Today, digital marketing is considered a necessity as opposed to an optional extra. Marketing online has such immense benefits that it has been utilised by virtually every industry whether that’s digital marketing for tradies, beauty therapists, hospitality, finance, healthcare… the list is endless!.
Are you a tradesperson?
You shouldn’t rely just on word-of-mouth and a couple of leaflets to promote your service. Digital marketing allows you to target your market better and grow your client-base continually.
Consider your present day customer – if John Smith is at home and his pipe bursts or he’s thinking about renovating, he will most probably conduct an online search for a reliable plumber or carpenter in his area. It’s essential that tradies invest in digital marketing to ensure when ‘John Smith’ looks for their trade online they are visible amongst his search results.
Let us explore how digital marketing for tradies can help you reach your customers online.
How Tradies can Benefit from Digital Marketing
There are multiple reasons why digital marketing for carpenters, plumbers, electricians or numerous other trades, is a wise investment. Trades persons the world over have gone digital in order to compete within their industry, an online presence helps them communicate better with existing customers as well as reaching new ones. Adopting digital marketing for electrical or another industry can provide the following benefits:
Makes You Easier to Contact
More often than not, people need a good tradesperson when they expect the least, and an online presence enables you to be found at any hour of the day or night. People can then contact you via your website, social media or a directory listing.
Reducing Traditional Marketing Costs
Promoting your services online is cheaper (and more effective) than using advertisement in newspaper/on the radio, or printing brochures and handing them out or posting them
Targeting the Right Audience
Digital marketing for tradies means you can target the right people. For example, with digital marketing for plumbers you only communicate to people who are actually looking for plumbing services, such as prospects in a particular geographical area and with specific interests or meeting certain demographics.
Being Able to Optimise Marketing Campaigns
Does your social media ad campaign require tweaking? With digital marketing optimisation you can observe and analyse your marketing campaign data. This enables you to make decisions around which ads and which campaigns you should keep running, and which ones you shouldn’t. You can do that at any time, unlike with print ads that cannot be modified once they are printed.
Payment and Booking Solutions
You can use a digital payment service if you don’t want to work with cash by collaborating with a third party payment processing company. Your website can also be designed to allow customers to submit enquiries or create bookings with you directly online.
Building Lasting Relationships
Out of sight, out of mind, an old saying goes. Things are completely different with online marketing. As long as you maintain an ongoing and effective online presence, your customers will always be able to find you. You can continue interacting with clients after the sale and stay visible on the long term.
What Does Digital Marketing for Tradies Consist Of?
Just like any other type of marketing, digital marketing for tradies consists of a variety of strategies and methods:
Web Design
Websites are highly effective for any type of business. Consider them as a vital part of your toolbox. Word-of-mouth and good physical work represent the foundation, while your website works as a shopfront for your business.
Effective, responsive and optimised web design makes your business more visible to people searching services online. What you want is to have your website ranking highly on the search engine results page.
A website will make your business visible 24/7. If you do emergency call-outs ask your web designer to include visible Call-To-Action buttons stating that you are available 24/7 for emergencies. This is very important for trades where customers face issues after-hours.
Last, but not least, a website makes you more credible and contributes to your image as a well-established and experienced professional. You can display reviews, galleries, FAQs … all of which aids your customer’s journey.
SEO
Now that you have a website, you need to optimise it so it can be found by your target market.
Local SEO is of utmost importance when it comes to digital marketing for tradies. In the last years, Google has been favouring local businesses rather than huge brands and now puts more emphasis on local search. Customers, particularly those seeking trades, want local targeted results. No one wants to be searching for a plumber in their suburb and then be presented with one from an entirely different state.
Some of the main steps you need to make to improve your local SEO are:
- Creating or claiming your business profile in business directories, including Google My Business;
- Completing your profile with relevant information;
- Encouraging customer reviews;
- Optimising your website for voice search;
- Creating content that is based on local news and events;
- Making your website mobile-friendly (responsive);
- Incorporating high-quality backlinks.
Paid Ads
There are many types of ads available in today’s digital world, with the two most effective being Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
Advertising on Google leads to accelerated results because this type of advertising gives you higher quality leads. Adwords from Google presents ads based on what people are searching for.
Combined with local SEO, Google Adwords can make a huge difference for your business’s success. People type the kind of service they are seeking and the location, thus offering you vital data. If your service matches the search, your ad is displayed to these searchers and you have qualified, relevant leads accessing your website.
Facebook Ads are very popular, especially among tradies that don’t have a website of their own yet. Reasons to advertise on Facebook include the huge number of users and the fact that Facebook ads can be targeted very specifically. Facebook shows your ads to people who meet particular demographics, interests and hobbies, purchase behaviour, and location.
Facebook Ads are excellent when you provide services that require extensive research and decision time from customers. A malfunctioning power outlet is best solved by looking for an electrician on Google, but when someone is steadily researching home renovations, they’ll likely be more influenced by ads that Facebook shows them as they are based on their interests.
Email Marketing
Is your list of previous customers waiting to be noticed on a random sheet of paper or in a folder in your computer? Are they simply phone contacts and nothing more? This is quality data for marketing that is going to waste!
Did you know that new customers are difficult to achieve, while existing customers can be persuaded to do repeat business more easily? A list of people who know, like, and trust you is a gold mine!
The secret of cultivating customer loyalty is building relationships. This process can be quite lengthy, but the effort is definitely worth it. No matter what your trade is, it is possible and desirable to get repeat business. It doesn’t matter if you simply changed a few taps last year for someone, now they may be looking for a full bathroom plumbed. There is always room for repeat business, but you need to keep those leads warm and aware.
Email marketing is the one tradies digital marketing tool with the highest return on investment. Email marketing helps build relationships. The software enables you to send personalised messages to multiple customers at the same time, automatically.
You shouldn’t consider email marketing as a direct selling tool. The idea here is to stay top of mind for past customers, by sending updates on your current projects, industry developments, personal work stories, announcements of new staff, etc. At the end of the email you can include a special offer such as a referral program reward, as long as your email content provides value to the subscriber.
SMM (Social Media Marketing)
There are different social networks out there, from Facebook to TikTok. Most tradies start with Facebook because this is where the majority of their customers are and because we are all familiar with this platform.
Your business should show up regularly on your followers’ newsfeeds by sharing content such as:
- Business updates such as new equipment;
- New employees;
- Helpful tips for customers; for instance if you are an electrician you can share 10 ways to use electricity safely;
- Pictures from your last job (‘before and after’);
- Offers for new customers or discounts for returning customers (promotional messages should represent just a fraction of all messages).
Content
Content is at the core of digital marketing for tradies because you cannot use effectively any of the above tools without quality content. For tradies, good content should consist of photos from their jobs and sharing knowledge along with current contact details and any offers. Content should help nurture those relationships with your customers – whether that be entertaining or informing them.
Why choose VMA for you digital marketing?
VMA has been proudly serving Australian businesses across a wide range of industries for more than a decade. Many professionals have called upon our digital marketing for tradies services with great results. Contact us now for a wide range of online marketing tools, from web design and development to email marketing and social media management!
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