The cheapest enquiry you will get this year is from someone who has already paid you. They know your work, they trust your team, and they have your number somewhere. The trouble is that “somewhere” is usually a phone they have since replaced. Staying in front of them is what the industry calls email marketing for builders, and in plain terms it means your past customers hear from you often enough to remember your name when the next job comes up.
The people you worked for are not going anywhere
The 2026 UK Houzz & Home Study surveyed more than 1,000 UK homeowners between March and June this year. 71% said they plan to stay in their home for eleven years or more after renovating, and 39% called it their forever home (kbbreview).
The same study found bathrooms, kitchens and bedrooms tied as the most common projects, each taken on by 27% of renovating homeowners, and average planned budgets falling to £10,000 from £14,000 the year before (more on that here).
Houzz does not draw the next conclusion, so to be clear, this part is ours. A homeowner who plans to stay a decade, and who is spending less per project than last year, is not going to do the whole house at once. They will do it a room at a time. The family you fitted a kitchen for in 2024 has a bathroom, a loft, a garden and a driveway still ahead of them, and they are going to choose somebody for each of those.
They also decide who their friends call
When the Federation of Master Builders surveyed 2,000 UK homeowners in December 2024, 64% said a personal recommendation gives them confidence in a tradesperson, ahead of membership of a trade body at 50% (FMB, January 2025).
A recommendation only happens if your name comes to mind at the moment a neighbour asks. A customer who heard from you last month passes on your details. A customer who has not heard from you in three years says “we had a good builder, I can’t remember the name”.
So one list does two jobs. It brings back the people who already paid you, and it keeps them ready to send you the people they know.
What is worth sending
Nobody wants a newsletter from their builder. They will read something useful from a firm that did a good job in their home. The messages that earn their place are short and specific.
Straight after the job. A thank you, a few photos of the finished work, and a request for a review. That review then works for every campaign you run, which we cover in our piece on Google reviews for builders.
At the one year mark. A check on how the work has held up. It shows you stand behind what you build, and it is the most natural moment to ask what they are thinking of doing next.
When you finish something they might want. If you fitted their kitchen, show them the garden room you just completed down the road. Real work, real photos, nothing salesy. You are reminding them what is possible in a house they plan to stay in.
Before the jobs you want more of. You know when your customers start planning the work you do best. A short note a few weeks ahead of that puts you first in their mind rather than fourth on a quote list.
Quotes that did not go ahead. Someone who asked for a price two years ago and paused may be ready now. With budgets tighter this year, some of them will be waiting rather than gone.
Keep the list somewhere that does the work for you
Most builders already have the list. It is in the invoicing software, the job sheets and a phone full of WhatsApp threads. What is usually missing is one place that holds every past customer and every quote, and sends the right message at the right time without anybody needing to remember.
That is where our CRM and automation setup and our email work meet. Your customers and enquiries sit in one system built around your business, and the email sequences run from there, so the one year check and the review request go out on their own.
How we run it for you
Our email marketing service is done for you. We work out who should hear what, build the templates in your branding, write the copy, and set up the automated messages, including the review requests and the check ins. We group your list by what each customer has had done and how they have engaged, so a kitchen customer does not get the same message as someone who only asked for a quote. Then we track what gets opened and replied to and refine from there.
It also works alongside the rest of your marketing. The photos from a finished job can feed your ads, your website and the email to your past customers all at once.
If you have a few years of customers behind you and no regular way of staying in touch, get in touch and we will show you what we would send them first.