Tradies Online Tips that Help Set You Apart from Your Competitors

Tradies Online: Change your marketing plan

Like most tradies, you may be afraid to make changes in your marketing plan, especially if you feel like you are maintaining your business right now. However, with the ever-changing world of marketing and more competitors building their online presences, your current success could be a future failure. Tradies online marketing should be constantly changing and keeping up with the times.

You can no longer depend on the phone directory and word of mouth advertising in today’s world of business. While those advertising vehicles are still valid, they pale in comparison to a strong, regularly updated online presence, social media marketing, and a ramped up online marketing plan.

Tradies Online: Using social media

You may already have a tradie/business page setup on Facebook, but due to the changes in Facebook’s visibility specifications, you may have noticed you are losing ground. People aren’t seeing your posts like they used to and that hurts your online credibility.

Facebook isn’t the only social media site you need to take advantage of for your free advertising resources. Twitter, You Tube, Tumblr, Reddit, Technorati, and other social media venues can boost your views, traffic, and increase your revenue if you do it right. You need a plan of action. Marketing experts and social media managers can help devise a plan for your social media presence.

Keep in mind, that you cannot rely on free advertising via social media to enhance your business. While you can target your local audience using free social networks, you also need to incorporate a paid advertising plan using at least one or two of these social media sites to get seen by specific people. It’s often in the paid advertising arena that you can narrow your targeted results to get your brand in front of genuine potential customers. Consult with a marketing expert before trying to do this on your own.

Tradies Online: Your website and blog

Not only should you have a reliable and presentable website with quality content and your business information on it, you should add a blog to it. A blog will increase your ability to rank higher in the search engines using your knowledge as its base. For instance, if you’re a plumber, make your blog about how to prevent certain plumbing issues, how to fix minor plumbing problems, and when not to try to fix it yourself.

A blog also allows you to regularly update information with articles, images, customer reviews, and videos that boost your credibility and engage your audience. Videos are one of the best tools you can use to drive targeted traffic to your website and your business. Any spare time you have should be spent making a few how-to or other videos that represent your specific trade. Videos also help you rank higher in the search engines, especially Google.

FYI: In case you were unaware, Google owns You Tube; therefore it’s a smart marketing tool for any trade business.

In essence, keeping your website, blog, social media pages and profiles, and videos regularly updated and fresh will enhance your visibility and presence. Nowadays, it’s this kind of persistence that makes you stand out from your competitors. Your competitors may already be using these marketing tips, so it’s time to step up your marketing game.

Tradies Online:  Consider adding these tools to your website

Engaging and updated content, quality images, quality videos, and social media marketing are like magical promotional vehicles to help brand your tradie business and to enhance your online presence. However, these are not the only tools you need. Here are some gadgets and tools you can add to your site that will improve your credibility with your audience.

• Mobility – Your site should be mobile-friendly for smartphone users. They should be able to access videos, images, content, and gadgets and tools like payment processing from their phones. It’s a smartphone world, so keep up with it.
• Payment processing – The ability to pay for services or make payments online is a wonderful convenience you can offer your clients/customers.
• Invoicing – While you can offer paper invoicing to your customers, saving paper and waste by offering software for your website that provides electronic delivery and viewing of invoices is ideal. You may have to setup an account database for your customers, but that’s just another convenience for them.
• Estimating – You can provide online estimates for many circumstances. A simple form that your potential customer can fill out and send to you via email or to your phone will expedite the process. They tell you want they want and you provide an estimate of costs.
• Scheduling – Busy tradies should have scheduling software on their site. It should update as people make appointments, so there should never be any over scheduling problems. People like being able to schedule things on the go without having to stop everything to make a phone call to get an appointment.

These are a few things you can do to enhance your credibility, make doing business with you easier, and engage your audience through online marketing and your online presence.  We hope you will benefit from these tips and little tidbits of information designed to help you with your business growth.

Where you can get help with your tradies online presence and marketing:

If you do need a good marketer to help you with online marketing, try contacting a marketer from our Tradebusters Academy network. These marketers specialise in helping tradesmen in business and we are sure one would be a good choice for you.

Tradies Online Marketers – Right One Right Here!