Running a service-based business is an accomplishment that is certainly to be celebrated. But without putting your business in front of the right customer or creating ways for the right customer to find you it’s difficult to be successful. Marketing a service based business to success starts with a strong marketing plan. Marketing is so vital to any service-based business as it helps to clarify your brand identity and helps gets your business in front of the ideal customer. Here are ways to market and drive traffic to your service-based business.

Marketing A Service Based Business To Success

If you’re wanting to grow your service-based business, it’s important to prioritize a marketing plan as well as management strategies that’ll encourage the growth of your business. The effort you put in now will determine how successful you are in the future. Here are some of things to think about when marketing a service based business to success:

Create Service Packages That Can Sustain Your Business

The success of any service-based business depends heavily on the quality of service provided. As a service-based business, the replacement, repair, and maintenance of your customer’s products or service equipment should be the core of your marketing. Regardless of the industry, your service-based business is in, marketing your core services generates traffic by letting the customer know that you are open for business. Many service-based businesses are in heavily saturated markets with similarly priced services and products across providers. Customers choosing between your business or your competitors can come down to something very simple. So, finding ways to stand out is very important.

Be sure to collect reviews from current customers so that you can show potential customers that you are a great company to work with. Word of mouth can be very powerful. Offering loyalty and referral programs can help your bottom line. No matter how much money you put into marketing, the quality of your service will dictate the success of your business. So, making sure you have a well-trained team who are great at customer interactions is key.

Let Your Branding Speak For You

When your ideal customer goes looking for the right service provider, you want to make sure you meet them in their search. You want them to be able to easily see you and in turn, are able to find the information they need to help them make the final decision on which provider they will go with. Cohesive marketing provides a clear brand identity that allows your brand to stand out visually from competitors. When you couple strong visual marketing with accurate and easy to find information, trust builds for the customer, increasing the potential of winning the sale over your competitor. 

What identity will make your business memorable? Are you easily found on Google when someone is searching? Have you been present around your community to stay top of mind? These are all questions you should ask yourself when putting together a marketing plan.

Market What Sets Your Brand Apart

Far too many service-based businesses focus their marketing solely on fixing/replacing services. While routine replacements contribute to a large portion of sales, these types of transactions are more like “ yes or no” questions. Being a proactive instead of a reactive business helps to nurture the client-provider relationship to generate repeat business. In any industry that relies so heavily on reputation and “word of mouth” advertising, finding ways to provide service experiences that are more like an “open-ended” question that leads to dialogue, can have a dramatic effect on increasing your bottom line. 

Take things a step further and figure out what differentiates you from your competitors. Often when marketing a service based business, a company will settle for a lower price tag to win the advantage. The true advantage comes from how you provide the service. Are your frontline employees trained well in customer service and sales interactions? Are you going above and beyond the usual required service offering recommendations, sending thank you notes, etc. to set you apart?

Don’t stop your marketing at the basics of what your service-based business provides. Find ways to expand your marketing reach by incorporating things in your marketing that create repeat business. Bundle your services to offer additional value to the purchase or add preventative services and maintenance for customers between replacements. With the service-based industry being so competitive, finding ways to add value, appeal, and market to specific customer needs is an excellent way to market for success.  

Find Your Ideal Customer

The first step in figuring out where to market is to drill down who your ideal customer is. Identify your ideal customer by creating an avatar. This means you will give this person a name, a career, and will determine what their wants and needs are. Where does this person hang out? What are their values and attitudes? What are their problems and fears?

By understanding your ideal customer you will understand how to reach them. Whether that’s through online advertising on platforms like Facebook, Google and Instagram or whether that’s in-person at a networking event, over the radio, etc. is determined by your particular avatar. To see an example of an avatar for an electrical business, click this article on how to market an electrical contracting business.

Market With A Price That Opens The Door

In any service-based business, price is always a factor for the ideal customer. When creating your business’s marketing plan for success, the service price works along with amenities, reputation, and brand identity to illustrate the value in choosing your business to the customer. Pricing your services significantly lower than your competitors could give the impression that it lacks quality or trust. Marketing the right price for your company to serve effectively, and provide the extra care customers expect is another way to look at pricing. It’s okay to remove a slight monetary advantage. This can even open the door for repeat and future business as well as larger service purchases in the future. 

Download a free breakeven calculator here to determine your ideal pricing.

Service-based businesses often face the challenge of homogenizing with competitors making it harder for the right customer to find the right service provider for them. Marketing your business in a way that allows you to stand out, will help you market your service-based business for success. What is the one thing that separates your service business from all of the rest?  Is it your empathy or level or customer service? Is it a niche product or add on service that takes the customer’s experience from great to exceptional? Answering these questions and more like it will help you to evaluate the needs of your business, to help create a plan to market your service-based business for success.

Click to read about plumbing advertising ideas or electrical marketing strategies.

The Blue Collar Success Group helps service-based businesses achieve growth. Through team-training tools, management training, marketing and more, The Blue Collar Success Group has helped hundreds of service-based businesses on their paths to success. Read testimonials here.