Top tips for marketing Tradesmen

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Are you a tradesman – plumber, electrician, carpenter, builder – and want to do some marketing to get more customers?  We had a meeting today with a new client and talked about marketing.

Tradesman image

Tradesmen [Image credit: http://internet-and-computers.com]

The 3 Marketing Tools a Tradesman business needs

There are lots of choices in marketing, but for a tradesman’s business, there are actually only 3 marketing tools they need

  1. Business cards
  2. A website
  3. A mailing list (email or postal)

Let’s run through these and how to use them

Tradesman’s business cards

Cheap to design and print, these are your number 1 marketing tool when you first start.  They should have accurate information about how to contact you printed in large type with a recognisable business name.

How tradesmen use business cards

Hand two to every customer.  One to keep and one to give to a friend.

Keep them in your wallet, in the car glove box and hand them out liberally especially if you go to a social function or belong to a networking group or business meeting group.

A tradesman’s business website

When you’ve enough cash, buy a website.  A simple 5 page site is all you need to start off.

How tradesmen use a website

It needs to have

  • a header that says your company name and phone number,
  • a home page that describes your business and the geographic area in which you work,
  • a page with your full contact details,
  • a page to describe your specialist skill,
  • a page of customer testimonials,
  • a page about you and your team.

 A tradesman’s mailing list

Once you’ve been working for a while, you will send out invoices to get clients paying you.  This is your chance to start to grow a mailing list.  This is useful because your past clients may refer you to future clients, and sending out mailshots or newsletters serves as a reminder to people about your services, and how to contact you.

How a tradesman uses a mailing list

Keep a record of every customer name, business name, address, telephone and email when you raise an invoice.  If you use an accounting software programme, it’ll save these details for you.

When you get a phone call or email enquiry for a new job, save the contact details.  Check on the phone that you have spelled their name correctly – this is particularly important for email addresses because one wrong letter and the message won’t arrive.

When you do a job quote, save the contact details.

Every month collate all these lists into one place (preferably electronic).  Save the file with an obvious name e.g. August 2014 Mailing List.  Then send out a short message to the whole list using specialist email sending software like MailChimp/AWeber/FeedBlitz. DO NOT USE your email program.  Ask me why not if you don’t know.

Put the date in your diary to send the newsletter every month for 1 year.

Stick to the schedule.

Send that mailing.

Even if it is short and has one photo of a job you’ve done (before and after photos are great), or a customer testimonial – it all adds up.  Over time you will get to having a big list.

Say you do 10 jobs a month and meet 5 new people each month who take a card.  Within 5 years you’ll have over 900 names on your list.  If you do 20 jobs a month and meet 10 new people – you get to 900 names in half the time!

 

That is it.

There are additional marketing techniques that you can add on top of the basic 3 such as outbound mail campaigns, using recommended trades services (Builders Crack, Rated People), creating website landing pages for Yellow Pages and other directory listings, customer satisfaction surveys, freebie giveaways or seasonal special offers.

But don’t do these until you have the basic 3 covered and working well.

For tradesman marketing services, call Creative Agency Secrets – outsourced marketing for busy business owners.

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How to improve a ‘cold’ email introduction

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Many businesses use direct email and purchased mailing lists for new business development.  It’s a tried and tested technique.

No cold calls

No more cold calls or emails. [Image credit http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.nz/] 

But it only works when you have a VERY compelling and well-written message.

Here’s an example we received

Would you like to have just one invoice to pay every month for all of you property maintenance? And only have to remember one number. Then give us a call and let us and our team do it all for you. From a one off job, or a complete maintenance package that works just for you

I have attached our company profile for you to see who we are and what we do

Also here is a link to our website [included but not hyperlined]

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any queries or quote requests

Kind regards

 

Improve your cold email text

Thanks very much for getting in touch.
As you probably can see I run a marketing business and my eagle eye couldn’t help noticing a couple of things you could improve with your approach email which I just got.

You forgot the company profile attachment.  And the link isn’t formatted correctly to open your website.

But the main thing your email lacks is a strong reason for me (the recipient) to DO ANYTHING.
Take a read of a couple of our blog posts about writing cold emails
Do you see that both give me a reason to reply?

I want to make you an offer

Will you let Creative Agency Secrets re-write your cold email so that it actually gets prospects to reply or click through to your website?
We will show you the techniques that not only get read, they get prospects to take action and start a dialogue with you.
If this sounds like the sort of marketing you’d like to be doing, let’s talk on the phone next week.
I have got time free on [name date] – any time after 10.30 am.
Thanks for your time

 

 

Regards

 

 

Rebecca Caroe

 

 

P.S.  There is no obligation to work with us after the phone call… but we are sure you won’t be wasting your time.

 

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10 Year Anniversary

10 Year Anniversary Promotion

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In a previous article, we discussed ways in which you can promote a business anniversary. Recently, one of our clients celebrated their 10th year in business. To celebrate, we did three things. We created an eBook to highlight the changes in the industry over 10 years and where the next 10 years may take them, a timeline to show the company’s milestone achievements and a classic anniversary sale.

