What 2025 Made Clear for Deck Builders Heading Into 2026

This article was first published in Deck Specialist Magazine in the November/Dec 2025 Issue.

What 2025 Made Clear for Deck Builders Heading Into 2026

Most deck builders did not lose momentum in 2025 because demand disappeared. They lost it because what used to be good enough stopped being enough.

One builder said it to me this way:

“Usually I’m booked out for a year. Lately it’s been weeks.”

Another told me after losing a large project:

“The homeowner didn’t say he couldn’t afford it. He said he couldn’t justify it.”

Those comments came up again and again throughout the year. Not panic. Not failure. Just the same friction showing up across different markets, different company sizes, and different price points.

I know I have been talking about this all year, so none of this should feel brand new. What I want to do here is give you deeper context so you know exactly what to do with it as you plan for 2026.

AI did not change what homeowners want. It changed how informed they can get on their own.

AI AEO GEO whatever you want to call it did not change buyer intent. Homeowners still want great outdoor spaces built by professionals they trust.

What it changed is their ability to get informed without ever talking to you.

Homeowners can now answer a lot of their own questions before picking up the phone. Pricing ranges. Design options. Material differences. Timelines. They can do all of that on their own.

Because of that, many homeowners do not want to get on the phone just to be educated or sold to. They want to reach out when they feel ready.

By the time a homeowner contacts a builder, they have usually already formed an opinion about who they want to talk to and who they do not.

Here is the upside. When homeowners are more informed before they contact you, those tend to be better leads. Fewer tire kickers. Better conversations. More alignment from the start.

Why old marketing stopped holding up

For years, referrals, reputation, and a basic online presence carried a lot of weight. During the post Covid surge, demand covered gaps that did not show up clearly.

In 2025, those gaps became impossible to ignore.

Generic marketing failed faster than it ever had before.

SEO without a clear strategy. Ads without follow up. Websites full of photos but no explanation. Content that existed but did not actually help a homeowner understand anything.

One builder said it bluntly:

“I feel like I’m doing marketing, but I don’t think it’s actually helping people understand why they should choose us.”

What showed up consistently was builders trying to understand why their marketing looked fine on the surface but was not helping homeowners clearly choose them. Photos were there. Reviews were there. A form was there. But nothing explained how that builder worked or why one project might cost more than another.

When two builders look similar online and have similar reviews, the homeowner has no choice but to compare price. That is not because homeowners only care about price. It is because they do not have enough clarity to confidently choose based on anything else.

What had to change and why builders need to adapt

At Deck Builder Marketers, we have always believed marketing has to reflect how a business actually runs. What changed in 2025 is that the market stopped allowing workarounds.

For a long time, progress could be made working with incomplete project information, inconsistent photos, or limited sales feedback. Sometimes it was not ideal, but it worked well enough. In today’s environment, guessing breaks marketing and it breaks it fast.

That is why we formalized the Brand Strategy Handbook. It is not a branding exercise. It is how we document how a builder actually operates. How they explain their process. How they talk about pricing. What makes their projects different. What kind of work they want more of. Without that clarity, content turns generic and generic marketing blends in.

We also formalized Builder Story Day.

A Builder Story Day is a full multimedia day on site. We go out to projects and capture the business the way a homeowner actually experiences it. That includes video walkthroughs of finished spaces, drone footage to show scale and context, homeowner testimonials explaining why they chose that builder, interviews with the owner, their spouse, and their team, clean photos of completed projects, headshots, and behind the scenes images of the people doing the work.

It is comprehensive on purpose.

Homeowners are not just hiring a deck builder. They are hiring people. They want to understand who they are trusting and how decisions get made before they ever talk to you.

If you are selling forty, fifty, or one hundred thousand dollar projects, your marketing has to support that level of trust.

Detailed project information is no longer optional. Neither is talking about pricing ranges and cost variables. We have always pushed builders to explain why things cost what they cost. Now we are much more direct about it because homeowners expect that information up front.

Content that works today looks like explaining your thinking. Things like why it is worth spending more on steel framing in certain situations, or why two decks with similar materials can still end up thirty thousand dollars apart. That is not marketing fluff. That is helping a homeowner make a smart decision.

Marketing also cannot live in a silo anymore. Sales data, follow up, and project outcomes have to be part of the picture. Marketing without that feedback wastes time and money.

That is why we formalized what we call the Success Pillar. Not as coaching for the sake of coaching, but as a way to support builders outside of just deliverables. Through the Success Hub and biweekly growth workshops, builders work through how buying behavior is changing and how to adapt in their own markets. Alignment issues surface faster now and they need to be addressed sooner.

Marketing is infrastructure now

One thing 2025 made very clear is that marketing can no longer be piecemealed.

Throwing a few dollars at SEO here, ads there, and hoping it all works together is no longer realistic. Marketing today requires a system.

When done well, marketing can absolutely help scale a business. In tougher or more uncertain markets, it also acts as insurance. It protects visibility. It reinforces value. And it supports better conversations when demand tightens.

For most builders, allocating at least two percent of your revenue goal to marketing is baseline. More if you are behind on visibility and need to catch up. Catch up always costs more than maintenance.

Looking ahead to 2026

The conversations that kept showing up in 2025 did not create this shift. They validated it.

Homeowners expect more clarity. More transparency. More help making a decision before they ever pick up the phone.

Your marketing, content, website, ads, and follow up all need to work together to guide them through that decision.

So as you plan for 2026, here is the question worth sitting with:

Is your marketing actually helping homeowners choose you, or is it just helping them compare you?