Effective Marketing Strategies For Service Businesses
If you’re not lucky enough to have a whole marketing team for your business then you’re in good company. Hundreds of thousands of business owners are in charge of all of their own marketing, but that doesn’t mean that you have to settle for second best. Often we are told to ‘let the product speak for itself’ but when your product is actually a service, this can be tricky.
We’re going to take a look at some marketing schemes that will work specifically for businesses that offer a service, rather than a product. Whether you want to attract more people to your website, turn more leads into customers, or reach a new demographic, there’s a marketing technique that will be able to help you achieve your goals. So, if you’re ready to show the world how excellent your service really is, here’s how.
3 Best Marketing Strategies For Service Businesses
Begin a Partnership
You don’t need to bring a business partner on board for this tip, but rather find a business that could work well as a complimentary service. If you offer a household cleaning service then perhaps you could partner up with a gardening company, so you can give people’s homes and gardens the makeover that they deserve. As part of your partnership, you could offer a percentage off your cleaning fee if somebody is already using the gardening firm, or vice versa.
These kinds of partnerships are brilliant for people who are looking to expand their client base, but also for networking. Two heads are certainly better than one, so if you can work alongside somebody from a similar industry, then you can both share tips with one another, to help improve your own business and theirs. These partnerships aren’t just valuable for the clients they bring, they can help to forge deep connections which will grow over time and could even lead to new opportunities further down the line.
Get Professionally Reviewed
The feeling of receiving a good review is wonderful, it means that not only are you doing your job well, but you’re doing it well enough for somebody to want to tell the world about it. Whilst it’s important to capitalize on every good review, by making sure that you appear on sites like Google Business, or Yahoo, as well as featuring a testimonials page, it’s also a good idea to think about getting professionally reviewed.
Often people will turn to professionals when they’re going to use a service-based business. For example, those looking to try out a new gaming site might turn to CasinoBonusCA for impartial reviews on casino sites. They could find information on bonuses, customer service, and more on a professional site when a customer review might not be quite as comprehensive. Another great example is Trust a Trader, which offers reviews on tradespeople that sit alongside customer reviews.
This gives potential customers a broad spectrum of reviews to sift through, as well as a review from someone with knowledge in the field. Getting reviewed by these sites is generally as simple as asking the right site and waiting, but make sure your service is up to scratch before getting in touch.
Refer a Friend Schemes
One marketing strategy that works well to increase sales across both product-based and service-based businesses is the refer-a-friend scheme. These schemes allow your existing customers to gain discounts or other incentives by referring a friend to your business. It’s not only a nice way to reward customer loyalty, but it’s also a great way to widen your client base.
Generally speaking, it’s a good idea to offer a worthwhile but not ridiculously generous incentive to the referer, and sometimes an offer to the referee as well. For example, a hairdresser might offer 25% off their next treatment to their existing customer and a free blow-dry to their new customer as part of the refer-a-friend scheme. Some businesses have great success creating a tier system for their referral scheme, whereby the more people you refer, the greater the reward you will gain. This works in the same kind of way as a loyalty card might, building loyalty to the brand and rewarding your most loyal customers to keep them coming back time and time again.
