Best Marketing Techniques for Service Area Businesses
You may be wondering, what are the best marketing techniques for service area businesses? Well, this post should walk you through the answer to this often-asked question.
Without service area businesses, the world would find itself several decades behind. While the economy has grown over the decades, it has allowed people to specialize in niche jobs and businesses. With everyone involved in their own lives, the need to hire others for what we are not experienced at makes sense. In fact, true commerce and trade are based on just that. Instead of trading goods, people trade time for money.
Once people learn of an honest professional, works hard, and is good at their craft, they will have plenty of use for them in their lives. The problem is how do you become known within the community you serve?
Many traditional marketing methods are still useful, and with online marketing, there are tons of options for growing your business. Continue reading as we discuss the best marketing techniques for service area businesses.
Service Area Businesses Who Benefit from Marketing
So, what is a service area business, and which ones benefit the most from marketing? Simply said, a service area company provides a service that someone else needs. The opposite of a service provider is a company that sells products.
Both types of businesses can be interchangeable, with a product company providing installations or a service company selling their own line of products. A service area business will mainly make their income providing services, however. Here are some examples of service area companies benefitting greatly from a marketing plan.
- Roofers
- Plumbers
- Mechanics
- Locksmiths
- Pest Control Professionals
- Air Conditioning Repair
- Garage Door Installers
- Fence Builders
- Construction Companies
- Landscapers
- & even doctors and lawyers
Knowing a Service Area Business Customer Base
There are four upper-level categories of marketing. Each of these four demands similar but specific-to-each marketing techniques in their categories. Let’s take a look at these different types of classifications.
- Global
- Nationwide
- Regional
- Local
Although there are examples otherwise, service area businesses usually fall within the regional and local classification categories. Knowing this allows for the service business to properly concentrate on the customers in these areas.
Since there are so many cultural differences even across a single country, much less the world, it makes it easier to understand what their customer is looking for.
Probably the most important reason for marketing regionally and locally is because everyone on our list of service area businesses usually operates close to where they live. In most of these cases, they travel to the homes of clients to conduct the work. It only makes sense to concentrate on local marketing for this reason.
Digital Marketing VS Traditional Advertising
There is still a place in business for companies to use traditional marketing. Advertisements in magazines, newspapers, radio, television are out there. The problem with these conventional ads is cost and return on investment or ROI. A companies ROI through advertising may be the difference in today’s world of staying in business while your competitors are failing.
Digital or online marketing has produced some of the best ROIs in modern times. Even compared to just a few years ago, the difference is that more and more people are online. When serious social media and search engines like Google became popular, flip phones were still the rage.
Then came smartphones. With these tiny computers in hand, people are no longer tied to their desk computers and laptops. As streaming services recognized the future trend of tech, companies like Netflix got into the game. Now it’s hard to find anyone without their faces plastered in front of the phones. While society in general questions if this trend is where we want to be, you can see why online marketing has taken off as a business owner. No longer were we a country glued to the television and radio; our attentions are turned to online media.
When we compare several thousands of dollars ads on television compared to a fraction of that cost to reach just as many online or more, it is a no-brainer that investing your money in online marketing is the future for your service area business.
Marketing Techniques for Service Area Businesses
Now that we have a better understanding of service area businesses and the best marketing types let’s discuss the best marketing techniques to increase a service area business’s online presence.
Create a Standout Website
First things first, for online marketing we must have a platform as a base for funneling clients to the services offered by your company. We see many people try to use a single social site like Facebook as their platform base. While social media sites are absolutely a wonderful tool to use and which we will cover in detail later, they are still only a tool.
By having a website for your service industry business, you can use it as a home base as the place to drive traffic from many different sources. Next, we continue with the top ways to make your website stand out.
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1. Search Engine Optimization
There are two truths to understand what happens in relation to search engines when a potential client is looking for your company’s service. They will either create a search, with something like, “Who is the best plumber in New Jersey?” After hearing about a great plumber in New Jersey from a friend, they will use a search engine to find the companies website.
If a site does not exist or executes poorly, many will not waste their time calling, no matter how good a plumber is. This may not be fair, but in our modern times, this is the way of the world.
