a bunch of numbers, they crunch them, and then they give us a forecast. That forecast is predicting that Q1 of 2026, we're going to see an uptick in remodeling activity. Praise. So if we put these two thoughts together, I'd love to get your input on this, Caitlin. It kind of makes sense to me. If we're not building as many homes, people still want to live and eat inside. That means they're going to be remodeling more. Right. So to me, as a non-economist, non-math nerd. Sure. I just think it's totally logical that if you see some sort of crunch in housing, you're going to see an uptick in remodeling.

Caitlyn: 5:10

Always.

Janet: 5:10

We've

Caitlyn: 5:11

been doing this for a long time, Janet. I mean, it's going to ebb and flow, and that's what we've been telling our clients, too, is, yeah, this year, if you're listening to it, I mean, and you're shaking your head, like, this has not been the best year in terms of lead generation, you name it, for just digital presence. A lot has been shaken both, you know, out of our control, in our control, And I think it's funny that these two headlines do conflict. But I also think that it's something to look forward to and something we're coaching as we're preparing for 2026 is do the legwork now. We know prices have dropped. We know things have slowed down. That means you cannot stop marketing. You cannot stop marketing your business. You just you can't. And I'm tying it, of course, selfishly back to what we do here. Right. But it's easy to hold back and pull back when things are not going well. well. We've seen many, many, many companies make that mistake. This is not the time to do that. Harvard's telling us,

Janet: 6:08

yeah, there's going to be more interest in remodeling. And in fact, I'm just going to go ahead and segue into the next section and look at, there's some new lists that have come out and a few surveys that I think sort of bolster our argument here that even though things may look a little gloomy on the house building side, there's room to be hopeful on the remodeling side so what's the first um what's the top of the list here when we're moving into looking at surveys and some lists that have been published

Caitlyn: 6:43

yeah no totally and i'm reflecting back on um i didn't talk about what i was going to say in the last segment oh do it now but yeah i'll go ahead and do it so uh my husband works for a fortune 500 company which does help um segue into the next conversation we're going to have and they do all new builds new home builds. I don't want to go into too many details. They're all over the country, right? They're all over the country, national company, huge company. And they've only focused on building homes. And the insulation that goes is one of those things that they do. Yeah, they install

Janet: 7:18

insulation. I know Janet can explain it better than what

Caitlyn: 7:20

I can. They

Janet: 7:20

install, they're insulation installers, which is really hard to say.

Caitlyn: 7:24

Yeah, no. And so like to tie back to these two headlines, they just made an announcement that they have added on a remodeling division to that portion of their company. Because

Janet: 7:38

they saw their business with new home construction

Caitlyn: 7:40

slow down. 100%. It has. It's completely slowed down. Again, I can't give away too much, but they've had to go through a lot of different changes as well to adapt to this slower period, which is absolutely accurate. But they're optimistic about what's going to come by adding on this remodeling division. So the

Janet: 7:57

conversations that you're having around your kitchen table mirror what we're seeing. 100%. 100% that we're talking about on this podcast and that we see at work. Yes,

Caitlyn: 8:05

yeah, and whether they're actually happening or I'm just snooping. So anyway, so back to the surveys, and we talked about the Fortune 500. The Qualified Remodeler, if you're listening and don't know, you should know, they come out with a list of the top 500 companies in terms of what they install, dollar volume, how many years they've been in business, what associations they're involved in, certifications, etc. So it's a really, really solid list of companies that ranks the top remodelers every single year.

Janet: 8:40

Yeah, and that list just came out. We love it when that list comes out. Again, listener, if you're not aware of this list, it's a great resource. I think it's a great resource for smaller companies to aspire. You know, you look at some of the bigger companies that maybe you've never heard of. Maybe they're six states away from you. And you can look at their website, look at what they're doing Maybe learn from companies who've blazed a trail ahead of you that are, you know, maybe they're in the top 15 or 20 or even top 100 of this top 500. We just think it's such an amazing resource for this industry. We love it when this list comes out. And if you're not aware of it, go check it out. Go check it out. Qualified Remodeler Top 500. Top

Caitlyn: 9:23

500. It comes out every year. You obviously have to submit information that you have to be willing to share with the world. Yeah. But it did report that there were nearly 25 billion remodeling sales. I'm not even saying that the right way, but like there was about... $25

Janet: 9:44

billion in remodeling was spent in the United States across 2.2 million completed jobs. Correct,

Caitlyn: 9:51

correct. So that's

Janet: 9:52

amazing. That's a lot of remodeling activity.

