The Ultimate Guide to Electrician Marketing

When it comes to building your business as an electrical contractor or electrician, doing your work and being good at it are only part of the story. You also have to let people know what you offer and help them understand why you're a good fit for their needs. You need to market.

Now maybe you've reached a point in your career when word of mouth brings you all the business you want. Well that's the least expensive form (since it's free) and one of the most powerful forms of marketing. But until then, there's plenty you can do to grow your business.

In this extensive guide, we'll talk about both traditional approaches and newer digital approaches to marketing since both can be valuable. But we'll go a little more in depth on digital marketing since that is often less understood by independent business owners, and we hope this entire piece offers you a lot of value.

Do keep in mind that marketing is about testing different approaches to find out what works for you, which can vary by location, demographics, your target market, how you execute a particular technique, etc. That's why we can't promise that all of these ideas (or any we share in the comments) will be a good investment for you. But as a rule, these are tried and true local marketing options. And we've covered so much ground that we hope this will inspire ideas that can help you grow your business.

Tracking Results

Before we discuss all the specific approaches to marketing your electrical business, let's cover something that's important to all these approaches: tracking results. As you start putting time and money into marketing, you want to know what works and what doesn't. This way you can continue to get better results from your efforts over time. If something doesn't work after an adequate period of testing, you can put that money toward things that are working; or simply save that money if you're getting enough business from other efforts.

This seems obvious, but many people don't know how to do it or just think it's a bother. Yet if you don't track results, you're sure to end up throwing money away, probably on things you think you're "supposed" to do because that's how electricians have always done them, or because someone told you it worked for them.

One of the big benefits to digital marketing is that it's easier to track than traditional offline marketing. We'll talk about digital tracking later, but for offline marketing, here are some ideas for tracking:

• Any time you publish a coupon, whether in a coupon booklet or a newspaper or anywhere else, make sure it has a tracking code in fine print if it's something people will turn in for the discount. This way, even if the coupons otherwise look the same, you'll know which outlet is doing well for you. If you're really on top of things, you can even provide a new date in the fine print so you know what week of the newspaper the ad appeared, etc. This could be especially useful to see how your ads do when running alongside certain content, during holidays, etc.
  
  
• Whether you answer your phone or someone does so for you, make sure the caller is always asked where they learned about you. Have this written down. Again, you can decide how detailed you get with this. You could just keep count of the different general ways people found you (search engine, digital ad, saw your truck). Or you could track the answer to each individual caller and then see over time where you get your best customers. (E.g., "John Doe saw me in XYZ local paper and became a customer." You can then track his spend with you over time and see how much that ad was really worth.)
  
  Don't forget that sometimes repetition of advertising builds brand awareness and trust, so that later ads may appear to be worth more than early ads. So even though it's difficult to track, some attribution can be given to the earlier ads. This is easier to do with digital advertising.
  
  
• You can purchase multiple phone numbers that all forward to the same number, but track how many calls you get from each. One is used on your truck, one on print ads, one on radio ads, one on your website, etc. Again, you can then choose to track the person with the way they learned about you and see what types of people become your best customers over time.

In short, each time you invest in marketing, ask yourself this: "After I spend on this, how am I going to know that it was a good use of my money?" Because without addressing this, you will either keep spending on things that don't work, or you'll stop spending on things that do.

​With that, now onto the fun stuff: things you can actually do to build your business.

Vehicle Messaging

This is an oldie but goodie. Many electricians use their trucks as moving billboards. And why not? It's a one time cost, and you're going to be covering all the areas you provide service in anyway. Let people know that you're available. The bonus is when you're parked at a home or business where you're providing service, because this provides instant credibility with the neighbors. Someone they may know trusts you enough to do good work, so this may increase the neighbor's trust as well, which is a big part of marketing's secret sauce (building trust).

If you cannot afford to have your truck permanently painted, or you need your truck for other purposes and don't always want your business advertised on it, you can always opt for vehicle magnets. This is a low-cost way to jump start your business.

Now we're covering this idea even though it's a pretty common one because we wanted to add specific points to consider on your message. We've seen a lot of electrician trucks, and some of them are missing key information, or making it hard to see for people driving by. Here are our thoughts:

• Use visual elements (both images and white space) rather than just text. Remember that too much text makes it hard to read any of the text, and images are a great way to attract attention.
  
  
• Make it easy to see at a glance that you're an electrician. This way, if someone happens to need an electrician, they're faced with a solution. We've seen trucks that focus on other things, like the brand, that have little to no meaning for the reader. You usually only have a moment to make an impression on them while on the road.
  
