Trade Up Marketing

24/09/2020

“My business is on Check-A-Trade, isn’t that enough?” I heard this from a domestic tradesman once.

The fact that you’re on Check-A-Trade is fantastic, Check-A-Trade is a trusted platform that has built authority as a reliable outlet for members of the public to find a reliable tradesman.

However, people don’t just turn to Check-A-Trade to find a tradesman, they look on Google, Bing, they check out social media pages and local social media groups.

To really grow your domestic trade revenue, you need to be across all of these touchpoints to ensure when a customer is looking for tradesmen like you, they find YOU and YOUR trade business.

23/09/2020

What’s the difference between good and exceptional marketing for domestic tradesmen?

What do good tradesmen have in place ?

*They have a mobile friendly website
*The first headline on their website makes it clear what their trade is
*They have third party reviews on their website (Trust Pilot etc)
*They make it easier for people how to get in touch, contact form and a linked telephone number so they can call from their mobile
* A gallery of their work
* Testimonials from happy customers

What do very good tradesmen have in place?

* A social media presence to share their work
*They produce video content, putting a face behind the brand
*They have articles providing tips on simple fixes, helping to position them as a expert

What do exceptional tradesmen have in place?

* They have automated emails sent to their customers after their job has been completed, increasing future work and increasing word of mouth
*They advertise on Google & Facebook to ensure they don't over rely on word of mouth
*They have processes in place to follow up with leads to help them stand out

22/09/2020

Yesterday, I spoke about the importance of having a good website, here are five quick tips for putting your website together.

1: Ensure a third party review site is at the top of the page with a 5 star rating (Check a Trade, Google Reviews, Trust Pilot)
2: Testimonials of your happy customers
3: Gallery of your work
4: Any further social proof ("building roofs for 30 years" or "Kent's most reliable plumbing service")
5: A headline that clearly articulates your trade (John Smiths electrician company) You need to get a customer to justify getting in touch in about 15 seconds of visiting your site, show them you're good at your job, that they can trust you and make it easy for them to get in touch.

21/09/2020

What does your website say about you and your trade business?

Whilst word of mouth plays an integral role in growing your business and a good reference goes a long way, but does a sluggish outdated website reflect you and your business?

Will it potentially deter potential clients from your potential business?

The honest answer is, it won’t always deter potential clients, but the reality is, sometimes it will and how much could that potential client be to you?

£1k? £10k? £100k?

Having a simple, clean and modern website is inexpensive and doesn’t take much time, we recommend and use https://buff.ly/2GWiKyH - check it out today. Is £20 a month and one day of your time worth losing £10k for?

Squarespace is the all-in-one solution for anyone looking to create a beautiful website. Domains, eCommerce, hosting, galleries, analytics, and 24/7 support all included.

17/07/2020

If you have a water leak do you hire a plumber or handyman?

You know better than anyone, cheap labour often means rushed jobs, inexperienced team's or poor quality output.

Like in marketing, don't hire a jack of all trades, hire a specialist who knows how to fix your precise problem, who has the experience and knowledge for your specific business.

16/07/2020

Are you looking to talk to a specific prospect for your commercial business? For example a main contractor, a local developer, an architect perhaps?

Here are some tips…

*Created content specifically for that target prospect - this could be a blog about your trade, this helps show your expertise
*Share it with them and ask them for feedback
*Provide them with a link to a testimonials page
*Ask them politely on LinkedIn for potential opportunities to work with them
*If they don’t respond, follow up on email, find their email from their website
*FOLLOW UP! We’re all busy people, be sure to send at least 3-4 messages on either Linkedin or email over a period of 2-3 weeks - don’t be that annoying guy send daily chases!
*If you don’t get a response, use that same tactic for a colleague, but test a slightly different approach in the messaging or ton
*Keep testing different messages and content, figure out what interests your audiences and repeat
*Test being direct, testing talking about yourself, test content, share jobs, talk about a competitor - the key is to figure out what engages them
Test - Iterate - Repeat

15/07/2020

How often have you been hired to rectify the work of poor workmanship, and lazy tradesmen who had rushed the job and clearly had no pride in their work.

When hiring a marketing expert, think about that.

