More than double the enquiries on our own media. A partner that can try and learn alongside us.

FIND Inc., which runs home renovation and real estate businesses, felt it had a problem winning enquiries through its own channels, and began working with us in September 2020.

We asked Mr Tomita, Senior Managing Director, about the digital marketing worries that renovation companies face and what led to working with NowVillage.

Struggling to control the number of enquiries from the web

― First, could you tell us your position and team?

I am Tomita, Senior Managing Director and Executive General Manager of the Corporate Planning Department at FIND Inc. I am responsible for corporate planning, marketing and the corporate departments.

― What are your goals in marketing?

First and foremost, to hit our annual order target. Our KPI is the number of enquiries from each traffic source. Other indicators include the number of on-site surveys, the on-site survey rate, the closing rate and the order value. Each channel has different evaluation indicators, so we optimise against each of them.

Our medium- to long-term policy is to increase the share of customers acquired through our own channels. At present we partly rely on other companies’ platforms to attract customers, so we recognise the need to grow the volume from our own channels within our channel mix.

― Before you asked us, what marketing initiatives were you working on?

We had done one-off landing page production and web advertising, but did not get the results we hoped for. The budget itself was not very large, and the question was when to give up, before the advertising even had a chance to show results. That may be a familiar story at companies that cannot quite commit to digital marketing.

We were getting a fair number of enquiries from magazines and portal sites, but the conversion through the funnel was poor; even when we put a lot of work into each one, very few led to a contract.

Digital marketing isn’t just about building a landing page; you need an all-round approach covering site navigation, SEO, social media and so on. At the time we tried asking specialists in landing page production and web advertising, but the real headache was that there were few people we could consult about digital marketing as a whole.

― It seems you were already doing a certain amount of digital marketing before working with us. Were you aware of challenges on the web side even then?

Yes. We had reposted blog articles we had written in the past as columns on our own site, and started on social media, but there were no clear goals, so it was more like “let’s just put some articles up”. With no know-how in choosing SEO keywords, we were really just churning out volume.

On the web, I wanted to get to a state where we could control the number of enquiries to some extent, like a tap: “if we put in this much ad budget, we can generate this many enquiries”. If you depend too much on other companies’ platforms for your placements, you can’t respond flexibly, and in our case, if enquiries rise too much there is also a risk that our people on the ground can’t keep up. So I felt things would be tough unless we moved to a set-up led by our own channels.

A relationship where we can try and learn together, seeing things the same way

― How did you first come to know about us?

It started with a conversation with a company president I know, who asked me, “Don’t you have challenges around web marketing?” He said, “There’s someone I’d like to introduce you to. Would you like to hear what they have to say?”, and I said, “Yes, please.” That is how Mr Imamura, NowVillage’s Representative Director, came to see us.

At that meeting I talked to him about our challenges with attracting customers and our future plans. When I said, “I want to systematise web marketing know-how within the company”, he replied, “In that case, we can help you.”

― Why did you choose us?

I suppose our perspectives matched in conversation. As we talked, I clearly felt that our ways of thinking fitted.

“Renovation” covers a huge variety of areas, and I think the strategy a company should adopt differs completely from one company to another, and you picked up on that carefully. It also suited us that you didn’t talk in stereotypes like “That’s what construction is like”, “Renovation is this sort of thing, isn’t it?” or “Other sites do it this way”.

Web marketing isn’t a case of “do this and you’ll succeed”; it is something you optimise through hypotheses and trial and error. That requires constant communication on both sides. In that respect, NowVillage is a reliable partner that sees things from the same perspective and goes through trial and error with us.

Enquiries more than doubled

― When did you start working with us, and what specific initiatives were involved?

We started in September 2020. At the time, we began by improving the paths through the site, for example improving conversions and making sure people did not drop out, even at the enquiry form. In parallel we also started building a landing page for a new service.

Mr Tabiraki often says it is important to improve things starting from the point closest to the conversion. He advised us that our enquiry form had far too many fields and that we should cut them, so we decided to start by improving the enquiry form. If the fields are too detailed, people find it a hassle and more of them drop out, so we switched to a flow where they first make an enquiry and we gather the details afterwards.

After the site improvements and landing page production were finished, you also started running Google Ads for us to win enquiries. That began in April 2021 and is still continuing today.

We are now also asking you for SEO article production and consulting on the structure of our website.

― What were the initiatives aimed at?

The number of enquiries, naturally. As a result, comparing 2020 with 2021, the number of enquiries from our website has more than doubled since we started the initiatives. I think there are various factors, but the web initiatives with NowVillage have had a big impact.

Improving the path through the enquiry form was especially significant. If we hadn’t improved it, there would surely have been many customers who dropped out without us ever knowing.

Things have also changed inside the company since we started working together. Our policy used to lean towards branding, and marketing tended to be judged only in hindsight, but I feel we have developed more of a culture of talking in numbers.

Building a culture of talking in numbers is something I personally had wanted to do for a long time, and having NowVillage involved as a third party has made it sink in more within the company.

A partner we can trust with the whole web domain

― What is the current situation, and is there anything you expect from us going forward?

We currently ask you to handle everything web-related, including landing pages, web advertising management, SEO and building new sites, and we would like you to keep advising us from many angles in future.

This year in particular is the year we see whether the various initiatives we have worked on have paid off, and we want to achieve even better results. The situation is always changing, but we will keep communicating our detailed requests and nuances, and we look forward to you continuing to pick up on them.

― What do you think sets us apart?

That you handle the whole web domain broadly and flexibly from a marketing angle. It is a solutions-oriented service that includes support for bringing work in-house, including introducing various resources to solve the client’s challenges.

Companies that work that well are surprisingly rare. Most say, “We specialise in this area.” NowVillage has become someone we can consult about anything to do with web marketing.

― What kind of companies would you recommend our services to?

I would recommend that companies struggling to make headway with web marketing, or about to launch web marketing from scratch, get in touch with you.

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FIND Inc.
・Website: a-find.jp
・What they do
　Renovation / remodelling
　Property sales brokerage
　New builds / custom-built homes
　Interior space design
　Financial planning
　Home inspection

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