  
• Include your phone number and website, and again make sure these are front and center rather than buried in a lot of other information. These are the two primary ways people will contact you, and we have seen them hard to find or difficult to read on many trucks.
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• Consider highlighting an important service or feature of your business. If you can do this without crowding the overall message, this is another way to put a solution to someone's immediate needs right in front of them. "Electrical Inspections before You Buy a Home," or "24 Hour Service" are just two examples.

T-Shirt Messaging

Same as vehicle messaging, you’re in front of customer prospects every time you meet someone; are you letting them know what you do? This can be subtle with just a name in script near the breast pocket of a polo shirt or button down shirt, letting people know you’re an electrician. Or it can be more bold and maybe even fun or funny if done on a t-shirt. (The choice boils down to your branding – how you want to come across to others. Casual vs. down-to-business.)

If using a t-shirt, consider a slogan that makes someone look twice and remember you, but make sure to at least include a business name and website; maybe also your phone number and/or some special service or offer, as long as these don't crowd the message.

Answering the Phone

Any interaction with customers and prospects is part of your marketing. You invest a lot of effort and money into getting a phone call – make the most of that call!

Whether you’re answering directly or you have someone answering for you, answer with a business name and project both energy and an eagerness to help. Nothing says “I don’t care for your business” like someone gruffly saying “hello” with no indication it’s a  business (did I dial the right number?) or chases people away with impatience for every question the caller asks.

If someone answers your phones for you, you can get someone you know to call from time to time with a particular set of questions. Have them report back on how the call went so you make sure your calls are being answered in a way that will drive more business. You can also hire a mystery shopping company to do this for you.​

Business Cards

Another standby marketing option, we just want to point out that there are two sides of a business card, and many people only take advantage of one. Yes, you can stick with standard contact information on one side, but consider using the other side to mention things that make you stand out. On that second side, you could also expand on the power of the business card with options like these:

1. Include the number to a 24/7 recorded call where you take 60 seconds to talk about why you’re a great choice for their electrical needs; and if you’re really on top of things, you could get some audio testimonials from customers and include these on the recording. Services like SpeakPipe (added to your website) make it easy to get these audios, although you may need to ask customers to take the time.
   
   
2. Besides including a link to the home page of your website, you could also include a link to a page of testimonials on your website (written, audio, or even video!) Have great reviews on a site like Yelp? Include those on your testimonial page as well. (Helps to build trust.)
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3. Have your business card offer a one-time use coupon (or some other benefit ... a monthly drawing?) for opting into a mailing list or phone texting list. The business card tells them how to join either list, and now you can market to them digitally in the future.

We’ll talk more about websites later, but the point is to pack a lot of punch into a simple business card by expanding it with other technologies that the card pushes them toward.

​On a final note, there are many ways to get your business card out to the world. For instance, besides giving them directly to prospective customers, you could also exchange cards with other types of tradesmen who you're willing to refer and who are willing to refer you.

And here's a bonus idea for getting your business card into people's hands:

This is a little different, but maybe worth a test! What if, instead of using the back of the card for more information, you opted for a magnetic business card and kept a few of them stuck to the back of your truck? You could have another larger magnet near them saying "take a card." This and the magnetic business cards could be removed when needed, but when you're in a public parking lot, this would let people take your info with them if they saw a need for your services.

Direct Mail

This option requires coming up with a printed piece (postcard, letter, flyer, etc.) and mailing direct to people’s homes. This can be pretty expensive, but it can also get results. The volume of mail delivered to mailboxes has been decreasing since 2005, as the world has gone increasingly digital. As we’ll discuss later, digital is popular because it’s inexpensive, instant, easy to track, and offers so many possible tools and tricks.

But because of this, direct mail – once a powerhouse of selling – potentially offers a greater opportunity now than it did in 2005. People’s email inboxes are full now. Their physical mailboxes are not. It’s easier to get noticed by mail than it has been in a long time.

While we don’t have space to write a treatise on direct mail in this blog, here are a few tips:

1. You can purchase mailing lists based on demographics you want to reach. This keeps you from spending on households or businesses you don’t expect will turn into sales for you.
   
   
2. You can work with a direct mail company to print and send your mailing; they can usually automate the process of getting you a list and adding the names to envelopes. They may be able to get you lower costs for delivery because they do this work in bulk.
   
   
3. Alternately, if you’re sending postcards of certain sizes, you can blanket an area through “Every Door Direct Mail” at a low cost of delivery to each address.
   
   
4. Postcards don’t have to be opened to be read. If you make them funny or engaging, solve someone’s problem, or make an offer that’s hard to refuse, there’s a good chance this message will be seen. Remember though, people throw out mail almost as quickly as they delete their email, so you must make your point quickly! (Headlines and compelling graphics are important.)
   
