Advertising a plasterer

[kjmcculloch]

Hi,

I hope someone can give me a few ideas. I have a friend who is a plasterer, he has been in business for about 30 years and has generally, until now, been a subcontractor for some major house builders. Due to a combination of various things he has found that they cant offer the same work they once did.

He is now doing more and more domestic jobs. He has realised that he now needs to advertise his services to get new clients. Previously it's been a simple yellow pages advert and word of mouth.

He is in the process of having his vans sign written, and is having a website created.

Can anyone share their ideas on other advertising methods for this type of business.

Thanks

Kris

 

[Vending Siting Services]

Hi Kris

I would suggest the following:

Cards to be displayed in shop windows, plumb centres, timber yards, DIY outlets, supermarkets - anywhere where the public can buy DIY things for the home.

Run a small regular advert in the local rags.

Get a cheap leaflet done and get it posted through doors, including businesses.

Give local take-away outlets some leaflets to leave on their counters or have small business cards made up.

Get a picture of himself on the leaflets, may sound daft, sometimes people want to know who they are phoning.

Well, these are a few ideas, I hope he can put some to use.

Regards.

Barbara

 

[AndyPhelps]

Try a local Facebook Fan Page, ie London - Plasterer, this will get picked up in Google search results etc, then add custom pages via WobbleXpress.com with video of pervious work, maybe a video welcome, pics and links back to the new website.

Free for the fan page, £10 for custom pages.

Hope this helps

Andy

 

[ORDERED WEB]

My local guy rents the side of a shop (I believe it is a takeaway) and has a psuedo shop front with a huge advert on it. You cant go in and visit, but you do know who the local plaster is. Someone runs an A-board out and pops it back at night

 

[Esk247]

Word of mouth still works best. Tell him to chat to the people he's doing work for and put it out there that he wants to take on more work if possible.

All of the people that have done work on our house have been from word of mouth. Electricians didn't advertise, they were recommended and have done a superb job. Plasterers were recommended by a decorator, again, superb job.

running an advertisement in the local paper as mentioned above is also a good idea, usually around the summer time, when people are re-decorating anyway.

 

[Experienced IT guy]

Well optimisation of his site for "plasters near..." should not be too difficult. Heres some links to help Get youe SEO going and help you to help him improve his site.

http://www.ava.co.uk/support/faq/si...eryone/free-seo-tools-to-get-you-started.aspx

 

[surgery_cards]

We could advertise his services in his local Health Centre booklets.

Let me know if we can help

 

[jules]

Make a DIY YouTube info video - put London Plasterer as title and add relevant tags. You have a chance to get to rise up google fast as a Video result if there isn't much Video competition. Put http://yoursite.com in description, plus caption with domain using Moviemaker or Flipshare

 

[S-Marketing]

I honestly cant think of many ideas more pointless than this, for marketing and advertising a basic trade type service.

Make a DIY YouTube info video - put London Plasterer as title and add relevant tags. You have a chance to get to rise up google fast as a Video result if there isn't much Video competition. Put http://yoursite.com in description, plus caption with domain using Moviemaker or Flipshare

 

[sherco]

Go onto you local council web site and look at the planning applications..there you will find names and addresses of people putting planning and it shows who have got the application approved. Send them a letter offering your Plastering services.

 

[S-Marketing]

A good idea, just make sure you dont start treading on peoples toes though, if you dont want to get a load of grief using this technique.

Go onto you local council web site and look at the planning applications..there you will find names and addresses of people putting planning and it shows who have got the application approved. Send them a letter offering your Plastering services.

 

[sherco]

A good idea, just make sure you dont start treading on peoples toes though, if you dont want to get a load of grief using this technique.

I will tread on anybodys toes, business is business...i wont go undercutting people just give them a competitive estimate for the works. Then its up to the customer who the go with.

 

[estwig]

I honestly cant think of many ideas more pointless than this, for marketing and advertising a basic trade type service.

Two prominent trade type members on here did this, with surprisingly good results, they where taken aback at the response a crappy little utube video generated.

Go onto you local council web site and look at the planning applications..there you will find names and addresses of people putting planning and it shows who have got the application approved. Send them a letter offering your Plastering services.

This works really, really well, if done properly.

 

[DesignerNick]

The youtube video is actually quite a good idea, granted it may not make you millions but it will help SEO Wise and Publicity Wise.

 

[S-Marketing]

The member who recommended the video is trying to drive traffic to his video making website. He suggests its a good idea as you will rank high if people search for video results of 'Plasterer London'. It seems as i'm the only one who thinks this is a complete waste of time.

As Estwig mentioned, this has been successful for 2 members on here. I dont think 2 examples of success are anywhere near enough to persuade me that its not a waste of time and effort. If anyone else has any experience of the idea I would, however, be very interested to hear about it.

IMO, vidoes and such like, are one of those things that work exceptionally well for some businesses (a bit like Facebook) and so everyone jumps on the band wagon, simply because they have heard its a 'good idea'.

The youtube video is actually quite a good idea, granted it may not make you millions but it will help SEO Wise and Publicity Wise.

 

[S-Marketing]

Fair enough. I just thought I would mention it as I have seen this technique lead to a hell of a lot of grief and agro for a couple of trades in the past.

Best one was when a firm of tree surgeons used the technique to contact all people who had applied to have work done on trees in a conservation area. One tree surgeon was getting all the initial contact and spending ages making the applications to the council on behalf of the clients, then when the applications were printed in the local paper, a different firm was undercutting him and nabbing most of the work.

Not debating the rights and wrongs of the idea, as you said, business is business. Just thought it worth mentioning.

I will tread on anybodys toes, business is business...i wont go undercutting people just give them a competitive estimate for the works. Then its up to the customer who the go with.

 

[hayesbookkeeping]

go onto www(dot)the-phonebook(dot)CO(DOT)UK

they offer very good services

 

[truesilver]

I'd be wary of advertising - you can spend a lot of money without the return if you're not careful. If he has any around his area, the little A5 local village / parish magazines are often worth their weight in gold and much much cheaper.

Personally I would get him thinking about strategic alliances. Basically making friends with other trades who can all refer customers to each other. It may sound overkill for a plasterer but we've done this kind of thing for trades before and it worked superbly! Plumbers / electricians often need a good plasterer after a big job to get everything back to new.

I've got some good ways to approach them if you want to PM me?

Hope it goes well for him.

L

 

[hayesbookkeeping]

sorry the number was 0121 522 3464

 

[I Love Spreadsheets]

How about teaming up with a local DIY shop to do in store demonstrations on how to tackle little jobs?

Get some local press coverage and the crowds will come in. Sure some are going to go away and try to do the little jobs themselves, but some of the crowd are going to say sod that can you do it.

You will get some sales from it but it will drive your PR forward