Where To Start?

For many individuals who work in the skilled trades starting digital marketing can be a daunting task. Should I be on every platform (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok) or should I just focus on one? How many times a day should I be posting? What should I post about? These are all valid questions but more often than not their the wrong ones.

The Right Path

With any marketing, success is achieved through two main factors resources and commitment. If you don’t have the ability to make multiple pieces of content a day for the next couple of years for any of these platforms I suggest you don’t start them. You may not need to post multiple pieces of content every day (Youtube is a prime example) but you need to be consistent and that’s the type of consistency I mean. Years, not months.

So what do I do?

Often times the best course of action is not digital marketing but other courses of marketing such as direct mail, trade shows, newspapers, and yellow pages. These things are great if you have a low budget and are just starting off as they don’t take crazy amounts of time. However, let’s say you’ve done all this and you’re ready to advance into digital marketing I would suggest creating a basic website (which if you are not tech-savvy you can outsource to someone on Upwork) and a Google My Business Profile. I would suggest posting on your Google My Business Profile weekly as this shows your audience that you are active online. These two platforms will allow you to have a presence online and start to build up online reviews that you can use later to bolster your company’s reputation. I also suggest joining a site like Homestars or Home Advisor if you are in the USA. Websites like these will again boost your reputation through reviews and you can advertise through them if you choose to do so. However be wary of generating leads through them as oftentimes they are quite expensive and on a first come first serve basis.

Generating Leads

Once you have established some online reviews I suggest starting search engine marketing (SEM). This allows you to target people on search engines like Google who are looking for your product or service. SEM is great at generating highly qualified leads who are looking to buy but it can also be expensive so depending on your service expect to be spending at least $1000 – $3000 a month. After you’ve started generating consistent leads through SEM I would suggest upgrading your website to look more professional and starting SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) allows you to rank organically (not paid) in search engines. SEO is generally cheaper than SEM (your looking at a few hundred dollars a month) but takes considerably longer to be effective (6-12 months before you start seeing any results). After you have these running smoothly you can dive into social media.

Being Social

I would pick one platform (Instagram, Facebook, Youtube) and concentrate on it. Consistently posting and commenting on other users’ posts allows you to create a community around your profile. This concentration will give you a better understanding of what works on the platforms and make the ads you run on the platform that much more effective. Once you have one social media platform you can build out to other platforms. A common strategy is to create long-form video content (tutorials, podcasts, interviews) than “cut” it down into more manageable bits for other platforms. This allows you to create more content well reducing the amount of time it takes to produce it. Remember social takes time to grow and is much like SEO you won’t see the results for months, possibly years. Oftentimes social media is best outsourced to another company as they are more efficient and can produce higher quality content.

After All Is Said And Done

Remember in marketing you need to track everything and figure out your winners and losers. If something works well increase it, if it doesn’t cut it. SEO might work wonders for you and direct mail could possibly fail. It’s different for every business and you need to remember that. If you wanna skip right to Facebook because you enjoy the platform and feel comfortable on it. Do it. Just remember to be consistent. Digital marketing for tradesmen is a tricky business but if done right and consistently can bring massive rewards. It’s up to you.

Grit Those Teeth,

Matthew D. Miller