Marketing ideas generator

Local beats clever

Marketing advice written for software companies does not survive contact with a trade business. Your customers live within a few miles, they need you at short notice, and they mostly decide by asking someone they trust.

That makes the effective tactics unglamorous: being findable locally, being easy to contact, being remembered by the people who refer you, and looking competent to somebody who has never met you.

The ones people skip

None of these cost anything, all of them work, and most trades do none of them consistently. Anything from this list beats a new channel started from nothing.

• Telling existing customers about services they do not know you offer
• Following up quotes that went quiet
• Asking for reviews on every job, not the memorable ones
• Getting on good terms with two builders, agents or property managers
• Answering the phone, or calling back the same day

Match the idea to your time

An idea that needs weekly attention is worthless if you have an hour a month. That is why the tool asks — the suggestions change completely depending on the answer.

It also asks what you have tried. Being told to do leaflets again, when leaflets already failed, is how people conclude that marketing does not work for trades.