2025 looks to be a promising year for Avree Custom Pools, based in the Houston suburb of League City, Texas.
As of mid-March, the PSN Top 50 Builder was enjoying a 38% year-over-year increase in number of projects sold, and it has seen similar growth in revenue. Lead flow, in general, has been more brisk than last year, say Managing Partners Sam Pizzo and Bill Zupon.
The team, who founded the company in 2019, credit this growth in part to the normalization of certain post-COVID conditions.
“We think people have …. gained a little equity over the past year or two, and they see that interest rates are staying and probably not going down anytime soon,” Pizzo says. “[They’re thinking], ‘Let’s go ahead and put the pool in, because we have a little bit of equity, we like where we’re at, and we’re not going to find anything more cost-effective. So we won’t be moving anytime soon.’”
But the duo also credits a major change it made to the company’s marketing strategy in 2024: It created and filled the position of full-time marketing and communications manager, whose job includes creating the content for the company, while reducing the work it sends to marketing agencies.
Pizzo and Zupon decided to make the move after seeing social media play an increasing role in attracting clients. Where only two years ago social media drove 5% to 10% of Avree’s sales, now that figure stands at 30% to 40%.
Bringing the work in-house was a matter of control and coverage to the team.
“We really wanted to control our brand presence out there in the community,” Pizzo says. “We’re able to create so much more content because we have a guy who shows up at the office everyday at 9 a.m. If we have a project going on, he can jump in a truck with our salesperson ... He can see a project during construction and say, ‘We have some interesting things going on, so let me take some pictures and share that content.’”
The position also makes the company more nimble with its marketing strategy, Zupon says. Marketing and Communications Manager Brandon Grace can track and respond to trends more quickly with new ideas. And if something isn’t working, he can shift gears almost immediately.
“It’s interesting to see from a month-to-month standpoint what our clients engage with,” Pizzo says. “Some months they really want to see finished projects, other months they want to see the tile crews grouting the tile. It changes constantly. So we have shot content of everything there is to do in building a swimming pool, from laying out a pool to digging, to tying rebar, to tile work.”
Grace also can work local events where the company wants a presence. “If there’s something going on on a Tuesday afternoon, for instance, he can attend those events, where before it would take salesperson resources or Sam or myself to do that,” Zupon says.
The company uses an outside agency to perform some of the analytics and ad placement.
In seeking to fill the position, Zupon and Pizzo sought somebody with a background in marketing, along with well-developed photography and videography skills, since content creation would play such an important role in the job.
“Find somebody who is creative and knows how to use a camera or cell phone,” Pizzo suggests. "And somebody who’s not afraid to go on the jobsite, talk to people -- and just try things.”
They made sure to outfit Grace with the right equipment, including some high-end cameras, a high-quality drone, professional-quality laptop and software for the video editing.
The team has been happy with their change so far. “The return on that investment … was a lot greater than we had anticipated, just because the brand awareness is better, and the communication with the client is better,” Zupon says.