Caitlyn: 9:54

That's fantastic. And that's coming just from those 500 companies who submitted, you know, to be on this list. Correct. So beyond numbers, one of the biggest takeaways is how companies are not just doing single services anymore. If you go to that list, which I hope you do, you're going to see, I mean, I promise you the top 15, maybe the top 50 are offering multiple services like roofing, siding, windows, baths. It's not just one and done. And this supports, Janet, a couple of other surveys that we have to share.

Janet: 10:30

Well, it does. It doesn't just support the surveys. It supports some of the trends that we've seen in terms of search with the major platforms. But before we get to that, let's wrap up some of the other surveys. That's a good point. So we've got Qualified Remodeler has published its new list. We've got two other headlines that we wanted to share. The American Institute of Architects has recently published a survey that they did with their members. 62% of the architects surveyed report an uptick in adu projects so those are accessory dwelling units yes which to me that kind of goes back to this whole housing thing it does you know if if we're not building enough houses people got to live somewhere and i think there's an interest in folks building these accessory dwelling units and renting them out having them be mother-in-law suites correct so if you are a gc and you can build one of these guys maybe there's an adu in your future

Caitlyn: 11:31

yeah so i think that's super important and like again as an add-on project like as an add-on service

Janet: 11:38

yes additions so the other survey i wanted to hit on is house h-o-u-z-z the website we all know and love house surveyed 22 000 homeowners through their website and 54 of those surveyed reported that they did some sort of kitchen or bath project in 2024 so that's over half now That doesn't surprise me because you're asking people who are on house, and they're probably on house because they're looking at cabinet colors.

Caitlyn: 12:07

Yeah, you're on Pinterest because you're trying to plan a wedding. You're on house because you're

Janet: 12:11

planning a bathroom remodel.

Caitlyn: 12:13

Yes, but still. So over half of those people still renovated in 2024.

Janet: 12:18

Now, the one thing that also mirrors what we've seen is, according to the survey results, the median budget for those projects dropped about $4,000 compared to 2023 so more than half of people are remodeling but they're spending slightly less on the overall project ties back to what the

Caitlyn: 12:40

hba was saying about builders having to cut their prices yes so that goes hand in hand

Janet: 12:46

yes

Caitlyn: 12:47

um kitchens though remain the most popular

Janet: 12:50

yeah on on house even though you know the architects are telling us that they're seeing an uptick in adus when people are surveyed on house the number one thing that they want to remodel is their kitchen

Caitlyn: 13:01

Yep. Followed by primary bathrooms. So just a couple of things to note, like in terms of, are you offering those services? Are you thinking about offering those services? Is there, there's an interest in the market for you to offer those? There is definitely an interest. That's a great point. So because we're digital marketers, we obviously love these surveys. We love these resources. Most of them did come directly from pro remodeler linked back to those specific sources. Anyways, we always recommend reference google search trends um that's where we live and breathe to make a lot of decisions uh from your seo to your pbc to what's working on your website etc google search trends it's a free tool you can use it um go find it what we saw uh diy kitchen and diy bathroom searches so somebody who physically goes to google and searches on terms related to doing it themselves correct are way down from COVID peaks.

Janet: 14:05

That doesn't surprise me. It doesn't surprise me at all. People were stuck

Caitlyn: 14:08

at home. You were at home. You

Janet: 14:09

were hating your bathroom. You were hating your kitchen. Yeah, I think to me the theme here with all of this, you know, the news coming out of the home builders, the news coming out of the Harvard Center for, you know, looking at remodeling, there's still projects to be done. Right. But it is not the peak of COVID. No. Where, I mean, during the peak of COVID, we were all stuck at home or so many people who had maybe never worked from home before are suddenly working from home five days a week.

