Promoting your business usually takes a lot of effort and money, which can lead to many contractors becoming frustrated at poor results early on. It’s hard to know what to invest in and how, and it can be particularly frustrating when you put “all your eggs in one basket” and it doesn’t work out, leaving you little recourse but to start from zero.
To be clear, there is no such thing as an effortless and inexpensive way of promoting yourself – even the effective tips I’m about to share take time and effort to show results. But at least these will be a good start that almost always brings results, and better yet, without any expensive upfront investment.
Use images and videos on social media
Whether you want to illustrate a blog post, show off your most recent project, or your new office layout, your post should ALWAYS be accompanied by an image or video. Or several.
This has been the case for a while now, but social media has pivoted dramatically into favoring videos and images, in that order. That’s what people will stop scrolling to look at, otherwise, most won’t even bother.
If you’re only illustrating basic images, you can rely on free image databases like Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, and others to find suitable images and sometimes videos as well. There are also paid databases like Shutterstock, but you can save that for later.
Other than that, simply learn to take your own photos and record videos for social media. They don’t have to be professionally shot as long as you grab the viewer's attention and show something of interest.
Create a website
Websites are the modern business card, and you’re expected to have one no matter what you do. Besides, websites look really nice on profile pages and demand a lot of respect.
Creating a website with an online builder like Squarespace or WIX isn’t that difficult and even comes off cheap, all things considered. You don’t have to learn programming to edit your website in this way, making it very easy to pick up and try for yourself.
Though of course, you can always hire a designer to make it look nice for you, which would still be cheaper than creating a website from scratch.
Learn more about creating your own website!
Register in online directories
One of the easiest ways to ensure clients can find you is to register in online directories. In places like Google you can even be added by others sometimes, and then you’d have to claim the business to edit the profile page.
If you’re just starting out, that shouldn’t be the case though. Be sure to create your business profile pages on all major directories and add all your contact information there – the more complete the better. This process should take some time, but having these profiles set up is basically free marketing.
- Yellow Pages
- homeyou
- Yelp
- Angie’s List
- Better Business Bureau
- Glassdoor
- Bing
Ask for reviews
Most people that are interested in working with you will quickly judge you based on your most recent reviews.
Reviews are valuable resources for a contractor, but you need to keep them coming. Always ask for reviews once you finish a service since most people won’t mind leaving you a word of appreciation. And asking for reviews is important because most people won’t do it unprovoked unless they have something negative to say.
And negative reviews will happen at some point, but there are many ways to deal with them and turn that in your favor – learn how to deal with negative reviews!
Use local influencers to your advantage
Every contractor starts locally, so use that to your advantage. Almost every area has a few influencers known on Instagram or TikTok and they usually accept partnerships to promote services or products.
Try to find someone and get in touch, you can offer them a hefty discount for a service in exchange for advertising your business on their platform. It’s a great way of reaching a wider audience and perhaps even finding a networking partner for the future.
Take the first step towards growing your business today and start receiving leads that will make you money. — Sign up with homeyou!
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