   
5. If you’re not using postcards, handwritten addresses – especially without a business name on the envelopes – make the package seem more personal and may help them get opened. Sending something bulky is also a well known trick, as people want to know what’s in the package. (Maybe it’s a pen with your business info on it?) 3D Mail Results is one company that focuses on getting your direct mail opened.
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6. As we pointed out before ... look for ways to track results so you know whether it’s worth expanding on this effort. Consider referral codes; use phone numbers or web pages that you can track as coming from each direct mail campaign; etc.

Traditional Media Ads: TV, Radio, and Newspapers / Print

We won’t go into these in detail because this is another large topic. As with any offline marketing, the key is figuring out how to track results from any campaign, and we’ve given some ideas about how to do this. If your marketing budget is tight, you may prefer to start with low-cost, easily tracked digital marketing that we’ll discuss below.

But plenty of electricians have had success with these traditional media options, and they may not be as expensive as they sound. Radio costs far less than TV, and a 30-second local cable spot during non-prime hours could cost you under $100. (Keep in mind you still have production costs of the commercial if they don't include it in their package – again, production would be far less expensive for radio.)

It's also worth mentioning that a lot of people now listen to digital radio through services like Pandora ... which gets us back to digital marketing. Those services will let you better target your listening audience. And of course traditional newspapers run ads on their websites as well as in print.

While we're on this topic, we'll briefly mention a type of ad called an advertorial. This is where you purchase ad space in a newspaper and use the space to write what looks like editorial content, and feels like it with some level of objectivity, but it covers your business and benefits of working with you. The purpose of this is to promote trust, since people tend to trust what a media source is writing about a company more than what a company says about itself in an ad. The more you can make this look like editorial content the better, but the newspaper may have certain stipulations like a clear label showing that it is paid-for content. One approach to this type of ad is to use part of it for content and part of it as a traditional display ad for your business, so there is something visual and the offer (display ad) is endorsed by what looks like a media writer.

Similar types of advertorials can be done in TV or radio ads ... not with written content, of course, but potentially with something designed to look like a newscast or sound like a media interview.

Press Releases

Speaking of traditional media ... historically you could try getting coverage in local media by sending them a press release. This is still true, though this has changed quite a lot because of the internet. It is possible, for instance, to send a press release through online distribution channels and quickly show up in search engines for that release. (There are pros and cons to this that we won’t go into here.)

For a local electrician business, however, you can stick with a more traditional (and free) approach by reaching out to appropriate reporters at your local media outlets. This involves visiting the websites of relevant newspapers / magazines, TV, and/or radio and doing enough digging to see who writes about local businesses. Usually you’ll be able to send them an email with your press release.

Generally speaking, follow this format and never send the press release as an attachment. Instead, briefly tell the reporter (addressing him/her by name) why you’re reaching out and then include the press release in the body of the email. Respond quickly if they want any additional information to respect their deadline driven work and you could make a friend who gives your business some coverage from time to time.

Make sure, however, that you’re sending something of value. Don’t send a press release when there’s no real news about your business. Do send it when you have something that would interest the media’s audience – after all, that’s what they’re looking for every day. That’s their job.

Finally ... you have a website, right? So make sure the website is mentioned in the press release. If you’re lucky, this will become an active link in the article. Either way, it lets people know where to find you. Speaking of a website ...

Website

Now we’ll start discussing the world of digital marketing, and we’ll start with your home base online: a website.

It appears that, even today, many small businesses – electricians included – don’t have websites. Since much of the population now finds local businesses through an online search, we would suggest that a website is essential. And gone are the days when you need to hire an expensive programmer to build a website. There are plenty of free and low-cost options for building them, and many provide you with nice looking templates (so you don’t have to be a designer to make something look nice); several of these are “drag and drop” simple.

Of course a complex website like Lighting Supply involves a lot of custom programming; but our blog – the one you’re reading right now – uses one of these simple drag-and-drop website builders (Weebly). And this will be more than adequate for most electricians. We find Weebly to be perhaps the easiest for beginners, but other popular options include Wordpress, Wix, and SquareSpace.

A note about Wordpress: there are a ton of plugins for Wordpress that expand what you can do with its websites. But this is only if you host your own Wordpress website – not if you use the "hosted" option found through the link above. Unless you plan to do some advanced marketing with your website, you shouldn't need those additional plugins.

While there are some free options available from all of these services, a small upgrade usually goes a long way. This could remove the site builder’s branding; could allow you to use your own URL rather than one of theirs; and may give you several website templates and features not found in the free version. Given the importance of a website in your marketing (most of your other marketing efforts hinge on it), it’s probably wise to upgrade enough to make sure it looks professional.