Caitlyn: 14:41

Hating their home.

Janet: 14:42

Hating their home. Their kids are going to school from home. If you're listening to this and you were in business, then you know it. Yeah. You know that you were as busy as you wanted to be.

Caitlyn: 14:53

That 2021 year was phenomenal. Yes. Yes.

Janet: 14:57

And we were kind of all riding that crest from 2021. Really? Until like mid-2024. What

Caitlyn: 15:03

did it say? Since 2022. That was one of the years when the pricing started to decrease. On new home builds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On new home builds. Yeah, home builds, yes. Sorry. I'm talking about remodeling. Yeah, sorry. I thought it was... Anyways. Anyways. Lots of numbers. Lots of numbers.

Janet: 15:17

We got a little bit confused. Huge interest. Huge opportunity in the country to make money doing remodeling. That opportunity is still there. But... The leads are going to be a little bit harder to come by. Yes. There's going to be more competition and your marketing is going to have to be really on point. But the good news is that not as many people are searching on DIY anymore. No. If they're going to do a project, they want to hire somebody. So that's kind of like where, you know, that's our read on the pulse right now. That there's still opportunities, but, you know, I mean, I'll just tell a personal story in the middle of COVID it was prices cutting on projects on projects I thought it was on homes 38% of builders reported cutting prices but those are on new home builds just new home builds

Caitlyn: 16:16

yes It doesn't matter. In our show notes, we'll have the links to all of these resources.

Janet: 16:24

I would love it for somebody to come on and argue with us about numbers.

Caitlyn: 16:28

I was just reading this like, oh, we've just had to cut prices. But anyways, on new home builds. On new home builds. Janet's going to keep going. We were talking about a personal story about these surveys and the

Janet: 16:45

headlines. So, I mean, the way I relate to... The opportunity and strong remodeling industry in COVID, during the middle of COVID, I personally did this more than once. Sitting at a stoplight, I see a truck with a brand on it, some kind of remodeling service that I need with a phone number. I was taking pictures of trucks on the highway and at stoplights and honestly like if I saw somebody in my neighborhood I'd go marching my happy ass up in the middle of their driveway and trying to distract that contractor while he's working on somebody else's job because I literally could not get anybody to call me back you know I had gutters that needed to be replaced my driveway needed to be repaved there were things I wanted done I was calling folks I was filling out forms you were nobody was calling me back listener that day is not today homeowners are not tracking you down at a stoplight to get your phone number so there are still leads out there but you're going to have to work harder to get them you're going to have to be a better marketer you're going to have to have an online presence you're going to have to have multiple lead sources and all news items that we're looking at and industry analysts are showing that same thing that there's still demand there but it's not the rah-rah that it was in 2020 21, 22, and even like really the most of 2023. Yeah. And so when we look at that top 500 list, the companies that we see performing the best are those more mature companies that might have multiple offerings. Their marketing is on point. They might be running TV ads. They've got a canvassing game. They've got a strong, they did not

Caitlyn: 18:45

stop their marketing.

Janet: 18:46

They did not stop their marketing. They've got a strong call center. It's, where we see companies struggling the most are those smaller companies that may not have the ability to staff a call center. That's right. They're not able to, you know, have that speed to lead reply. They have seen the cost of their third party leads that they're buying from like Angie's List and Home Advisor. They've seen the cost of those go up and the quality go down. All of those are indicators of a slight cooling in remodeling, but But it doesn't mean there's not opportunity there. There's still opportunity. And some of these studies are indicating that first quarter 2026, it's going to be a little bit on the uptick.

Caitlyn: 19:30

That's fantastic. So hunker down, hang tight. We'll let you guys know if any of those stats change.