Search engine optimization, especially local SEO for people operating a service area business, provides a powerful way to gain clients. A basic statement of how SEO works is by using keywords and key phrases when building content within a site that matches what people are searching for. Whenever someone asks the question, we posed, “Who is the best plumber in New Jersey,” a website with this phrase used wisely in a website’s content will be listed with priority on a search page. As most people don’t scroll past the first one or two pages in a web search, it is imperative to have your company’s name listed at the top of the organic list.
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2. Create a User-Friendly Design
Fireworks blasting in the air are great for the 4th of July. While some think a website will stand out with powerful trick images and shocking slow-loading graphics, your site’s fundamental job is to give the client the information they want and need. This doesn’t mean a site should not be attractive; it only states that its content is the purpose.
Sites with slow loading times due to overdoing it with unnecessary digital gadgets and other designs affecting its speed will soon find a high bounce rate. In a fast-food world, people just don’t have the patience to wait on excessive site loading times when there are so many others to choose from.
To make your site stand out, think what is the client asking for and how do I deliver the right answer they want? Remember, in most cases; you have a potential client who has already decided to hire someone for the job. They don’t need to see your fireworks display, they are only looking for a reason to choose you over someone else, and the answer is to use quality content.
3. Continually Create Content
So, your website is beautiful, efficient, and is published with great content. Like they say about humans also applies to websites. After birth, you move toward death more each day. Not to be morbid, this statement is, however, correct. A website, just like life, must live, adapt and change over time.
There are tons of websites out there obviously never updated since creation. SEO takes a few months to gain traction and works well with the quality content you have. The downside is the algorithm used by search engine companies changes frequently.
One of the qualifiers to keep your website ranked at the top is to update your site with new and original SEO-friendly content constantly. Look at the non-ad sites on a search page and explore them. The top-ranked sites will have fresh content added to them almost daily or at least weekly.
One of the best ways to keep fresh and unique content updated on your service area business website is using blog posts and authoritative articles. For example, a site offering a home electrician’s services will update their content with a weekly blog on topics, such as “Safety Around Electricity” or “The Cost Savings of Using Solar Power.”
By frequently posting in this way, your site is offering two things. One, you are making yourself out to be the authority in your field by helping others and showing your experience, and at the same time adding fresh, quality SEO-friendly content to your site. Doing this will keep you ranked at the top of online searches.
4. Use Social Media to Make Your Website Stand Out
Our next recommendation for having your site stand out is to use social media as a tool to advertise your business. We say that you must first use a website as a base to attract clients because social media is how to add new clients by utilizing the ones you already have.
A smart way to stay in contact and communicate with current clients is through social media. While most of your original clients will be found through your website and advertising, social media allows you to tap into new clients through existing ones. As you interact with clients through daily social media posts, your clients’ friends see the interaction and may want also to use your services.
Keeping in constant communication with your clients through social media keeps you in the minds of those who have used your services in the past. If your services are needed only occasionally, say every two or three years, don’t let them forget about you. Keep in contact through social media.
5. Make Sure to Utilize Google My Business
Google, the most used search platform in the country, has one of the best programs for helping local businesses. Google My Business allows you to sign up with where you are located, convey the services you provide, and gives you exposure to those searching locally for the services or products you supply. It’s another tool that you or your online marketer can use to help get your message out locally.
6. Use Pay Per Click Advertising
In using traditional ads, whether roadside signage or a radio commercial, you’ll be asked to pay upfront for your ad, regardless of how well it performs. One of the best advents in digital online marketing is the Pay Per Click or PPC ad campaign.
A PPC ad campaign is very similar to traditional ads and placed in high traffic areas, where people looking for your services are located. Advertisers have well-designed algorithms to find people who are looking for your types of services in searches.
If you have ever made an inquiry on a search engine you’ve seen all of the paid ad searches at the top of the page above the organic search results. What you see are examples of PPC ads. The difference in these ads is that you only pay when someone clicks on them. If the person clicking on the ad is serious about hiring someone for a service and choosing you, your return on investment is more significant than with traditional ads.
Summing Up
Creating the best marketing techniques for your service area business is as easy as following tried and true online marketing methods. The technology changes have not entirely replaced traditional advertising but have added new routes for growing your service business with a greater return on investment. Hiring an expert in online marketing techniques will not only help improve your online presence to new clients but save you money in advertising costs in the end.
We hope you now know the best marketing techniques for service area businesses and wish you all the best!
