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Marketing for contractors and home service businesses
Your best marketing is the job you just finished. How to turn each one into photos, a review and the next phone call.
· 2 min read
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Marketing for contractors and home service businesses
Your best marketing is the job you just finished.
Plumbers, electricians, roofers, landscapers, cleaners, painters: your customers can't see your work until they hire you. So show them the last job, and let the last customer vouch for you.
Something broke, or a project finally got the go-ahead. They search, read the reviews under the first three names and call. Whoever answers first usually gets the job.
In this order
Start with these five
None of them costs money. Get the first one working before you move to the second.
Step 1: Tell Google where you work
You may not have a storefront, but you have a service area. List the towns you cover and the services you offer so you turn up when someone nearby searches.
Set up your Google listing →Step 2: Take the before photo
The after photo means nothing without it. Stand in the same spot both times. Those two pictures are your next post and your next sales pitch.
Better photos with your phone →Step 3: Ask for the review at the walkthrough
The customer is standing in front of finished work and they are happy. Ask then, and text the link before you pull out of the driveway.
How to ask without it being awkward →Step 4: Answer fast
Calls, texts and messages. If you can't pick up on a job, a quick text saying when you will call back keeps the lead from dialing the next name.
Step 5: Go back to the customers you already have
A seasonal reminder to past customers brings in work with no advertising at all: gutters before fall, the furnace before winter.
Start an email list →
Where to spend your time
Every channel, ranked for contractors and home services
You don't need all eight. Start at the top and stop when your week is full.
Start hereWhere your first hours should go.
Add nextWorth it once the first ones are running.
Can waitFine to skip unless the note applies to you.
Nothing to post?
Three posts for this week
Post 1: Show your work
Before and after of this week's job, from the same angle.
Caption to start from
Before and after in [neighborhood]. [What was wrong] → [what we did]. [How long] start to finish.
Post 2: Help
A five-minute check a homeowner can do without calling anyone.
Caption to start from
A five-minute check that can save you a repair bill: [check]. If you see [warning sign], call someone.
Post 3: Be a person
The crew on today's job.
Caption to start from
On the job in [neighborhood] today: [names]. Wave if you drive by.
What can wait
Paid lead services and ads can wait until the reviews are coming in steadily. Without reviews, you pay for clicks that call someone else.
Do this today
Put “BEFORE PHOTOS” at the top of your job checklist, or tape it to the dashboard. Start with tomorrow's first job.
The full read
Want the whole plan in one sitting?
The article walks through each of these jobs in more detail, with the words to use and what to do first.
Other kinds of business
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