JT Atkinson & Sons have teamed up with award-winning digital marketing agency Integrity Search to bring you the best marketing tips to help grow your business. We are starting with social media; we all know we should be using it, but for many of us that’s easier said than done!
It’s common knowledge that tradespeople win the majority of their business opportunities through word-of-mouth recommendations, but just because this method is tried-and-tested, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t explore other ways of marketing yourself – especially in such a competitive industry.
There are plenty of opportunities now to market your business online, as well as many other more traditional marketing methods. Even if you’ve been working as a tradesperson for a long time, you’ll still find new ways to expand the reach of your business and grow your customer base. If you don’t already have a website, then set one up! The following tips are specially tailored for those working in the trades. Whether you’re working alone or you’re running a small business, these five key pointers will help you to market your business to its best advantage.
Create an online presence with a responsive website
More and more businesses are setting up an online presence with a website. With the growth of technology, such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops, there are now more people than ever using their devices to search the internet for tradespeople. This is why a responsive website is a must for all businesses in today’s world. Your business needs to compete online and a responsive website is the best way to do this.
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A website, even in its most basic form, is a great way to showcase your business and help your brand stand out from the other tradesman in your field. You can use your website to showcase your best work so that potential customers can see the level of work you can offer them as part of their decision making process. A website will also allow for potential customers to be able to read past reviews from other customers, giving them an idea of how your business delivers it’s service.
Find out more about how a responsive website can help improve your business leads in our Tradesmans Tips: Create An Online Presence With A Responsive Website article.
Use social media to generate more business
The social media arena is a huge opportunity for successful marketing. There are currently 1.038 billion people using Facebook every single day, and over 320 million Twitter users! Whether it’s simply people posting up photos from their holidays, or checking their news-feeds to see what their friends are eating for dinner, these huge numbers of social users are a potential marketing opportunity for any business. And the numbers show no signs of slowing; social media users have risen by 176 million in the last year alone!
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Creating a brand page for your trade business is invaluable. Here you can expand the reach of your business by sharing posts, engaging current and potential clients, and giving your business a credible and approachable face. For such a client focused industry, this approachability and engagement can be invaluable.
As well as creating a page, Facebook Ads allow you to expand your reach to an even greater range of potential clients, which can be targeted by all manner of demographics, such as age, gender and location. Creating and publishing an appealing and engaging advert on Facebook can see the reach of your business extend to a huge audience, and can generate tangible leads.
Other social platforms, such as LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest can provide you with even more marketing opportunities. Posting photographs, and even videos, documenting finished jobs, and happy clients, is a useful way of keeping your business’s online presence up-to-date.
The trade industry is not an industry that is renowned for its dependence on social media, or even general online presence, however, the numbers alone reveal that this is an arena that needs to be explored and exploited to its full potential. There’s nothing to lose in using social media to promote your business, but everything to gain.
For a more detailed guide on how social media can benefit your business, check out our Top Tradesmen Tips on Social Media.
Register with professional bodies and trade associations
Becoming an accredited member of a professional body or trade association can give your business a huge boost of credibility. Whether it’s the APHC (Association of Plumbing and Heating), the FMB (Federation of Master Builders), or the Gas Safe Register, getting your trade listed as a registered member gives an definitive air of reputability and prestige to your business. The logos and details of these associations can be placed on your website and social media outlets, as well as on the side of your van.
List your business in local directories
Despite the internet becoming a major player in the way in which people find and engage with businesses, people still use local directories to find tradespeople. It is estimated that around 11% of people found tradespeople through sources such as Thomsonlocal, Yell or local papers. These are a few of the larger local directories, but there are plenty of other, smaller lists. Although there may be some initial cost in getting listed in these directories, these initial expenditures will soon be recovered by the clients you gain from these listings.
Register your business with online directories
There is no doubt that local directories have still got a major role to play in the trade industries, however why not take advantage of the biggest directories in the world as well? Google alone handles over 100 billion search queries a month! Getting your trade business seen on a directory with this sort of popularity is critical.
You can register your business with these online directories in a few different ways: Having created your website, it is imperative that you allow Google to ‘see’ your website, so that it can list it in your search results. If you’ve hired a web development professional to create your website, simply ask them to help you create or find your website’s sitemap, which can be submitted to Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. to allow your website to be searchable, and listed on their search engines.
You can find out more information about adding your business to online directories from our Tradesman Tips: Tradesman Tips: Register Your Business With Online Directories article.
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Invest in promotional marketing materials
Business cards, flyers, pens, posters, billboard signs. There is now an almost limitless list of high quality promotional marketing materials with which a trade business can promote itself. From cheaper, budget printers that can print 1000s of business cards for a tiny cost, to high-end printing firms that can produce show-stopping designs, flyers, even T-shirts, all will give you the desired effect of promoting your business in everyday ways.
Always ensure that you include your contact details, as well as your website address, to allow you to get more traffic to your website and social media, which allows engagement with your clients. It may be worth investing in hiring a graphic design professional to create your promotional material in order to ensure that your materials look great, and have a consistent look across all of your marketing.
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Generate working relationships with other local tradesmen
Word-of-mouth is one business-generating marketing scheme that remains extremely powerful, and shows no signs of declining. This tried and tested method of generating new business is quick, free and useful, but always relies on your ability to consistently do a good job.
Creating and maintaining great working relationships with other local tradespeople can bolster your local reputation, and can lead to regular, high-quality work. It may seem like an old fashioned way of marketing, but in an industry that relies so heavily on the quality of the finished work, it is still great for generating new business.