When marketing a service business always remember that you’re marketing efforts will go much further if you actually give the service you say you will be giving. In other words the company that gives the best service gets the most out of their marketing. The reason I say this is because a lot of marketing is not just about traditional marketing but is also about the experience you leave your clients with. Yes I will talk about other methods to marketing a service business below, but first I want you to be aware of this one fact. Word of mouth or referral marketing is the best way to build your business. This is tough to do without other forms of marketing in the growth stages of your business, but as time goes on you can rely more and more on this form of marketing. And to be successful with this type of marketing you have to be able to give your clients impeccable service.
This is true for any type of service business whether you are marketing a plumbing business, handyman business, cleaning business, bookkeeping business, storage business, coffee shop, restaurant, auto sales business, accounting business or any other type of business you can think of. I guess this is an absolute must for marketing any business not just a service business. Or you can look at it this way, all businesses are service businesses. If your business sells bolts to a farmer or your business is a grocery store selling food, you are providing a service. The more you think about providing a good service with everything you do the better your chances of people telling their friends and family about you.
Ways of Marketing A Service Business
There are many ways to market a service business. The method you choose first will most likely depend on what sort of budget you are starting with. If you have more money you can use multiple methods to market your service business, if you have little or even no money to market your service business then you will have to start with the methods I started with when I was marketing my plumbing service business.
Marketing a Service Business with Networking
Networking is one of the least expensive ways to market a business of any kind. The cheapest way to do this is to have a bunch of business cards and join as many free business networking clubs as you can. At these meetings you can meet and slowly build your service business. Maybe try to give an incentive for some of these people to refer you to others. That way if there is 20 people at a meeting and they each refer you to 10 people you now have a circle of 200 people that might call on your services.
If you have about a thousand dollars you can join two or three clubs that charge money to be a member. Three that I have belonged to are the BBB, BNI and PGIB. I believe BNI is a global club, as well as the BBB, where as the PGIB was a local club, but there should be local clubs where you live as well.
When you are networking the best way to get business on a consistent basis is to find someone that can use your services on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. This does not work for all service companies, but even a deck builder can get a lot of referrals from an electrician that does residential electrical service work. Even better is if you are a deck builder and you find a home builder that uses your services on all the homes they build. You might have to think outside of the box on this one. If you are a wedding planner then you might want to joint venture or get referrals from wedding venues, wedding photographers, wedding cake bakers, or any other person that deals with weddings. When they get a call from a client to do the service they do then they can ask if they need a wedding planner. If so you get the referral. This may be tough as a lot of these people might be working with someone similar already, but you will find someone at some point.
Marketing A Service Business on the Phone
When I first started I also used this method. I would pick up the phone and call people that could use my services on an ongoing basis. I called about 40 people that first day, then met with a few of them, and did work for 3 of them. The one company mainly provided the service in house so they only used me once in awhile. And they could not figure out why I charged so much, but compared with in house workers any company will be expensive. That summer I made about $10k in profits, and even more the following summer. Not enough to live, but I did keep all of those clients and they did call me back in the future for further services.
Marketing a Service Business with Postcards
Creating a postcard yourself or having one printed up can lead to a lot of work. I printed mine myself on thick paper and cut each one in half. Then I delivered them myself door to door. I was able to do about 100 per hour. My return on this method was 1-4% depending on the area of the city I was in. This was better than when I went through the post office which only returned about a quarter of a percent. Either way though this worked well. My first attempts with myself delivering were giving me about 10 small plumbing jobs each week. While when I delivered through the post office I was doing about 10 per month. And these cost me about 400 dollars to deliver. I could have increased that but I ended up getting too busy with other methods to do any postcards any more.
Marketing a Service Business Online
The next method I liked the best was when I created and optimized a website. Once my site was up and running and after about 4 months of optimizing the site I was able to drop all other methods of marketing. For myself I did not plan on growing my business. I liked to just work for myself and by myself, so I would cut back on other forms of marketing once I reached the most I could handle. I was finding that with about 300 searches per month I was getting about 30 calls, which then turned into about 5 really good little jobs. What I mean by a good little job is about 2 days of work. But even this method became too much too handle so I shut down my website. In fact this is how I became a marketer helping businesses with their online and offline marketing.
Other Ways to Marketing A Service Business
You can also use the yellow pages, coupon books, radio, TV, buses, bus stops, outdoor advertising, hiring a sales force, direct mail, newspapers, online and offline classifieds, just to mention the most popular methods.
What to say When Marketing a Service Business
The words you use can make or break the deal, and this is true if you are face to face or someone is looking at a sales letter, postcard, or your website. Never promise the world, and never break any promises you have given. If you have a guarantee then keep that guarantee. If you are building a website then you should have some sales pages, but even if you just have pages that tell people what you do try and give them a reason to do business with you. This is done by explaining the benefits you provide for the client.
Other articles that will help you with your marketing efforts are marketing a business and marketing a new business
I hope this helps you with marketing a service business.
Thanks,
Kelly