When it comes to digital marketing, how do cabinet makers and carpenters usually “sell” themselves?
Chances are, most of your efforts look a little bit like this:
- Newspaper ads
- Connections with other tradies
- Signs at the local oval
- Sponsorships
- And of course, who can forget referrals?
Each of these techniques can be effective – however, there’s another one that many, many carpenters and cabinet makers are overlooking. Care to guess what it is?
If you said digital marketing, you’d be bang on.
In fact, if you had to pick out a type of tradie that can benefit the most from tradie digital marketing strategies, you’d be hard-pressed to find one better!
Digital marketing for carpenters and cabinet makers: what makes it different from other tradies?
Simply put, cabinet makers and carpenters aren’t like other tradies. Many other trades are reactive – most jobs are in response to an emergency around the house. As a result, marketing is all about awareness (something that tradie SEO can be a big help with).
Your clients on the other hand are much choosier. They’ve got projects in mind, and are looking for trustworthy teams and contractors to carry them out.
In short, it’s all about building trust.
While a lot of the traditional tactics can still be part of digital marketing for tradies and cabinet makers, thanks to the inherent differences between you and other tradies, special care needs to be taken to ensure your strategy works.
How does this change things?
Content marketing for carpenters and cabinet makers
As we like to say in the biz, content is king.
The main reason is for search engine optimisation – SEO. A steady stream of well-optimised content is the key to getting your website to rank for the searches (and therefore, the jobs) that you want to be found for.
Of course, for tradie businesses like yours, it isn’t enough for your website content to be well-optimised – it also needs to inspire confidence.
After all, that’s what cabinet makers and carpenters trade in!
All the content on your site should be about establishing your credibility and experience, rather than strictly focusing on optimising your site.
And a lot of the time, that doesn’t mean cramming your site full of hyperbole (a lot of people can see through that, anyway).
There are many ways you can establish credibility:
- Pictures of previous jobs and projects
- A list of large clients you’ve worked with
- Testimonials from past clients
- Using an authoritative when talking about your service and industry
Even a picture of your smiling face or your team at work can build credibility – according to some research, it directly correlates with higher conversion rates.
Make it easy to get a quote
With other tradies, a caller’s focus is on distance, response time and ability to respond out-of-hours to an emergency around the house. The quoting process is pretty quick: “can you get here in half an hours and fix it on the spot?”
Not you. A lot of the phone calls and emails you’ll receive are from people looking for quotes on jobs they want to complete.
Here’s something you might not have known: the harder it is to get a quote, the fewer people are going to try and ask for one.
What a lot of tradies – carpenters and cabinet makers included – do with their websites is simply list an email address and phone number at the top of the site.
It gets the trick done, sure – but only after a user brings up their phone, manually enters your details and sends a message. It’s slow and annoying, especially when people nowadays are accustomed to things just working.
You want to make this process as seamless as possible. Not only does it reduce the chances of someone “dropping out” but it also increases the number of conversions you make!
Keep the purchase funnel in mind
While this is something all business sites need to keep in mind, for something like carpentry and cabinet making services, it’s extra important!
You operate in what we call a “high-involvement” market: anyone who’s looking for your service is going to be doing a lot of research, weighing up their options and thinking hard about who they go with.
As such, it’s crucial that you keep the purchase funnel in mind.
Essentially, this is the idea that there are different stages of decision-making, and that at each stage, a certain number of people will drop out. That’s why it takes the shape of an inverted cone: at each stage of the purchase process, more people drop out.
The idea is to minimise how much the cone constricts (that’s to say, reduce the number of people who drop out and choose a competitor).
While other tradies don’t need to worry about this as much, as one whose clients do a lot of research, it’s crucial that you keep the cone in mind.
More importantly, it’s crucial that you take steps to minimise this loss through your website!
Websites for carpenters and cabinet makers need to consider what their unique purchase funnel looks like, as well as what stage of the funnel someone is at when they look at a page. For example:
- People clicking your “about us” page are probably still at the early stages, and still looking to get more information about you
- By contrast, people who’ve clicked on testimonials and case studies are further along – they’ve learned about you, and now they want to look at your work
The key is to recognise what pages appeal to what viewers, as well as what stage of the funnel they’re at when they read it.
Once you do that, you can optimise that specific page by making it speak to the viewer and give them the specific information they’re looking for!
Geography still matters – just less so
When it comes to tradies, location matters. A lot of callers specifically look for tradies near them in order to cut down response times and get help sooner.
For these tradies, location-based digital marketing tactics like local SEO are key.
For you however, it’s less important – since response time isn’t something you need to worry about, people can be less picky about location.
Not to mention, many are willing to travel further for good craftsmanship and quality furniture!
It’s still important that you consider geography when setting up your digital marketing – after all, you don’t want calls coming in from the other side of the country.
That said, the nature of your business means that you can probably get away with casting a wider net than other tradies do.
The more things change, the more things stay the same
Yes, there are a lot of differences between digital marketing for cabinet makers and carpenters compared to other tradies.
That said, the basics of digital marketing are still the same.
While the details might change, there are a couple of things that are still constant regardless of what trade you work in.
For example…
How SEO helps carpenters and cabinet makers
The key to your business is building trust and strong working relationships.
And for that, you need to make connections.
Networking and recommendations are a key part in connecting carpenters and cabinet making businesses like yours with the types of jobs you’re looking for.
Increasingly however, a lot of these connections are happening online – something that necessitates a good website and more importantly, good SEO.
By raising the visibility of your website for relevant searches, SEO helps carpenters and cabinet makers make that initial connection and gets your foot in the door.
A good website is key
All the stuff we’ve been talking about is well and good – however, it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have a good website to power it all!
People’s expectations of websites are a lot higher than they were in 2004 – nowadays, we expect websites to:
- Load quickly
- Look aesthetically pleasing
- Be easy to navigate
- Work with their smartphones
After all, what’s the point of having the best SEO strategy to bring people to your site if they’re immediately leaving because it looks like an ancient relic?
SEO doesn’t need to work on its own
While SEO can be an effective part of digital marketing for carpenters and cabinet makers, it’s just one tool in your toolbelt – depending on your circumstances, it might be best to also think about supporting it with other tools.
For example, one way of improving your digital marketing effectiveness is to combine it with PPC advertising, especially if you offer a range of pre-made products.
Tradie digital marketing starts by getting in touch with a professional
Managing your digital marketing is a lot of work, especially for tradies like yourself. Between all the jobs, managing inventory and more, it’s little wonder that so many tradies lag behind other businesses in the digital sphere!
Luckily, you won’t need to do it on your own.
Our digital marketing agency specialises in tradie digital marketing, including cabinet makers and carpenters.
Over the years, we’ve worked with dozens of tradies throughout Melbourne in all sorts of different trades.
And you can be one of them!
Just be sure to get in quick – our tradie marketing professionals only work with a limited number of tradies to ensure that there’s no conflict of interest. You’ll want to get in before another carpenter in the same region does!
Learn how our team can help you – give us a call on 1300 88 64 50, or click here to get in touch online.
