Quick Marketing Guide for Tradies

Are you a trades business owner looking for ways to grow your customer base? If so, this marketing guide for tradies may be just what you need to get started!

Let's look at why marketing is important, and tips for how you can go about it.

 

Why marketing is essential for success

When it comes to starting up or running a business, even the most brilliant one in the world won’t go far if no one knows about it.

This is why you need good marketing strategies for your business – both online and offline. Without them, you will likely struggle to generate new leads, attract customers, and in turn, grow your business.

 

Online marketing strategies

These days most people go online to look for services they need, so if you don’t have a presence online, you could be missing out.

Here are our top online marketing tips.

1. Set up a website

Businesses are pretty much expected to have a website, so if you don’t, you should look into building one.

Your website doesn’t need to be fancy (in fact being too fancy could slow it down!) but it does need to have certain features.

These include: 

• Written content that is easy to see and read, and that clearly explains what your business offers. 
• Fast loading – visitors will soon click away if your site is too slow. 
• Easy navigation. This means that visitors know where to go to find what they’re looking for, without having to make too many clicks. Setting up a clear menu is great for this. 
• Easy to find contact details, such as a phone number, email address and/or contact form. 
• Appealing imagery – although photo sizes should be minimised to ensure they load quickly. 
• Content that is optimised for search engines. This involves incorporating phrases and terms into the content that people use when searching for services. 
• Helpful information for your audiences in the form of blogs, videos, case studies, testimonials and more. Your content should also be regularly added to in order to keep your site fresh. 
• Analytics tools – such as Google Analytics. This enables you to see where your visitors are coming from, and to analyse the success or otherwise of your marketing campaigns.

There are many low cost tools online for building your own website. But if you don’t want to do it yourself, you can always hire a professional website building service to do it on your behalf.

2. Make use of social media

Social media is so popular nowadays that it’s not a good idea to overlook it! Social platforms can be used for:

• Sharing useful content, such as posts, videos and images.
• Sharing photos of projects – e.g. before, during and after pics. Engaging and interacting with people –e.g. by responding to their comments.
• Low-cost targeted advertising – where you set the budget limit.
• Networking – especially on professional sites like LinkedIn.

In using social, it’s important to post regularly, but at the same time to focus on quality rather than quantity. There’s also no need to post on every site – just pick two or three places your audience hangs out, and do those really well. 

3. Use online tradie networks

As well as social media, you might want to check out some of the online networks that have been designed specifically for tradies. Examples include TradiePad and Tradebusters.

4. Get listed online 

There are plenty of opportunities to list your business online, in some cases for free or at low cost, and most allow customers to post reviews. Here are some examples: 

• Google Business Profile – this is a free listing with Google where you can share details about your business including services, photos, location and map. 
• Hipages – this is a job platform where people post services they need, and tradies can respond with an offer. 
• Many other free or low cost listings – e.g. Search a Tradie, Yellow Pages, Yelp, Start Local, Local Search and Pure Local.

 

Offline marketing guide for tradies

Even with the proliferation of the internet, offline or in-person marketing is still important. Check out the suggestions below.

1. Print and give out some business cards

These days it doesn’t cost a lot to get a batch of business cards printed, and you can give them out at networking events, tradeshows, or even just when the opportunity arises.

2. Attend in-person networking and trade shows

These types of events provide the opportunity to connect, build relationships, let people know about your services, to help other business owners. You may even find opportunities to partner with other businesses that offer complementary services to yours.

3. Make use of word of mouth marketing (WOM) 

WOM can be incredibly powerful for getting new business. But it doesn’t always just happen so don’t be afraid to ask satisfied customers to share their experiences with others. You could consider offering incentives to customers for referrals, such as discounts or freebies.

4. Branded collateral 

Some suggestions here include branded uniforms with your logo, vehicle signage, printed gifts (e.g. pens, mousepads, and magnets), and letterbox leaflet drops in your local area.

 

Track your campaign

Whatever marketing strategies you use, it’s important to keep track of campaigns to see what works and what doesn’t. From there you can make improvements as you go to help you generate more leads and convert them into paying customers!