Janet: 19:38

Okay, so let's talk about platforms. And what do we mean by platforms? Platforms are the big tech companies. Meta, which is Facebook and Instagram. Google, we all know Google. And then AI is not really a platform. It's technology and there's a bunch of companies out there, but there's news to share on the platform. On the digital marketing side

Caitlyn: 19:57

of the tools that we are using, that you're maybe using. Yeah, so Caitlin, what is up with Meta? Well, thank God I was on vacation, to be honest. Yeah, it was super confusing. I think I was it was the Friday right before Labor Day, which is just cruel. And there was a bunch of alerts that went out um through the meta platform advertising platform alerting uh anybody who was advertising like whoa whoa whoa you've got to start paying up

Janet: 20:29

front for your ads which okay in 25 years what is how long i've been doing it you've been doing it say 15 years yeah have you ever seen a digital platform ask for advertisers to pay up front

Caitlyn: 20:45

god no i mean like i'm sitting here thinking of things that i pay up front for it's certainly not Facebook ads.

Janet: 20:53

No, I don't even know how that would work because digital ads are based on the activity, whether you're clicking, whether the ad was displayed to somebody, whether the video was shown. So how do you bill in advance for that?

Caitlyn: 21:06

So you can't, and Meta took that back, undid it, hit the undo button.

Janet: 21:13

So they made this big stink the Friday before Labor Day, and then come Tuesday, they were like, Like, psych, we didn't mean any of that.

Caitlyn: 21:22

This is hard. And let's not do that. We have other things to worry about. So that was a quick thing with meta. I think a takeaway there is, you know, whether it's you or your agency in the platform and you're getting alerted from any of these resources that you are paying a lot of money to use, take a beat, pause. A lot of it isn't as, I'm trying to say this the best way because it's, it's not a big of a fire that you think it is. Let the holiday weekend pass.

Janet: 21:56

Yeah.

Caitlyn: 21:57

If it gets shut down, it won't. I'm just like, I want your

Janet: 22:01

money. They're not going to shut down your

Caitlyn: 22:02

account. Right, right, right, right. And many times you always see this, this is like a tactic that's just spam and it's just bad. So always consult with your agency or somebody before you click and commit to anything like giving Facebook money up front because that's the last thing Facebook needs.

Janet: 22:19

Just like you don't want to get scammed by fake people on Facebook. You don't want to get scammed by the actual Facebook

Caitlyn: 22:26

either. Thank you. Let's not. Let's not. Let's not. Let's not. Other things with Meta, just to let you know whether you care or you don't care, they shifted from a min-max spend setting to average spend limits. So this is interesting. I haven't been as close in the Meta advertising platform, like on the back end, because there's experts that we have on our team that do that. But that being said, that's interesting because this is now probably going to hurt performance on peak days, like after storms for roofing contractors. So instead of having those min-max spin settings to just having average, yeah, I'm out here processing out loud kind of the repercussions. I think what it means is

Janet: 23:17

you could have your ads stop showing on a day when you really want them to show because it's being averaged out over the month rather than allowing to have peaks and valleys throughout the month.

Caitlyn: 23:29

Right, right. You can't see my face, but I'm trying to process why they would do that.

Janet: 23:34

Yeah, we don't know.

Caitlyn: 23:35

So instead of optimizing for high engagement days like Janet said, it could actually cap spend which reaches you at a limit. So just keep an eye on that. Yeah,

Janet: 23:44

your spend could get cut off. Let's say by, I don't know, 3 o'clock in the afternoon, when your audience likes to come home after work and that's when you have historically gotten more engagement absolutely yeah so we don't know what's what's up with we don't know what the hell's going on with meta but like they made this weird announcement last week and now they've got this shift from min budget settings to average which we think could hurt i mean we have roofers who tell us like hey look at the weather totally if there's an ice storm coming oh yeah you know let's let's run ads. Let's, um,

Caitlyn: 24:22

I'll, I'll say this. And I, I mean, we recommend meta to clients with, it's, it, it's not, it doesn't answer everything. It's not the cure. No, it's not going to be your end all be all. It's part of the whole solution. It's part of the whole solution. And so like, we're saying what's up with meta. If you're on the fence about meta right now, I mean, I don't think you're missing a lot. Um, yeah, it's that, I guess that's the headline. So,

Janet: 24:50

Yeah. I just, we like to follow what's going on with the platforms. Yeah, totally. And I kind of chuckled with that whole, like.

Caitlyn: 24:56

That's insane.

