A Practical Guide for Sensible Business Owners
For more than a decade working alongside trades and service businesses, we’ve noticed a common comment about digital marketing. “It seems like a great idea … but where the f*ck do I start?”
Part 1 – Have a "Showroom" Ready
Your Own Website Where You Control the Narrative
When we were putting this guide together we attempted to not ‘self-promote’ with build a website talk, but we found that this is the key to successful marketing in 2021 for local businesses. This step will have you:
Appear empathetic and resonate with your ideal client
Answer the pressing issues all your prospects want answered
Provide the perfect evidence your competition probably can't show (finally an advantage over them)
And what's a website without compelling calls-to-action
Part 2 – Go find some "new friends"
Network. You need a List, a Gift, & a Business Card
Why is this important? For trades and services to grow, it seems essential to have a supply of projects coming your way from other people and companies. So networking is critical. But it’s not always done in an efficient way.
We’ve seen a rise of business networking organisations where the same people meet at the same place weekly with a bunch of other people who have the same problem as you. Our most successful clients take a different approach.
This step will teach you:
How to ignite more word-of-mouth recommendations
Understand who you should be brown-nosing with
The best way to butter up those potential referrers
Part 3 – BE SEEN
Good Marketing = "Timing"
Opportunity happens when preparedness and opportunity intersect, in other words you must be there when your prospect decides what you have is perfect for them.
In this step you’ll learn:
How to utilise free marketing tools to make sure you’re findable
Ten tactics that have you be in the perfect place when they need you most number five is the most critical for services based businesses
Part 4 – Stay Connected
It’s easier to sell to someone that already bought from you
If you’ve been in business for a while then you’ve probably dealt with 100s if not 1000s of individuals. They’ve bought from you , they dealt with you they enquired so these people hold the keys to your future success.
Part 5 – RINSE & REPEAT
Around again...
As you will notice, our approach to Digital Marketing includes quite a few things that are not digital—I know, crazy right?!
We encourage old-fashioned techniques like ringing people, rocking up to a worksite with a box of savouries, and putting things in mailboxes. And we recommend adding just the right amount of technology so that those other things will work better than they would have in the days before the internet.
We hope you can bear with us as we explain.