What must be remembered is that an anniversary is not just a giveaway to thank your customers/fans. It’s also a great opportunity to get closer to your customers, generate more sales and build your future audience.

 

The eBook

The eBook was created to give readers a summary of the major changes in the industry in the past decade as experienced by influential individuals within the industry. The changes were analysed by 10 expert individuals who are heavily involved in the industry but all play a different role. This provided an interesting range of insights, each focussing on a different area of the industry.

The eBook was promoted predominantly on Social Media and on their blog. A large portion of the social media audience and website visitors are not on the mailing list – and ultimately, the purpose of the eBook was to generate newsletter signups.

To download the eBook, customers had to enter their email address whereby they would be both sent the eBook instantly as well as added to the mailing list if they weren’t already on it. This was achieved using an autoresponder. In the email with the eBook, we also mentioned the anniversary sale and gave them the discount code.

 

The Sale

10 years in business, 10% off everything – hence the discount code “10years10%”. In the previous article, we mentioned that there were a variety of sale options to choose from (historical pricing, free shipping, free gift per $10 spent). We chose to utilise a simple 10% off by process of elimination. The products our client now sells are very different to the ones they sold 10 years ago so a historical pricing promotion (where the prices would be what they were 10 years ago) wouldn’t be nearly as effective. As the value of the products is quite high, but the products are generally small, free shipping is not a big incentive as it usually equates to a minimal discount. The free gift per $ spent option was ignored for a similar reason; no one wants 100 caps with every order.

The code was promoted front and centre on the client’s homepage, on their social media accounts, those who downloaded the eBook and to their existing mailing list.

The 10% discount code was enabled for 10 weeks, which not only tied in to the 10-year theme but also allowed enough time for anyone who was going to use it, to use it. We also left the coupon open for unlimited uses – if someone wanted to buy something then use the same code again a couple of weeks later, they could.

 

Timeline

A timeline is a nice, visually attractive way of showing progression. Although they can be complicated and contain too much information, simply picking 10 most important events to highlight is a simple way of avoiding clutter and confusion. We therefore chose to feature just the big product redesigns, new releases, and company milestones (such as the 5000 unit produced) during their 3652 days in business.

To make a timeline easily which can be featured on your website, I’d recommend TimelineJS. TimelineJS is a free, opensource tool, which enables you to build interactive timelines from a Google Spreadsheet. The great thing about TimelineJS is it can be embedded into any website.

 

The results

Our client’s mailing list increased (ironically) by 10%. The number of downloads for the eBook however was considerably more than those that were newly signed up. This is because those already signed up to the mailing list were sent links to the eBook directly for download – they didn’t have to re-fill in their details unnecessarily.

The client received a number of sales utilising the 10% off discount. Surprisingly though, even though the code featured largely on the homepage, social media and in the text to those who received the eBook, there were still a handful of people who paid full price.

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What’s the advantage of FeedBlitz over Mailchimp?

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We got this question from an SEO agency who works on a client and thought that our answer might be useful to others.  These services are mass email sending programs – each has different features and applications.

Creative Agency Secrets uses FeedBlitz…..

  • Firstly because they did RSS to email first before others offered the service.
  • Secondly they were a client for a couple of years – we did a lot of copywriting for them.
  • Thirdly they do not require double opt-in for new list imports (AWeber does).
  • Fourthly they enable an autoresponder to end and then you can migrate people onto a mailing list from the autoresponder (so lists mutually build)
  • Fifthly they allow you to pick a random subscriber for prize draws (very cute)

Downsides of FeedBlitz

Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor do most of these same features.  I like the templates in these services better than FeedBlitz’ options.
I also like the mail-as-many-times-as-you-like during a month with FeedBlitz where you pay once and just mail.  Whereas Campaign Monitor charges $5 plus every time.  But depending on your list size and mailing frequency other services may give you a better price.
You can import a list but FeedBlitz insists on mailing the people and checking they know you’ve added them to a list before you can send messages to them.  It has high anti standards.
It doesn’t make creating and managing a large number of lists easy. This is because it’s principally a publishing/sharing platform not a mass email service.
Happy to amplify further or give readers a guided tour inside the services we use most and some of the cute nice-to-have features like who your social media influencers are.

Related articles

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Writing a cold email introduction

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Copywriting for new business development involves meeting and starting conversations with new people all the time.

Sometimes, you have to write to someone you don’t already know and this is called “a cold” email.

I just received this one – and I think it’s quite good.

Hi Rebecca,
 
I bet you’re inundated with emails so I’ll make it quick.
I’d like to write some free killer content guides for Start-up Marketing software for your blog.
Here’s an example of my writing style. I write content that sells:
I’ve written for Huff Po, Social Media Explorer, Creative Bloq and I’m writing for Mens Health atm.
Let me know if you’re interested and I can send over some article ideas for you to review!
Kind Regards
 
 
David Duncan,
Social Search Consultant,
Here’s what I like about the message
  1. it’s short.
  2. it opens with a statement to make me empathise with the writer
  3. it comes straight to the point and makes the offer in line 3
  4. the reassurance about the author’s skill is designed for a business reader (like me)

There’s only one thing wrong with it.

