Why Do Lead Generation Websites For Trades Get All The Customers?

Why should you, as a skilled, experienced trade, have to fork out your hard earned money to a middleman simply for putting you and the customer together?

Well quite simply, it's because the customer is the valuable commodity in this equation, and the Lead Generation websites have access to them.

But again, why? Why do the customers go to the Lead Generation websites in the first place?

The answer, is because the Lead Generation websites MARKET themselves. They build high converting websites that position their businesses as credible and trustworthy, then they use both online and offline marketing and advertising to drive customers to those websites.

It's really not complicated. Potential customer searches Google for a plumber, and the result is an ad for the Lead Generation website. Potential customer then clicks on the ad and goes to a website that sells them on the trust and credibility of the ratings system, and a few clicks later, that potential customer has posted their job. In web design terms, they've been 'converted'.

And it's not just Google Ads that these websites use. They use social media PPC (pay per click) too, and spend fortunes on offline advertising such as TV, radio (we've all heard the jingle during Cowboy Builders haven't we?), publication ads and leaflet drops.

The biggest tragedy, is that NONE OF THIS is anything that any tradesperson can't do themselves. Ok, we're not all splashing out to go on the telly (though I know at least 2 firms that have), but local radio is more affordable than you think, and all other platforms are wide open for ANYONE.

When you do your own marketing, you can position your business in anyway you want, and target any type of customer that you want.

Want to charge top hourly rates for emergency call outs? Fine. Set up a website dedicated to emergency call outs, promising transparency and a quick response with a 'click to call now' button. Where do people go for trades in an emergency? Search engines of course, with Google taking by far the market share. So use Google and Bing Ads to drive people to your emergency call out website. Simple.

Want to sell premium bathrooms to affluent customers? A little more strategically complicated, but the principles are the same. Set up a website that highlights the quality and distinction of your products. Create content that appeals to the discerning nature of your affluent target market, and feature that content on social media and in local lifestyle publications. If the economics allow, you could host a stand at a home and gardens show. Go where the RIGHT customers are for the business that you want.

The positioning of your business within the market, and who the customer is, are completely your choice and within your control.

Yet for reasons known only to themselves, most tradespeople would rather pay the Lead Generation websites for access to price shopping customers while being directly compared to every other trade in their area.

All for the want of a little marketing.

I know this, because I did exactly the same myself when I started out as a sole trader in the late noughties (right as the economic crisis was about to happen!).

While I eventually figured out the importance of doing your own marketing through years of trial and error, it took me 4 years of barely making a living with the Lead Generation websites before I finally accepted that I had to do something about it.

4 years of competing on price, cutting every job to the bone.

4 years of dealing with hassle from customers who are only concerned with price, or wringing every last drop of sweat out of you.

4 years of driving up and down motorways because I had no idea how to attract local work. I had no idea how much local work was even available (here's a clue... there's TONS of it. It's everywhere).

4 years as a one man band, feeling VERY alone.

Why I took it for so long before doing anything, I don't know.

What's obvious to me now wasn't obvious to me then.

All I know is, there's no need for anyone to struggle, and that the Lead Generation websites aren't doing anything that you can't do yourself.

In fact, most of the marketing the Lead Generation sites do, will be WORSE than yours, simply because it's put together by a bunch of trendy graphic designers in London, who don't understand your market, and don't understand your customers as well as you. They simply have the money to do it to a mediocre level at a huge scale. In YOUR local market however, it would be very easy for you to beat them.

So if that's you, and you're struggling to get your own local customers, or are overly reliant on Lead Generation websites, then click the button below, and book in your Marketing Strategy Session with me.

I'll use my experience of taking my business from struggling, to a 5 figure monthly turnover, and a team of 5 within less than 2 years, and help you create an effective, custom built marketing plan, that when implemented, will attract all the customers you'll ever need.

Book your Marketing Strategy Session below, & let's get started →

Or get your copy of the Plumber's 'Customers On Tap' Blueprint to discover the local marketing system that grew my local, domestic plumbing & electrical business to 5 figures a month. →

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