Contractors and building trades professionals can’t be blamed if they’re a little confused by all the noise of advice on what to do about marketing their business on the internet.
It all raises more questions than it answers: should you continue the print advertising you’ve been doing all along? Does digital marketing pay off? Should you make time for social media networking?
You already have the answers. If something works, go with it – and it doesn’t take as long to find out what works and what doesn’t. The return from any marketing channel is a usually a good indicator of whether you should use it or not.
However, it’s important to stay ahead of the game. In your search for new ways to generate business, it doesn’t hurt to develop marketing channels before you actually need them. That way you can take advantage of them when you’re ready, instead of playing catch-up at a time when you need to be at full speed.
This doesn’t mean you have to start spending lots of time writing a blog post or thinking of things to tweet. Take a look around, scan information on the web, check out anything that looks interesting. And there’s nothing wrong with some old fashioned networking – find out what your customers, colleagues and suppliers are doing online. In other words, don’t continue to put things off, because you never know when you’ll need to really promote your business online.
Remember Your Brand
Whatever you do, whether you decide to tweet, blog or do it all, support your brand. The familiarity of your brand will help you as you use new marketing channels and it helps to give you direction for anything you put on the new channels.
Your brand is everything you do – in everything you do, every tweet, connection or link, remember your brand.
