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Guest Post by Joanne Hong- How Houzz and VSCO Have Changed the Ad Game

Social media has become an essential marketing component for businesses and

advertisers simply used social media platforms to connect with their consumers when the industry was disrupted by the rise of social media. However, given consumers too much choice might not be a good thing. According to Barry Schwartz from Ad Age, consumers quickly feel overwhelmed by the large amount of information and start to have a negative feeling towards these ads. It’s important for today’s advertisers to adopt the new strategy —– engage their consumers. So how Houzz and VSCO engage their users with the advertisers?

VSCO

As a creative photo editing tool and a rising contents sharing community, VSCO(also known as Visual Supply Company) engage their users with brands by connecting them through Ava. Based on Marty Swent’s description, Ava, VSCO’s machine-learning-technology, will find the right photographers (which are the users of VSCO) for brands’ campaign by analyzing the mood of these users’ contents and personalities. After brands publish the contents that created by these photographers across their own digital and social media channels, and their followers will engage by reposting, sharing, commenting, and checking out their social platforms. Which means – their consumers are advertising and building their brand image for them VOLUNTERLY.

Houzz

For businesses in remodeling and home building, Houzz is the best platform for remodelers. It helps them to engage with their clients, build their brand images, and generate more sales. In these photo-centric industries, it’s important for brand to promote themselves through professional and high-quality images that increase brand awareness; and to engage with the community through answering questions for the homeowners, get good reviews, and creating ideabooks for different clients. According to Alanna Potosky from Blue Corona, reputation, prompt communication, and good authority are the components that Houzz’s users think are most important when it comes to hiring a professional. 

When done correctly, Houzz and VSCO can be very effective tools for advertisers and should be implemented into businesses overall strategies in every industry. If you want to learn more about VSCO, check out my post Who are the Target Audiences of VSCO.

 

 About Joanne

My name is Joanne Hong, I am a Georgia State University’s student who major in marketing and certified in advertising. I’m a minimalist who ridiculously passionate about café-hunting, photo editing and trying out new restaurants. That’s why I started my first blog to introduce you the best photo editing app – VSCO (and many good restaurants in Atlanta). Check out my personal blog https://theultimateguidetovscoco.wordpress.com

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Houzz and Gartner’s Hype Cycle

Houzz is without a doubt, in my opinion, in the Plateau of Productivity of the Hype Cycle, but let’s see why:

Gartner’s Hype Cycle describes the Plateau of Productivity as the beginning of mainstream adoption, when the real-world benefit€ of the technology are predictable and broadly acknowledged. By the time they reach the plateau, technologies are increasingly delivered as out-of-the-box solutions. As a technology achieves full maturity and supports thousands of enterprises and millions of users, the hype around it typically disappears and is replaced by a solid body of knowledge about the best ways to apply and deploy it.

  • It has a community of over 40 million monthly unique visitors.
  • The company now operates in the U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Japan, India, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Denmark. Focusing on creating the best experience for each market they operate, adapting to the specific needs of local homeowners and home professionals.
  • Last year, lunched a 3D tool that allows you to visualize how a product would look in your house before you buy it. Users are 11 times more likely to buy the product after using this feature.
  • The company was founded in 2009, big time investors and investment firms are loving the company and have been jumping at the opportunity to invest in it, it has now a total funding of $613 million making it valued at $4 billion
    • Oren Zeev well known investor, led its  Series A and participated in its Series B,D and E rounds.
    • Leading Series D was Sequoia Capital
    • Series E was led by Iconiq Capital and participating were also Wellington Management and GGV Capital
  • Houzz in ranked number 10 in Internet Retailer’s 2018 Online Marketplaces.
  • Its’ target market is a $300 billion industry in the United States and $1.2 trillion if you add the European Market.
  • Will Griffith an Iconiq Capital said that “No other company has the community, technology, breadth or depth that Houzz has created.”
  • Oren Zeev said “the only company providing an end-to-end solution for home renovation and design where people can get inspired, find a professional and shop. It built and introduced its two revenue channels based on the need and demand of its community. Houzz is dominant in attracting consumers and design professionals and strong in partnering with vendors. It has great momentum.”
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UX User experience review on Houzz

Houzz has over 15,000 reviews on the app store with a score of 4.7. If that many people wrote a review, and they still have that score, then they must be doing something right, however, the bad reviews also count and must be taken under consideration for improvement.

With such a growing number of users as we reviewed in Houzz and Gartner’s Hype Cycle there must be some bad experiences.
We will review a few bad posts to determine where most of the negative experience could be coming from.

We were huge fans of Houzz and used them when designing our house but we have since lost all trust and appreciation for Houzz after trying for months to get a negative review posted (about our builder, who currently has a Houzz award showing on their business page) and running into an endless cycle of our review being refused, inquiries to their support system (which is only via their site), trying to talk to someone to find out where we were violating the review policy and getting endless generic answers in response then rewriting it again only to start the cycle all over….

 

I like this app a lot, I use it all of the time. My only wish would be that the editors or whomever is in charge, would ask the architects and designers that if they are going to post photos of their work, they MUST answer questions when people ask! Some of them do, but many others don’t and that is frustrating….

 

So many things about this seller is shady. $1057 sofa that was never received. Almost 2 months later, no sofa, no refund. For starters, the tracking number provided was invalid. Was told the item had been delivered, it certainly wasn’t delivered to me. Was also told the shipping company had called numerous times to arrange shipping.