Janet: 24:57

Let's make a big deal out of it, and then let's turn around three days later and go, never mind.

Caitlyn: 25:02

I don't even mean it. What time on Friday? That's just terrible.

Janet: 25:04

Yeah, right before Labor Day weekend.

Caitlyn: 25:06

Okay, something else that's really fun, fun, quote unquote fun, that we hear a ton from, and this is critical. This is so, so, so, so critical. Review management. is dominating across industries. This isn't news. You guys know this. If you're, again, a remodeling contractor and you don't have reviews, I am quite unsure how you're in business. Not to just be... Yeah, but

Janet: 25:34

I think the headline is the platforms, specifically Google, are taking it even a step further. Even more serious. So we know that reviews have been critical to service businesses for years. Have to be. But... There's a new study coming out of Yext, Y-E-X-T, which is another industry analyst that we follow. Yes. This group studied 8.7 million Google searches to see how local business profiles, those Google business profiles, how they show up across different industries. And what they found is that if you are slow to respond to reviews that can negatively impact whether or not your business shows up in searches on maps and for that Google local business

Caitlyn: 26:28

profile. while so I'm going to say that again because yes I went on a riff about how important it is to get reviews but now not only is it important to get those reviews you have to respond to those and quickly in a timely fashion right like very fast

Janet: 26:45

so this what this what this study is telling us and what's even weirder about it is it seems to vary by region yeah by region so in the northeast let's say you're a painter and you're in Connecticut. If you take two weeks to respond to somebody that leaves you a review, that's not going to have as big of an impact on whether or not your painting business shows up when someone searches for a painter. It's not going to have as big of an impact as if you were in Atlanta. So in the South and the West, if you are slow to respond to reviews, that could make it so that your Google business profile just doesn't even show up. when people are searching for your services. It's crazy. And then in the Midwest, what the survey found is that even if you get a review on the weekend and you're slow in responding, it can hurt your online visibility. Yeah, that's insane. So we'll put links to all this stuff in the show notes. I was frankly surprised at this. We've always known reviews are critical. We preach it to our clients, get reviews. The news headline here is, Not only get the reviews, but you have to respond to them, both the positive and the negatives, and you have to do it lickety split.

Caitlyn: 28:06

Lickety split. I think the regional side of things and the industry side of things is weird. And I would take that with a grain of salt. Because, I mean, this was published, I just looked, like August 15th, 2025. Google's going to do Google. They're going to change what they're going to change. But please, please, please, please respond to those reviews. We at Fat Cat have several tools that... offer a solution to respond to those quickly um but say you take

Janet: 28:32

that task off your plate

Caitlyn: 28:33

yeah that totally can take that task off your plate um so one reach out to your agency see if they have a a tool that to help you responding to reviews quickly because that's so critical um if you don't work with an agency you know it's not in the budget right now assign a dedicated responder like i don't know how many reviews you're getting a day but just make sure you responses.

Janet: 28:58

Yeah, maybe it's your office manager, the person who answers your phones, or even the person that does your bookkeeping.

Caitlyn: 29:04

I have the joy somehow of receiving an email every single time one of our clients gets a review. So you can have a setting that that person also gets a review or gets an email and they can just click.

Janet: 29:16

Go ahead and have some templated responses that they can copy and paste, make minor edits to because what this search engine journal report is telling us is that the timeliness in your response impacts your online visibility yeah absolutely um

Caitlyn: 29:37

were we going to mention something about

Janet: 29:39

yeah well there was something else here i'm looking at the show notes um you know while we're doing this this roundup the summer roundup of like things that we've happened seen happen with the platform so we know that meta did the weird thing with billing google is doing something where they rank you based on how quickly you respond to reviews And then the third thing that we were going to mention is something kind of interesting that we've seen with AI-driven search. So this is either going on something like perplexity or chat GPT where you say like, hey, what's a reputable exterior remodeling contractor in the Raleigh, North Carolina area or however you phrase that search. Those AI-powered search engines are now favoring companies that have multiple solutions more than they're favoring companies that only do one thing or specialize in one thing. So for example, if you had a roofing company and the only thing you do is roofing, you don't do windows, you don't do gutters, and that's what your website says, like everything on your website is about roofing and about nothing else. For a homeowner that's using an AI search engine your company is not going to show up when another company that could be newer, younger, not as reputable, not as established, but they do window replacement, they build decks, they do siding and roofing. Because they offer more services, the AI bots are recommending those companies more so than these one-solution companies.

