GENERAL INFO
MY ACCOUNT
PRIVACY
Six Top Tips to Help you Market your Small Trade Business
We love our tradies. They’re some of our most loyal customers and we appreciate their business whether it’s a small order of customised vis workwear or a larger one of safety apparel. So this post is all about giving back to you, our tradies.
We’ve got some great tried and tested marketing tips and tricks for your small trade business. Some of them are oldies but goodies and some are a little ‘out-of-the-box’. We hope you enjoy them.
1. Use Your Customers
The heart of any small business is its customers. Believe us, we know! Being small has one key advantage: you’re much closer to your customers than the bigger blokes (and gals!). Use this direct contact to help you further your business.
Try:
- Asking your customers how they found you so you know what marketing is working for you.
- Did they find you on WordfMouth or Oneflare? Then ask for a review. It’s worth its weight in gold.
- If you have a happy customer, ask them to share their experience on social media and/or via word-of-mouth.
- Offer them a discount on their next job if they refer someone to you.
- Try networking with your customers and find out what they do for a living. They might just have a website you could advertise on or work in a large company that needs tradies now and again.
2. Hipages App
Are you on hipages? If not, consider getting on there. Hipages is an online jobs service that helps small trade businesses find leads and hopefully, more customers. They have a handy app you can install on your phone to keep you up-to-date with quotes as they come through.
3. Fridge magnet
Aussies love a fridge magnet. You only have to look at the state of most of our refrigerator doors to confirm that! Think about investing in some customised magnets to give your customers when you complete your job. You could consider popping an offer on there too saying if they refer someone to you, they’ll get a discount on their next job.
4. ‘On-the-Go’ Advertising
Think about what makes your business unique and come up with a great tagline to reflect that. If you can make it funny, even better! For example, an electrician might use something like ‘The brightest spark in town’ or ‘We’re shockingly good at watt we do!’.
Once you’ve got that sorted, engage the services of a graphic designer to incorporate it with your business name and logo. You can find cheap designers on sites such as Airtasker. Then you all you need to do is plaster your advertising everywhere from your on van or ute to your quote letterheads to all your social media platforms.
Last but not least, consider investing in some customised hi vis clothing, workwear or safety apparel with your business name, logo and tagline. Hi vis workwear (or hi viz workwear, whatever takes your fancy!) such as polo shirts or vests is one of the best forms of ‘on-the-go’ advertising. Think about all the place your business name will be seen – at the local takeaway when Jeff is getting his lunch, at the pub when Craig’s downing a pint or three, at the footy club when Rachel is watching Zac at practice.
5. A great website
It’s all about your website these days folks. Most potential customers look for their next tradie on the net so you need to have a good presence on there too. A website doesn’t have to have all the bells and whistles; something easy on the eye and simple works just as well. Just make sure you cover the following bases:
- who you are (what makes you unique)
- what you offer
- what equipment you use (optional)
- licensing info
- customer testimonials
Note: don’t fake the testimonials. Customers will spot that a mile away.
6. Sort your Other Online Bits and Pieces Too
Think Google My Business, True Local, Oneflare and the trusty ‘ole Yellow Pages. There are heaps of other online websites you can list on as well but in our experience, the few we’ve mentioned here are the best.
We hope you found this article interesting and picked up a few new tips to help market your small trade business. We’ve got plenty more topics lined up for our blog plus lots of great products in our store if you feel like heading over for a browse. Don’t forget to subscribe to our email list for our latest hot offers and for a heads-up on our new blogs posts.