 

  • It seems that the users are happy with the concept of Houzz, however the frustration comes when using the app, and more so when dealing with vendors. Service providers must take this platform extremely serious and use it to satisfy all of their possible consumers, by failing in doing so, they can gain a bad reputation and decrease the trust of the community in Houzz.
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Others like Houzz

When it comes to interior design, inspiration is everywhere, we all have the potential of being interior designers. There are so many resources, inspirational sites and apps that stimulate our creativity and can help us achieve our goal of the perfect living space. After doing some research, I have found two other apps that, to my opinion,  get pretty close to Houzz, and I am guilty of using them from time to time:

  • Pinterest- You can honestly find inspiration for anything your heart desires. Just type in the room and style that you want and countless of images appear with links to the websites so you can shop for different designs or ideas for renovations or tutorials on how you can be the master of DIY. Pinterest is Houzz’s biggest competitor traffic wise with an outstanding 697.99 million visits and a 45.17% bounce rate in September, more than 33 times the traffic of Houzz*.
    However, while you are looking through all these options, there is always the irrelevant post that comes up and might distract you from your main focus. Houzz, unlike Pinterest, only focuses on interior design and will make sure you stay on track with your research, additionally you can find an expert to help you with your project.
  • Wayfair- This is the closest app to Houzz and, in my opinion, its biggest competitor due to its similarities of the functions. Wayfair had over 53 million visits and a 45.07% bounce rate, in September, more than double the visits and a lower bounce rate than Houzz had, they also have great, affordable and a wonderful variety of furniture and decor to choose from, I know because I have bought several items from them. You can shop by room, style and room ideas and just like Houzz, it has a feature that allows you to see an item in your room. As great as Wayfair is, it still doesn’t offer a directory to home improvement experts, or a variety of vendors to choose your furniture from.

These great apps can serve as backups for Houzz, and it is always a good idea to have several resources, especially when it comes to your home, there can never be enough research.

Check out my Who uses Houzz post to find all the statistics on Houzz.

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Who Uses Houzz

I am a primary user of Houzz, as a homeowner, I constantly want to improve my house, I am always looking for new decor or little projects that will make my house cozier, it is my favorite place in the world and I want to make it even better. I have found contact information for a professional to change to Harwood floors, I am pretty much obsessed with their View in my room 3D feature, I have gone around my house testing different furniture pieces from countless vendors before purchasing them. Anytime I want to find a professional for a project I have in mind, I am provided with a directory of experts for my specific need.

Houzz received over 21 million visits in September, 81.23% came form the United States, and a 56.41% bounce rate. In only nine years, it has become a community of over forty million homeowners, home improvement professionals and home design lovers from all around the world. It is a platform that connects home professionals with people designing and improving their homes.
Houzz targets the audience of service providers, vendors and consumers in the design industry.
-Houzz Marketplace has over 9 million products from over 200,000 sellers, Houzz takes 15% commission per transaction.
-There are over 1.5 million home remodeling professionals .
–75% of traffic are 35-64 year olds.
-72% of users are decorating.
-40% of users are remodeling.
-10% of users are new construction projects.
–90% of Houzz users are homeowners. 9% of these homeowners are 25-34 years old, 17% are 35-44 years old, 25% are 45-54 years old, 32% are 55-64 years old and 17% are over 65 years of age.

Investor Oren Zeev referred to Houzz as “the only company providing an end-to-end solution for home renovation and design where people can get inspired, find a professional and shop. It built and introduced its two revenue channels based on the need and demand of its community. Houzz is dominant in attracting consumers and design professionals and strong in partnering with vendors”

Houzz has, without a doubt, facilitated the designing and renovating process for consumers like me and with a community and traffic that is rapidly increasing, marketers will want to jump at the opportunity to take advantage of this platform to market their business, gain exposure and connect homeowners with design and building experts.

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What is Houzz

Adi Tatarko and Alon Cohen were renovating their house back in 2009, struggling with their vision and finding the right people for the projects they had in mind. Thats when they came up with the idea of Houzz, and provided a solution that would make the process of renovation and decoration simpler.
The exact concept of Houzz could not be better explained than by the own words of the co-founder and CEO, Adi Tatarko,

“On Houzz, you can find inspiration, advice and professionals for any style, budget and home. Whether you are decorating a small room on a tight budget in the city or building a very expensive custom home in the countryside. Houzz helps make the process of improving or designing your home more fun and productive, no matter what your taste, style or budget.”

What started as a side project in 2009 has grown into a $4 billion company, making its CEO, Adi Tatarko, one of Forbes America’s Richest Self-Made Women, worth an approximate $300 million.

 

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About me

My name is Karen, I was born in Ecuador and I am a life lover! I am a Marketing student and I have a full time job. I absolutely love my job, it allows to travel the world and I have been very fortunate to have the opportunity to go to many breathtaking places and leave a piece of my heart in every country I go to. I am fascinated with other cultures and their food and I try to immerse myself into them when I am abroad, I also love photography, not that I am an expert or anything, but I do love to capture all the amazing places I get to see. I have been thinking about starting a blog about my travels and adventures, but that is on hold, at least until after I graduate from school, it is hard enough to try to balance school, work and traveling, I would not want to add any more to my plate right now.

A couple of years ago I bought my condo and ever since then I am a home decor junkie. I am sure that all new homeowners can relate, retail and shoe shopping are not my thing anymore, if I am out shopping, you can find me at any home decor store.
Lately, I have been doing some minor renovations in my condo and I am constantly looking for new ideas and decor, especially when I am abroad, I love finding unique art in local markets. I am fascinated by the design industry and wish I was creative enough to be a designer, unfortunately that is not the case, so that is where this blog comes in, I have found an amazing amount of inspiration online on what I want to do with my place and after a lot of daydreaming and research, I think I found my new favorite app, Houzz.

So get ready to read about a lot of bragging, experiences, opinions and statistics about Houzz. I am sure that you will love it as much as I do, specially if you are planning on decorating or improving your home.

 

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