Caitlyn: 31:22

And let's bring that back home, and maybe I'll reference the right stat here. Isn't that what the survey was saying? That the companies that are doing the best, I'm like making, like summarizing everything, the companies that are performing the best are offering multiple services.

Janet: 31:40

Yeah, that was one of the findings that came out of that Harvard study. Harvard study, yes.

Caitlyn: 31:45

So

Janet: 31:45

like that

Caitlyn: 31:46

tracks. Yeah. So not only is Google preferring you or any AI search. The AI generated search. AI meaning, like I was thinking Gemini AI. Yes, okay. OpenAI, Perplexity, whatever you're using on search for AI. Those AI

Janet: 32:03

summaries, wherever you're seeing them.

Caitlyn: 32:05

Your business is showing up if you have multiple services offered. But

Janet: 32:09

not showing up as strongly if you specialize in one service. It's so interesting. I'm frankly kind of curious about... I mean, we have had such amazing relationships over the past 10 years with companies that only do bathrooms. Yeah. They just do...

Caitlyn: 32:28

Yeah.

Janet: 32:29

I mean, in those companies, like we're still seeing those companies perform very strongly right now. So I'm just, I mean, it's a little bit of a head scratcher. Like how does that AI preference for contractors that offer multiple services, what does that mean for one day bathroom contractors? I honestly don't have an answer to that. Right.

Caitlyn: 32:51

And if you're looking, I mean, we, I mean, I guess the thing we, I'm not going to riff too much on it, but I guess if you are, are looking for a bathroom remodeling company through AI. I would just be interested to see what shows up.

Janet: 33:09

Yeah, I don't know.

Caitlyn: 33:10

I know. That's what we're, like, I know. Jane's looking at me like, let's, this is, yeah.

Janet: 33:13

Yeah, I mean, so my take on that is, again, so Caitlin, what you warned people when we were talking about meta-changing their billing practice, if you get some random email, before you freak out on any news item related to the internet, please take a beat. Please take a beat. It's changing so fast, and yes, we're seeing this kind of trend with AI generated search results. But at this moment, I don't know that those are the predominant search results. People are still using Google the quote unquote old way. Yes. So your Google business profile is still king for now. Yes. As of September the 3rd, 2025. Yes. But it's just something to watch. Yeah. It's something to watch and it's a rapidly evolving story. so

Caitlyn: 34:08

bottom line for the fall I think this was a good long episode lots of updates lots of opinions whether they're right or wrong you know there are opinions and

Janet: 34:19

yeah

Caitlyn: 34:19

digital marketing is going to change we're reading the news and chatting about it yeah we're chatting about it I think Janet already nailed it you gotta make sure to work on your review game no matter what you have to set up a system to generate reviews and respond to those same day if not faster

Janet: 34:35

yeah and you know if we're if we're looking at the information coming out of um that harvard center for joint housing studies the prognostication is that remodeling is due for an uptick and a stronger year-over-year performance starting q1 next year yes which is what four months away um so keep marketing keep fighting for those jobs a little bit of sunshine might be uh yeah come into remodeling it will while home builders could still be struggling

Caitlyn: 35:11

yeah

Janet: 35:11

absolutely um well as always we're here um yeah we'd love to hear feedback if you found this episode helpful or if you'd rather go back us to go back to talking about like one tactic at a time this is sort of a news roundup

Caitlyn: 35:26

news our first news roundup hopefully not the last um but as always please share this with your friend in the industry subscribe it's so easy to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast so you do get notified I get a notification every Wednesday morning on my phone that a new digital marketing for contractors podcast has released so you can get that too if you subscribe to us and please speaking of reviews leave us a review that's all we have until next time until next time y'all thank you thank you

Speaker 01: 36:00

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