Did you know that 92% of small business owners believe that having a website is the most effective digital marketing strategy? While that may be true, only 64% have their own website. That may be due to the fact that most small businesses just don’t know where or how to start their marketing journey.
For an electrical company, staying on top of marketing efforts is essential to attract new customers, be it homeowners or other businesses in the neighborhood. The bottom line is the desire to grow sales, and one of the best ways to do that is through effective marketing.
If you’re an electrician or electrical contractor, keep reading our guide to discover the ways to boost your marketing efforts and reap the benefits!
What is Electrical Contractor Marketing, and Why is it Important?
What is electrical contractor marketing? In essence, it relates to any activities that a business undertakes to increase the promotion and sale of its electrical services for both existing and potential customers.
Electrician marketing can provide several benefits for business owners:
- First and foremost: Improves sales! When a business spreads word of mouth, grows its online presence, and attracts new clients, it immediately increases its likelihood for more sales. This means increased profits in the long run!
- Grows and establishes your business’s brand. Marketing is a great way to solidify your brand identity to your customers and perfect the representation of your services online and in other forms of media.
- Attracts new business. By providing your business contact information, details of your services, and more, new customers will find you more accessible and can learn about your business. Now that your business is out there and well-marketed, it’s sure to start attracting some new faces.
- Improves existing customers’ perception. A robust marketing campaign/plan can also impress your existing customers! Can you remember a time where one of your favorite businesses underwent an awesome re-brand or implemented a new marketing campaign? Marketing is a great way to revitalize customer excitement and perception!
- Provides the opportunity to boost online reviews. Customer testimonials and online review sites are forms of digital marketing that can significantly elevate your brand perception within the competitive electrical industry.
- Provides the opportunity to learn more about the industry and trends (Don’t get pushed out). Your marketing efforts allow you to stay in touch with what’s happening in the industry and your competition, refining your business acumen and keeping you ahead of the game.
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Before You Begin to Market…
Before your business can start implementing complex marketing tactics, it has to lay some of the groundwork. Your electrical business should first form a well-rounded understanding of its overall target market, goals, and the strategies to achieve them.
Here are the various factors to consider before your business begins its marketing activities.
Know your existing and target audience/customer
Don’t start marketing without understanding this critical component: your business’s audience.
Before attempting to sell to your customers, you must first understand their mindset and their pain points. What demographic would opt for electrical services? What information are they looking for, and what are their expectations? Which customers have your business had the most success with? And what actions did you take there to achieve that success?
Building an ideal buyer persona will help you frame marketing strategies that will be successful in the long run and construct a more refined, strategic vision for your electrical contracting business.
Conduct market and industry research
Along with understanding your customers’ mindsets, you must also form a comprehensive understanding of the business environment and industry landscape. This involves scoping out the competition, the current demand, and the influences that impact the electrical industry.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Who are my closest competitors? What exactly are they doing to market their services?
- What is the market situation? What is the projected demand for the next six months? The next year?
- How is the industry expected to evolve? Is the industry changing and currently facing many challenges? If so, what are those challenges?
Research all the different review and social media platforms and marketing tools out there:
It’s best to get familiar with the various online review platforms and social media sites you will leverage for your marketing ahead of time. By orienting yourself to the policies and guidelines of each platform, you can better use them to your advantage when the time comes.
For example, suppose you plan to grow your business’s online reviews on Yelp and through effective Google searches (Google My Business). In that case, it’s a good idea to explore both platforms thoroughly and know what they have to offer any associated costs or fees, and rules and regulations. Make sure to scope and keep a pulse on all the various platforms your electrical business should be on!
Establish a marketing budget
Finance is the lifeblood for any business. As such, it’s important to determine how much your business plans to spend on all marketing activities before actually starting. You don’t want to begin a marketing campaign and find that the budget is running dry before it really gets off the ground.
When growing your electrical business through various marketing efforts, it’s not just your money that you have to budget. Consider, too, the time and manpower it will take to implement certain marketing tactics.
Budget both accordingly so your business can see through its marketing strategies all the way to success!
Be realistic with timelines, milestones, and goals
It’s important to stay level-headed when marketing your electrical contracting business as some marketing efforts won’t see results overnight. Having a defined timeline with milestones for performance measurements along the way will keep you on the right track.
