Marketing strategy and advisory: your questions, your numbers

Who is strategy and advisory for?

Short answer: owner-operated trades businesses, usually with somewhere between a few and a few dozen people on the tools, where the owner still makes the marketing decisions.

You'll recognize yourself if:

• you pay for two or three things (ads, a directory listing, a website retainer) and can't say which one brings work
• a slow month surprised you, and you don't know whether it was the weather, the market or your marketing
• you've been offered a marketing package and want an independent read before you sign
• you're adding a new service, a second location or a new region and want to plan the launch

It is not a fit if you want someone to tell you what you want to hear. The most useful answer is sometimes "spend less" or "fix your phones first".

What questions does it answer?

Short answer: the ones that decide where every other marketing dollar goes.

These are the questions I work through with almost every trades owner:

1. What is a booked job worth to you? Average gross margin per job, not revenue, and how it differs between service calls, repairs and replacements.
2. What can you afford to pay for one? A sensible ceiling for marketing cost per booked job, given that margin.
3. Where does your work actually come from? Referrals, repeat customers, Google Maps, ads, directories, trucks and signs.
4. When does it come? Your busy and slow months, and how far ahead customers decide.
5. What's the first fix? The one change most likely to add booked jobs in the next 90 days.

Once those five are answered, most other decisions get easy.

What's included?

Short answer: a review of what you have, a working session on your numbers, and a written plan.

• Account review. Read access to your Google Business Profile, ads account, analytics and call records, so we work from facts.
• Numbers session. A call where we fill in job values, close rates and seasonality together. Estimates are fine; we refine them later.
• Written plan. A budget split by channel and month, the actions in order, and the measures we'll report on.
• Second opinions. Reading proposals, contracts and reports from other providers and telling you what we see.
• Ongoing advisory. For clients on a plan, a regular check of the numbers and a change of course when they move.

How long does it take?

Short answer: the first plan usually takes two to three weeks, most of which is waiting for account access and pulling call records.

The numbers session itself is about an hour. The plan comes a week or so later. After that, advisory runs monthly alongside whatever we're executing, so the plan stays current rather than gathering dust.

How do we measure whether it worked?

Short answer: by cost per booked job and the number of booked jobs from marketing, compared with the months before.

Clicks, impressions and "reach" are useful for diagnosing a campaign, but they don't pay wages. I ask clients to track one simple thing: for every enquiry, where did it come from, and did it become a job? Even a spreadsheet does this well. The tracking and reporting guide shows how to set it up.

What mistakes does strategy help me avoid?

Short answer: the expensive ones that come from deciding without numbers.

• Copying a competitor's budget. Their job values and close rate aren't yours.
• Spending evenly all year. Most trades have a few months that carry the year. Spend should follow demand, starting a few weeks before it.
• Judging a channel too early. Local search often takes months to show its value; ads can look good in week one and fall apart by week eight.
• Buying leads you can't answer. If half your calls go to voicemail, more marketing is the wrong fix. A text-back service such as CallText.chat or simply better phone coverage may matter more.

For worked figures, read the lead cost guide. When you're ready for the next step, see pricing or get in touch.