The post A Marketing Guide For A Trade Business appeared first on UK Construction Blog.

Marketing is one of the most effective ways to ensure that your trade business finds enough clients to stay solvent and enjoy regular and steady growth. Unfortunately, most people who go into trade businesses excel in projects that suit their skill set, which don’t necessarily include marketing or sales techniques.

With that in mind, here is a brief guide to marketing for trade businesses.

Create a Website

Once upon a time, business websites were the domain of large companies and corporations, but now it’s expected that even small businesses have an online presence.

Consumers like to research different businesses and tradespeople, and a website, allows you to introduce yourself and explain your services. It doesn’t have to be the most complex website in the world, but a simple portfolio can be enough to encourage a potential customer to contact you.

Make sure the website is easy to navigate and attractive. It should contain useful, relevant information to be worthwhile.

Use Social Media

Your online presence should also include a social media account. Social media allows you to directly interact with potential customers. Create engaging and entertaining posts so people will want to follow your account.

Marketing works best when it exposes your brand to many people. The traditional way to do this is with a billboard or poster in an area with a lot of traffic. When it comes to digital marketing, most people are found on social media, so having an active presence there makes sense.

Use social media to pass on information, talk to customers, and let people know about promotions, deals, and events.

Join a Business Directory

As well as checking social media and websites, many customers find tradespeople by looking at directories. Registering for as many listing services and directories as possible widens the scope of potential customers.

One way to find an appropriate directory for your business is to check a digital marketing blog. As well as good general advice to help you market your business, a good blog will offer information about different directories and how to register your business.

Reviews and Repeat Customers

Your customers are the lifeblood of your business, so it’s important to get as much out of them as possible. Encourage your customers to leave reviews and testimonials about your services. People trust other people and care more about past experiences than what you might have to say. Word of mouth can be an incredibly powerful tool.

Excellent customer service and a brilliant overall job are the best ways to receive positive reviews and always enjoy repeat business. It’s often far better to have a few loyal customers than to constantly spend your time finding new one-time customers. Offer loyalty deals and promotions, and be sure always to treat your customers well.

Get Involved in the Community

As well as marketing to a wider audience through digital marketing, it’s important for tradespeople to be seen as part of the local community. To be honest, your ideal customers are local anyway. Websites and social media are great ways to expose your brand to more customers and to communicate with them, but local community expos and other opportunities are another vital part of a good marketing campaign.

People like to support community businesses. It’s more like doing business with a friend or at least a neighbour rather than a stranger or a faceless corporation.

By getting involved with community projects, events, and even charities, you endear yourself more to potential customers.

This also gives you a great opportunity to network with other tradespeople, which can be a fantastic way to link up with vendors, service providers, and businesses that can work together with yours on certain projects.

Use Paid Marketing Services

Finally, it can’t be denied just how much using paid marketing services can help level up your marketing efforts.

There are a few ways you can go with this. First, you can use AI software to help you come up with and implement a marketing plan. The AI can do some of the legwork for you so you can concentrate on your customers. Or you could outsource your marketing to another company. This might be the pricier option, but it can be more than worth the cost. Again, you can focus on providing excellent customer service while marketing experts tackle this side of things.