H
Heat Kent
No matter what industry you’re in, if you’re really good you should be able to keep busy through recommendations and word of mouth. However, in order to build up a good reputation you need people to know you’re out there. So I’m looking for views, opinions and advice regarding web presence and advertising.
I’m half way through building my site (there’s nothing published for you to look at yet) the domain is bought and I’m hosting it on my other companies hosting account. I’m trying to keep it simple and easy to navigate with a mobile site for phone users to access, so it has the basic paragraph on the home page with who we are, where we are and what we do. There’s a services page with details of specific area’s we want to specialise in, a contact page and a blog.
It’s mostly the contact page and blog I want to hear about. I will include a contact form as well as email and phone numbers, but I’m also planning to link to Facebook, Youtube and twitter accounts as I think they are valuable tools, which give the customer a chance to be noisy and find out a little bit about you before they give you the job. Last week we got home from a boiler install, the customer had befriended me on FB and linked to me via a comment on her wall saying she had really enjoyed having plumbers in, we were agreat laugh, did a quality job, cleaned up after ourselves and even fixed a broken radiator and socket for free. That’s an instant recommendation to all of her 800 odd friends (and a few not so odd ones).
Youtube is another thing that interests me, I’ve been following a guy (plumberparts.co.uk) who cracks me up. You’ll either love him or hate him, but he’s a really friendly helpful bloke who’s well worth a look. Does anyone else make these kind of videos?
The blog page I think is a good opportunity to give customers a bit of free advice, share some funny stories and upload pictures of jobs we’ve done.
Then the final point is advertising and promotion. The site will be web optimised with metatags, links to other sites, directory listings and search engine submissions. I do the free Google maps listing as it pretty much guarantees you a 1[SUP]st[/SUP] page Google presence, but I also do a paid listing with a monthly £10 limit, just to help build a web presence.
I’m considering the use of a local trade shop as they seem to be popular with the elderly community around these parts. I don’t like their 15% commission, but I was considering OAP discounts anyway, so maybe worth a punt? Living by the sea we have a larger than average number of retirement properties and I do like working with the elderly, making sure they’re not getting ripped off, so maybe look into some kind of massively discounted rate if I can get in on managed retirement apartment blocks?
Local papers, leaflets and printed marketing campaigns? I don’t rate them, over priced and under deliver in my opinion.
Phone books – Again I don’t rate the paid adds, but a free listing can’t hurt and I think they lump it in with their free online listings now anyway.
Well, that was a long old post again…. But your thoughts and opinions would be well received.
I’m half way through building my site (there’s nothing published for you to look at yet) the domain is bought and I’m hosting it on my other companies hosting account. I’m trying to keep it simple and easy to navigate with a mobile site for phone users to access, so it has the basic paragraph on the home page with who we are, where we are and what we do. There’s a services page with details of specific area’s we want to specialise in, a contact page and a blog.
It’s mostly the contact page and blog I want to hear about. I will include a contact form as well as email and phone numbers, but I’m also planning to link to Facebook, Youtube and twitter accounts as I think they are valuable tools, which give the customer a chance to be noisy and find out a little bit about you before they give you the job. Last week we got home from a boiler install, the customer had befriended me on FB and linked to me via a comment on her wall saying she had really enjoyed having plumbers in, we were agreat laugh, did a quality job, cleaned up after ourselves and even fixed a broken radiator and socket for free. That’s an instant recommendation to all of her 800 odd friends (and a few not so odd ones).
Youtube is another thing that interests me, I’ve been following a guy (plumberparts.co.uk) who cracks me up. You’ll either love him or hate him, but he’s a really friendly helpful bloke who’s well worth a look. Does anyone else make these kind of videos?
The blog page I think is a good opportunity to give customers a bit of free advice, share some funny stories and upload pictures of jobs we’ve done.
Then the final point is advertising and promotion. The site will be web optimised with metatags, links to other sites, directory listings and search engine submissions. I do the free Google maps listing as it pretty much guarantees you a 1[SUP]st[/SUP] page Google presence, but I also do a paid listing with a monthly £10 limit, just to help build a web presence.
I’m considering the use of a local trade shop as they seem to be popular with the elderly community around these parts. I don’t like their 15% commission, but I was considering OAP discounts anyway, so maybe worth a punt? Living by the sea we have a larger than average number of retirement properties and I do like working with the elderly, making sure they’re not getting ripped off, so maybe look into some kind of massively discounted rate if I can get in on managed retirement apartment blocks?
Local papers, leaflets and printed marketing campaigns? I don’t rate them, over priced and under deliver in my opinion.
Phone books – Again I don’t rate the paid adds, but a free listing can’t hurt and I think they lump it in with their free online listings now anyway.
Well, that was a long old post again…. But your thoughts and opinions would be well received.