Construct SMART goals—that is, goals that are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
For example, as an electrician, your timelines and SMART goals might look like this:
- Specific: My business will generate 10 new quality leads this month through Instagram ads.
- Measurable: My business will analyze the number of customers who “swipe up” or complete a sale via the Instagram ad.
- Achievable: My business has the financial ability to see this goal through; we will also delegate a team or task force to oversee its success.
- Relevant: Generating 10 new leads will help us achieve our projected sales quota for the quarter.
- Time-bound: My business will run the Instagram ad for [x-number] of days, and analyze the number of leads after a period of [x-number] of days. If unsuccessful, we will shift strategies or extend the timeline.
Marketing Strategies Your Electrical Contractor Business Can Implement Today
Once you’ve done your initial research, it’s time to start and implement your marketing strategies.
We’ve broken down the different strategies into the following categories:
- Online/Digital Marketing Strategies
- Offline Marketing Strategies
- Automated Marketing Strategies
Online/Digital Marketing Strategies
Facebook and Instagram ads
Facebook is one of the top social media marketing channels available for businesses. With over 2.8 billion monthly active users, it’s not a surprise that small businesses market on the platform.
Facebook’s paid ad campaigns are a great marketing strategy for businesses looking to boost their posts on the platform to a specific demographic. Facebook ads allow its users to target the ads based on a predetermined set of factors (age, gender, location, and more!)
The bigger the audience you want to reach, the more you have to be willing to spend. But Facebook has reportedly provided high returns through excellent conversion rates for its business users.
Instagram ads work on the same concept as Facebook ads in that they can be targeted toward a specific user base. They can appear as a story, in which users swipe up to be redirected, a sponsored post, or you can post directly on your own feed and gain a following using hashtags. If you’re looking to engage with younger users and also use more visual forms of marketing such as videos, Instagram is the platform to be on!
With over 500 million daily active users, Instagram is an excellent space for small businesses to connect audiences who are a bit more visual and prefer bite-sized ads. Take a look at these Instagram Story ads:
Google ads/PPC and Google Local Service ads
Google ads/PPC ads work on the concept of using specific keywords, demographics, and defined locations to display specific, fine-tuned ads to audiences. Users who click on those ads will turn into potential customers as they are redirected to your business’s website.
Businesses who opt for PPC pay a fee to Google for each click (hence, the pay per click name).
With Google Local Services, this concept is taken further to include localization for customers based on their location.
When a user searches for an electrician near them, Google’s Local Services will pull your business up as a recommendation if your business is located near the user.
Pro-tip: You can make your business stand out even more if you get it verified and earn badges. Being “Google Guaranteed” or “Google Screened” will help you get noticed first against your competitors.
Lead generation services (HomeAdvisor and Thumbtack)
Another excellent way for businesses to market themselves and build their customer base is by opting for lead generation services.
Lead generation services act as a database for customers looking for a business to solve their unique problems. For businesses, this is an opportunity to list their offering on lead generation sites such as HomeAdvisor and Thumbtack.
By listing your business on lead-generating sites such as these, you can directly connect to customers who are actively searching for you. (Note that you do have to pay to generate leads on these platforms, so budget wisely and determine if your business should make the investment!)
HomeAdvisor, for instance, helps customers find electricians within their budget by allowing them to define their project cost. They can also find electricians based on the task being performed (like replacing an electric panel or fitting a ceiling fan).
The same concept applies with Thumbtack, where customers can search and filter the electricians they want depending on the exact service they’re looking for.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
The importance of SEO in modern-day marketing cannot be overlooked. SEO helps businesses boost their visibility among a customer’s radar by making them more accessible on search engine results pages.
By using effective SEO strategies, businesses can appear at the top of a potential customer’s results page (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.). This can be done using clever content marketing tactics that help boost their performance and ranking within Google’s algorithm, such as quality blog content, informational videos, and more!
Website visitor tracking
Website visitor tracking is exactly what it sounds like. It allows businesses to gather more customer insight into details such as the age, gender, and location of prospective customers visiting their website.
By doing so, you can build a better understanding of your audience and target your marketing campaigns more effectively. Your business can also gain insight into which service pages are performing well, from where/how the visitor has come to find your website, and even how many hits you receive on a given day.
Check out this list of helpful website visitor tracking tools! Most have free plans with options for upgraded services at a monthly fee.
Conversion-Focused Landing Pages
So, you’ve built a pretty effective website and are even tracking all of your different visitors.