As a subcontractor or trade owner, you're proud of your work and expect to be compensated to reflect your expertise, when you hire a marketing expert to help, expect the same, pay cheap and expect to pay twice, pay for expertise, not the guy selling the cheapest leads and cheapest service.

14/07/2020

Have you been sold SEO for your trade business…? Please be very careful before committing to any ‘seo expert’.

Yes, SEO can be very impactful, but it really depends on your type of trade business, not all trades are found via Google, even so, sometimes the search traffic can be very small and very competitive.

When you get presented with an SEO proposal, challenge the local volume in your area and ask how competitive it is.

You can achieve quicker and faster results using different tactics and validate the average results of SEO in a matter of days with testing PPC.

SEO can take months, so before jumping into a 5000 pound contract that has been suggested will take months, run a PPC campaign for 250 pounds for one month and see how much work you get.

13/07/2020

Here are some high level tips for using different platforms to grow your Domestic trade business.

*SEO - Great for long term growth, but don’t be sold on the ‘SEO Experts’ who charge thousands, local SEO can be done with less resources, but it still takes time. Expect to see results in about 4-6 months
*Google My Business - Helps you appear in Google when users search for trades in your area - this helps with local SEO too!
*Facebook Groups - Facebook is evolving and more users and more are engaging in local communities, be apart of that conversation
*Facebook Ads - Great for awareness for your business, it might not be cost effective in month 1, but in the long run, it will help you grow your business. Put aside a small budget that you deem as an investment, this should be spent every month - you’ll see the impact in months 4 and beyond
*Listed Sites (people per hour, trust a trade etc) - Inconsistent, but provides regular leads throughout the year
*PPC - Great for immediate work, but can be expensive, keeping testing though
*A good Website - Tips in the comments from a previous post

https://buff.ly/3gJVSA2...

Quick tips for your trade website... * Make sure your trade and what you do is really clear in the opening headline * Ensure your website is mobile friendly...

02/06/2020

It’s exciting to get back to writing.

I have spent the last few months in stealth mode, slowly building out a new strategy for the rest of 2020, putting together our new products for Q3 and developing our brand identity.

It didn’t feel right providing marketing advice when times were so tough for those in the trade, posting content suggesting to utilise downtime to learn new skills when businesses had been turned upside down overnight, where tradesmen where worried about their families and their livelihood, it just didn’t feel right.

But now, the kids are going back to school, trades are getting back to site and my Linkedin feed is feeling more positive.

Times are still tough, but things seem to be improving, so I’m getting back to providing tips and suggestions on how to grow your trade business.

12/04/2020

I talk about social proof a lot, but what is it and why should tradesmen care🔨⁉️❓❗️

This is wikipedia description: Social proof, a term coined by Robert Cialdini in his 1984 book, Influence, is also known as informational social influence. It describes a psychological and social phenomenon wherein people copy the actions of others in an attempt to undertake behavior in a given situation.

What this actually means, is that people are more likely to buy from either friends, family or from those that they can trust.

Word of mouth is obviously crucial to continued work for the majority of tradesmen, but for those that want to really grow, they get business from multiple avenues.

How can I get social proof?

*Ask for reviews and testimonials after a job has been completed.
*Put the review on your website or link to the site those stores your testimonials
*Show off your work on your website and social media
*Share your POV
*Share tips and tricks on your specific trade

If a customer doesn’t know you and they go to a website without testimonials, without a gallery of good work vs a tradesmens with a video providing tps, a 5* Trust Pilot logo and written testimonials from happy customers, who do you think they will reach out to?

07/04/2020

Times are still tough, but for those that have down time, how can you use it more effectively, here are two scenarios:

1)You sit it out, you wait for the PM to give you the green light to get back to work and you contact customers, contractors and your team and you get back to usual, this might be in a week, two weeks or two months, who knows! Hopefully sooner rather than later
2)You use this time to learn more about how you can grow your business, you put some practical plans in place to put your business in a better position for when this blows over and you carry out the following:

*You focus on systems and process to improve efficiencies
*You look at how you can grow your profile
*You review your social media presence and make changes to optimise performance
*You make tweaks to your website to bring it up to date
*You start putting together content and get into the routine of doing it regularly
*You open a Google My Business account
*You read a couple of items of digital marketing and understand the basics

Who do you think will come out of the side stronger?