The link to the article is NOT actually authored by David Duncan – it’s by his boss.

Pity

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Xero Marketing: a pitch & a critique

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Xero is a hugely popular cloud accounts package that has taken much of the Intuit QuickBooks and MYOB business from SMEs worldwide.

Image via CrunchBase
Prompted by an article in Forbes about in-house marketing teams versus external agency use, I remembered a pitch we sent off to Xero.
As a customer of Xero and as a marketer, the things I think are lacking or could be enhanced primarily relate to the ease of re-using content and proactively driving it out to the right audience.
B2B comms for existing customers, in a nutshell.
Since Xero is growing internationally, they increasingly have separate user groups who should be communicated to differently – because they need different things from Xero.

Marketing suggestions – I have lots more….

  1. After signing up, there’s nothing to drive me deeper into using the higher features of your products, unless I search.
  2. Apart from support issues and feature requests, what are the useful things you could be communicating with my business [clues – finding support, accountancy advice, higher level feature uses, plug ins, apps developers, tax questions, work-rounds for bug fixes]
  3. How could Xero be leveraging existing customers to drive improved new business and new trial accounts using member-get-member referrals and other incentives?
  4. Autoresponders – for new users within the trial period and for first few months of use  – Xero could have a ‘guide’ much like Kiwibank‘s “Becky” who is there for the user, who acts as a signpost to helpful information inside your knowledge base, who helps check they’ve got the system set up properly.
  5. Why are you using FeedBurner to distribute your RSS feed from the blog?  It’s unsupported and you could be leveraging the channel for marketing messages to your active users in order to drive deeper brand engagement and possibly sales (see 2,3,4 above).
  6. Split out your blog into separate streams so that articles automatically send to different groups (e.g. developers and accountants, US versus NZ) Each would get articles designed for that audiences.  Create separate news feeds for different audiences, and further use them to drive marcoms to support your business growth goals
  7. The more you blog, the bigger your archive.  Readers rarely dive very deep and yet there’s probably heaps of helpful content which is being ignored.  Could they be created into “tip sheets”, e-books, training manuals and other support material? These content solutions can be supporting 1, 2 and 4 above.

As Forbes says, it’s great to be an in-house agency – but lifting your head above the parapet and seeking input and inspiration from an external agency team can be very beneficial.

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Marketing using Business Christmas Cards

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Corporate greeting cards can be used in many ways to promote your business and to show appreciation to supportive clients; some traditional and some a bit more creative. However, there are some rules and tips you should keep in mind to get the best return on your investment of sending out a Business Christmas card:

1. Procedure/mailing list

Make sure you keep your company contact information up-to-date on a regular basis and take your time to add new contacts you gain throughout the year.

A good way to control if your contact details are up to date is by including your return address so that the post office will return the card if the address is no longer valid. It will also serve a dual purpose by providing your contact information to your recipients.

2. Timing is everything

Don’t send your cards late, set yourself a deadline. December 15th is a convenient cut-off date for having your cards in the mail. If you’re sending business Christmas cards internationally, they’ll have to be in the mail much sooner. Here are some helpful links for recommended Christmas mailing deadlines: NZ Post, AUS Post, Royal Mail, USPS, Canada Post. If your Christmas card arrives after the holidays, you have just sent the wrong message to your customers. Read more

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Cold email introduction – copy this campaign

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Want to use cold emails as part of your customer acquisition?  We get dozens of approaches by digital media agencies usually picked up by our clients’ spam filters.

Today we’re publishing one of the better ones as a crib for you to copy for your own use if you want to buy email lists and try to start working cold call emails for your B2B brand.

Here’s the copy

Subject: Oneupweb would like to work with you

Cold Email example text

What do you think?

A short, neat message.  Starts with reassurance – do what you’ve always done.  But we all know how that sentence ends…. “and you’ll get what you’ve always got.”

Nice use of the word “earn” in the second sentence – they are going to work for you to gain trust.  I like that.

The words for the services list are all hotlinks with custom tracking codes – good practice to see where your campaign is working.  I clicked on the link and it took me to a standard page… no special landing site after the page had rendered using the tracking code.

Bullet points

A neat filtering tool is used here.  By quoting fees or likely media costs for services, they filter out any brands who can’t afford to pay $2,000 per month for Search Marketing or $15k for social media campaigns.

Be attracted by the big names they’ve worked for but be put off by the fees = you are not my target customer.

Interesting that it came in to my private email address.  It’s a dot com so maybe the list buyer figured I must be in USA and it’s a long-registered domain (2001 approx) and short so again, it maybe didn’t filter me out for being a person not a business.

Call to action

A question as a call to action is a subtle approach.  Do I think next week is a good time to talk?

Enough time to get into my diary and a question that can be easily answered.  Interestingly, no easy-call buttons for direct line phone numbers added here.  Wonder why?

Footer has company contact information and the usual range of social media links plus an unsubscribe.

What happens next?

We sent a reply – will let you know what happens next.

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