Now it’s time to develop a conversion-focused landing page. A landing page is a standalone web page specifically designed to help you to track inbound customers and measure the effectiveness of individual marketing campaigns.
So let’s say your business is currently running an Instagram ad. If a user clicks on the link or “swipes up” to then arrive on your landing page, you can attribute that new lead to the original source: the Instagram ad. This kind of insight helps you identify successful marketing campaigns and strengthen your overall strategy.
The goal of a landing page is to then capture visitors’ contact information in exchange for a resource from your company. For example, your business might offer a free online consultation if they submit their relevant contact information.
This example offers a free estimate in exchange for a visitor’s information. You could develop your business’s landing page to the same effect. And instead of just tracking your website’s visitors, you can start capturing and converting them!
Review and reputation management
Managing online reputation is an essential marketing pillar for all small businesses to consider. As you grow your customer base, it’s important to make sure they are satisfied both offline and online as well! This is where review generation and management come in.
These days, it’s not enough to simply track your online reviews. Your business should be adept at generating healthy online reviews, too. Develop a system (a process supported by any necessary tools and resources) to actively generate your online reviews. Are you encouraging all your customers to leave a review after a service is completed? Can you send a reminder through an automated email?
Once you have a system to generate reviews, you can better track them and respond on a timely and professional basis to all—these two actions will greatly boost your business’s brand image online.
At Signpost, we offer help to local businesses by providing our own review management service!
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Offline Marketing Strategies
Referral programs and builder/contractor referrals
Capitalize on happy customers by building an innovative and structured referral program. After all, 92% of customers trust peer recommendations. Having a happy customer vouch for the quality of your services will make your business more trustworthy from the get-go.
In exchange for the referral, you can reward the referral source with attractive service discounts, offers, or gift cards! This could motivate them to provide referrals to you on an ongoing basis.
Billboards
Billboards are a classic and timeless marketing method used by many businesses to catch the eye of a customer out and about.
Their large size guarantees they won’t go missed by a prospective customer. Though on the expensive end, a well-designed billboard will be hard to forget and can draw in potential customers for your electric business easily.
Business cards
Business cards are a simple but great way to fuel word-of-mouth marketing and attract customers to your business through low-cost marketing.
For electrical business owners, this is a great way to hand out contact information without compromising the personal touch.
Pro-tip: Your business card should be brief and only include the most relevant information. It’s not a space to showcase all your products or services, but highlight your business’s essence and make you accessible to your customers.
Newspaper or trades magazine print ad
Although print ads have decreased in popularity, they still remain popular among a specific demographic and can be useful to target local consumers in neighborhoods or residential blocks.
Part of the demographic your electric business serves may be an older, retired group; it’s essential to consider that they would prefer this form of media over digital marketing channels. Consider, too, running a print ad in a newspaper or magazine that gets delivered to a retirement facility or senior home!
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Automated Marketing Strategies
Website and texting chatbots
A great way to engage website users is by automating and optimizing your landing pages. Adding interactive chatbots is a way to do this. You can leverage a website chatbot or a texting chatbot.
Through Signpost, your business will never miss an opportunity to connect with a website visitor. You can also lead them to a sale if you opt for our live chat software.
By helping your business connect with customers instantly, your customers will feel heard and be more likely to opt for your services.
Marketing Automation and Email Marketing
Advanced technologies today have also enabled marketing automation to a certain degree. This allows businesses, big and small, to connect with customers more efficiently and provide them the information they need in the best format possible.
With Signpost’s marketing automation, you can create custom email marketing campaigns and easily track their progress over time. This will increase the chance of repeat business and also keep your customers engaged with your business.
Last but not least, businesses should not forget about email marketing. Technology has also enabled the possibility of email automation, considerably cutting down the time spent constructing email marketing campaigns, drafting and copywriting, and sending them to customers through segmented email lists.
With automated emails, you can opt for a template that fits your electrical contracting business and fits your communication purpose—be it a thank-you email post-sale, informational content, and more!
How Signpost Can Help Your Electrical Contracting Business
Whether you’re looking to have your business displayed on a fantastic billboard, get started with SEO lead generation services, or pop up in your customer’s inbox, it’s undeniable that marketing is essential to your electrical business’s success.
Let us help you get there.
Book a demo with us today to find the perfect set of marketing services for your business!
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