Advertising to find Commercial and Industrial clients

[YorkshireAsh]

Hi Everyone,

Im a newbie here so go easy on me.

I run a small joinery business that serves the commercial and industrial sector, we are looking to grow and are trying to find the best strategy to get to commercial and industrial businesses and avoid any domestic customers.

Could anyone recommend any methods or ideas?

Thank you in advance

Ash

 

[Paul Carmen]

It's more complex than that, it needs to be part of a coordinated marketing plan based on the services you provide and the type of customers you want; e.g. subcontracting for bigger firms on projects is very different to running projects.

You need to be clear on:

• what services you provide, what would you like to provide
• are the B2B customer small, medium or large, who do you want them to be going forward
• where does your work come from now and how do they contact you
• where do the customers find the service now, what do they look for, who are the competitors and who do they contact now etc

This type of analysis will help you with planning a way forward, helping you determine whether you need to run trade/local adverts, run online marketing, or have some sort of email or phone based sales strategy.

 

[Victor A]

Hello Ash, As highlighted by Paul - You need to have a clear marketing strategy and am going to add - Since the goal of your marketing is to get new clients and I believe you have limited marketing budget.

i. Target market - ideal client.
ii. Craft your Messages and contents
iii. Paid marketing - several sources
iv. Collect leads and nurture leads until they are ready to buy
v. Enable referrals - ask your existing clients to refer you

So you can start with a clearly defined target market - ie your ideal clients, for instance industrial development firms, etc. You might already have most of your clients belonging to similar industry section, check your existing client based and you might find that most are from similar trade section - maybe the reason you mentioned commercial and industrial sector - but be specific(eg. Civil Engineering Contractors, Constructional Steelwork, etc)
Craft your messages to address their issues/problems dont just sell your services but create valuable contents that add values to your clients; collect leads and continue to nurture the leads. It's a fact that most people are not ready to buy at the time of enquiry, you might find that some of the leads on your database might be goldmine.
I will also add that you have few sources of paid marketing, such as, advert in trades magazines, Online ads, attend trade shows, local newpapers and other media your clients reads.

Hope this helps and please get in touch if you need my professional help.
All the best!

 

[makeusvisible]

There are going to be several channels open to you. But a few below;

Facebook
Whilst I understand you are looking for commercial work and not domestic, it's worth remembering that you are still ultimately dealing with individual decision-makers. Facebook can be a great platform to target B2B decision-makers, and is cost-effective.

i.e target people within a certain location, who have certain job titles.

Google Ads
Again, it's always going to be tricky to ensure 100% that your ads don't appear in front of domestic customers, however, with the right messaging you can try to ensure that the users who click (and cost you money) are business owners or decision-makers.

You will struggle to find a more effective method of putting your services in front of people, at the exact point they are searching.

There isn't a single answer to your question, but I would advise a methodical approach to setting up your campaigns so that from the second it launches you are gathering data about what works, and what doesn't. You will likely offer many types of joinery services, perhaps covering everything from roofing to bespoke furniture.....so whatever your services are, the campaign needs structuring within to target the right people. Over time proper analysis of the data will allow you to reduce your cost per enquiry, and improve conversion rates.

I just had a quick google of your brand name, and your Google Ads were appearing. Im several hundred miles from you, and you don't have any site links, or call out extensions on your ads... which means they are unlikely to convert very well, and your probably spending a decent portion of your budget displaying Ads to people outside your working area. Google Ads just wont work unless you have your structure, and the Ads nailed (excuse the pun).

Feel free to drop me a msg if you would like assistance

 

[Paul FilmMaker]

UK video production here. I can only talk about my area of expertise which is, unsurprisingly video...

Three ideas:

1. Create customer testimonials of the kind of customers you want to do business with. i.e. Commercial & Industrial customers. Then put them on your website and anywhere you can because they will help convert the right kind of prospects


2. Show your work

I saw a joiner, just with his phone and some lights, create a series of joinery vids aimed at high end customers. He puts this on YT, Insta etc... and surprisingly, wins high end business. I remember seeing him on an £80k project where he was talking through what he was doing. What was more amazing is that someone shared that vid with me.

This takes a while to work but one of his vids had hundreds of thousands of views because it was so engrossing. Quite amazing. Will have to dig one of those out.


3. What keeps your ideal customers awake at night?: And what are your solutions? A series

Why not create a series of vids aimed at specific, corporate / commercial customers? What keeps them up at night on builds? What builds help them with their business? What should they be thinking about? The kind of thing people want to see because it helps them.

And then distribution: Email marketing, organic social and carefully targeted paid social. Use the 'organic' social to see what works best and then use it


The tricky bit is creating enough content to send out through marketing channels. The best bit is it's easy to create 50+ pieces of content in a day using video. It's pretty straightforward which will give you a ton of content that will attract the right kind of buyers.

In case you think that's impossible, here is someone (one of our customers) talking about creating 50 videos in a day (don't watch if a marketing video upsets you): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paul...=linkedin_share&utm_medium=member_desktop_web