Image is important for small and big businesses alike, and it’s not hard to see why – the way your business, product or service presents itself leave a strong impression on your potential customers.
That’s why so many big companies go on charity drives around Christmas – yes it helps the less fortunate out but more importantly, it builds a positive image of their company with the public.
While your tradie business might not have any overseas subsidiaries or be pulling in billions each year (yet), image is extremely important for you too!
Everything you do as a tradie impacts your image, which in turn influences how willing customers are to pick up the phone and punch in your number.
And that includes your online image.
What is my online image?
Simply put, your online image refers to all the information that is available online about you – whether posted by you or otherwise.
We shouldn’t need to tell you that your online image plays a huge role in shaping what customers think of your business – and most importantly, their willingness to pick up the phone and call with a job!
For many of your customers what they can find about you online is going to shape their first impression of you. And we all know that first impressions matter.
More importantly however, almost everything that goes online stays there.
Forever.
Naturally, you’ll want to make sure that all the evidence of your online presence reflects well on you.
But before you dive straight into building an online image, let’s take a look first some ways you can build and maintain a good online image for yourself:
Tip 1: Back your claims up
Tradies are all about delivering good quality service – that means fixes or installations that are effective and stand the test of time.
So of course, the most important thing that customers are going to be looking for when researching different tradies is proof of their skills and service!
Providing proof of your services and skills and posting them online goes a long way towards building a positive online image. If everything your customers see about you online points towards someone who’s competent and gets things done, then of of course they’re going to be more inclined to give you a call!
Does your card claim you’re the best tradie in Melbourne? If so, prove it! Post pictures of successful jobs, blog about challenging problems you’ve overcome while working and link to glowing reviews.
Tip 2: Speaking of glowing reviews…
Customers serve as your greatest advocate. Word of mouth and positive buzz are the most powerful tools you have at your disposal as a tradie when it comes to building a positive image.
So naturally, when it comes to building a positive online image, the same rule applies!
If customers have left positive reviews on your site, Google, Facebook or Yelp, make use of them! We recommend displaying your positive reviews prominently on your website or social media for all visitors to see and to be persuaded by.
Of course, providing customer feedback is about more than just posting reviews on your site – you have to make sure customers have an option to provide feedback first!
If your company has a Google or Facebook account, you can enable customer reviews under settings. Alternatively, you can make things easy on your customers by talking to the designers of your website about creating a built-in review or feedback form on your site.
Tip 3: Build trust and reliability
A trustworthy tradie can be difficult to find. With so many different tradespeople vying for customers’ attention and offering the same service, picking out the best tradie can be downright impossible.
In many cases, customers go with their gut – out of all these tradies, who do they trust most?
That trust and reliability is built through a range of methods, including – you guessed it – your online image.
If you’re active on social media or engaging in a content marketing strategy however, another way you can build trust is through the content on your site. Here are some examples of how:
Talk about your experiences and knowledge.
The most direct way of building trust is to just talk about some of the jobs you’ve done in the past. Was there one job that was challenging, and how did you successfully overcome it?
Write online content that conveys your knowledge and expertise.
On top of what you say, your knowledge and experience can be conveyed through other means such as the language you use or tone you write with.
Display your reviews:
Like we mentioned above, your reviews, feedback and evidence can all build trust in potential customers.
Tip 4: Set yourself apart
Go to any entry-level marketing course and one of the first things they’ll teach you is differentiation. What makes your brand or product different from everyone else’s, and does that make it worth choosing you over your competitors?
Your services may not differ from other tradies – a fixed pipe is a fixed pipe, regardless of who did the fixing.
What does change between tradies is your online image.
That’s right! Your online image can be one of your most effective differentiators as a tradie. Online image is about more than your reviews, website and stories you tell – it’s also your personality and attitude.
And unlike your services, these are completely unique to you!
Fortunately, you can communicate your personality a number of ways… including online! Social media can be a great tool if you’re on it, for example.
Get help today
Of course, building a positive online image for your tradie business doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, it can take months of solid work building your profile. No doubt you’re a busy tradie… so just how are meant to get started?
If you don’t have the time to build up a positive online profile, consider talking to a digital marketing specialist… talk to iformat!
We offer a range of comprehensive digital marketing strategies for businesses, including tradies such as yourself. From SEO, to social media to content marketing, we have services that are sure to raise your credibility, set you apart from other tradies and ultimately, make more conversions.
Iformat tailors our services to your marketing needs, setting-up brand consciousness and projecting the best tradie image to the online community:
- We guarantee you more business
- We guarantee positive ROI
- We get you more awareness, leads and sales
Why wait? Get more calls today – call iformat on 1300 88 64 50 or fill the form here and together, we’ll turn your online image around!
