It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, or at least a service business outsells service business one.
You have all the stuff in place that you’ve been told you need, from a Facebook account to a blog on your website, but it feels like you’re not really getting any traction with them. Your competition, on the other hand, is making money hand over fist.
Don’t despair, you can market better than the other folks.
Service Businesses Can Market Better
You’ve been reading up on marketing, but a lot of what you see online is geared toward eCommerce companies or retailers, both groups you have almost nothing in common with. That makes it hard to really figure out what’s going to work in your industry.
The truth is that service businesses don’t necessarily need to get too complicated to be effective.
Try out these four tricks for better marketing and lead retention:
Always answer the phone. First and foremost, understand that many callers hate leaving messages. This is the reality of modern life. If you don’t want to be bothered with the telephone, hire an answering service to act as your go-between, as well as providing potential customers other ways to reach you, like via email or text. The bottom line is to get to the caller fast, don’t make them wait on any platform.
Shift your focus to mobile. If you don’t have a website, get one. If you already have one, make sure it’s optimized for mobile devices. This way, leads that want to connect to you with their phones and tablets will have absolutely no problem doing so. Since mobile traffic is only increasing, it makes the most sense to have a responsive website and other mobile-friendly features attached to your online marketing.
Don’t forget to show off your pedigrees. People making large purchase or trusting their expensive things (like their house or their car) to you are a lot more invested in the purchase than someone who is looking to buy a suitcase. They’re going to need more reassurance that you’re the person for the job, so make sure you drag out those pedigrees and put them on display.
Are you a member of the Chamber of Commerce? Did you get specialized certification to do your job? Have you been recognized by a professional organization? These are all great tools to leverage in your favor.
Display your happy customers. Potential leads like to know that other customers have had great experiences with your company, so if you’re not collecting reviews, start today.
Those positive reviews are really helpful to set minds at ease, but even the negative ones can be good for your company if you handle them in an appropriate and professional fashion. Things go wrong with both products and services, it’s the problem resolution that tells those leads who you really are.
It can be hard to stand apart from your competition, especially in a tight market. When you all offer more or less the same product, the customer may literally choose a service provider based on how easy they are to reach and how friendly they are to doing business with tools the consumer likes using.