A final note here: if you already have a website but it’s old or otherwise out of date, consider updating it with one of these services. Remember, you have just seconds to capture someone’s trust when they land on your website. If you don’t, they’re probably off to check on someone else’s site. And while this is a more technical matter, if people go to your site and then leave it quickly because it doesn’t look professional, this sends warning signals to the search engines (people don’t want this search result), and you risk getting less visibility and less free traffic. It’s all tied together. So do what you can to make the most of your website.

Traffic Analytics

We already pointed out the importance of tracking everything you can with offline marketing. Digital marketing makes this much easier, but you still have to set it up. This isn’t hard and, even if you don’t know what to do with it today, you may one day want access to what’s been happening, or you may hire someone who needs this tracking in place.

On your website, this tracking is handled by analytics software. Some site builders come with this built in, but we wouldn’t rely on those. Consider using Google Analytics, which is a free service. Each website builder will have its own way to install analytics, so you’ll have to check out the details in your site builder.

As an example, after you’ve signed up for Google Analytics, you would choose the Property (your website) in your account and click on "Tracking Info." This provides a drop down where you can click on "Tracking Code" as shown in the image here. This will provide you with a code that you just need to highlight and copy. Then in Weebly, go to "Settings" and "SEO." You'll see an area called "Footer Code" where you can paste your code.

(Again, that's an example. In other site builders you would place this code somewhere else.)

​Tracking visitors is as simple as that. You’ll start seeing how many daily visits you’re getting, what hour of the day they’re visiting, where they’re from (you’ll no doubt want local traffic!), what kind of browsers and computers are being used, and much, much more.

Later, you can set up goals for seeing what kind of traffic (ads included) lead to phone calls or contact forms filled out. This will take a little research on your part, or you can hire someone to help you set this up.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

If this sounds so technical that you want to fall asleep just reading it, try to stick with us. Because if you have a website, you want people actually visiting it. And while you can do all sorts of paid advertising to drive people to your site, SEO is one thing you can do that only takes your time while giving you the chance to get long-term traffic at no additional cost. (Alternately, you can hire someone to do your SEO work. Depending on the competition in your area, this could yield quick results or results could take quite a while. You should be able to see some improvements, however, within 2-3 months, and it's possible for some results to show up within days.)

Search engine optimization involves just a few primary points:

• Making sure your site loads quickly and has a mobile-friendly version. These are probably both automatic with site builders like Weebly, Wix, and SquareSpace as long as you don’t add huge files to a page. So if you want to add a large image, you might use a service like Webresizer.com to make it a smaller file before placing it on your site; if you add a video, you might want to embed one from YouTube or another service so it’s “hosted” by someone else and doesn’t slow down your page load.
  
  
• Tagging your pages and images correctly. This isn’t hard. Your website builder should have a section for each page called the “meta title” and “meta description” or something similar. Ignore the word “meta” and you already know what these mean. You should give a unique title of 55 characters or less and description of 150 characters or less to each page (including spaces). By unique, we literally mean to not use the same title or description twice. Each page should have something specific to that page. Incorporate the most important keywords for that page in both tags while remembering that real people may read these in search engine results, so you want to use these titles and descriptions to encourage people to click on your search result.
  
  
• Also tagging your images with a few keywords showing what the image is about. In Weebly, just click on the image and select "Advanced." You'll find a space called "Alt Text" where you can add these keywords. If you want to get even more advanced, name your file with related keywords before uploading it to your site. This may not do a lot, but the goal is to help the search engines know in every way possible what your pages are about.
  
  
• Providing good content. Search engines love written content because it’s a good way to validate what your site is about – after all, they know that you’re showing this content to your website visitors, so it should be legitimate. They also tend to like it when you update your content; quality and frequency count. Fortunately in the electrician’s world, your competition may not be doing much with content, which means you can potentially get visibility and keep it with just occasional updates or a few solid articles related to your work.
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• Establishing quality / reputation. In order to assess that your website offers what people are looking for, search engines may look for indicators like links to your site, including people talking about your site on social media. However, this is again something that’s probably not happening much in your electrical world, so this isn’t something you’ll have to wrestle with as much as businesses in some other industries. Other measures include things like how long people stay on your site and whether they visit multiple pages; so again, this is why it’s important to capture people’s attention quickly (can they trust you based on the appearance of your site?; do you quickly let them know that you provide solutions they’re looking for?; etc.) and why quality content can help.

Content Marketing

This is a popular term these days in relation to search engine optimization and digital marketing, and we've already covered it a bit. We've talked about the value of having some quality content on your website. And if you have a lot of competition in the area, it's beneficial to regularly update your content, potentially with a blog. This blog can share tips for homeowners and businesses as well as things like news about your business (won any awards lately, which would encourage more trust in your business?) and promotions you may be holding.

But content marketing is also more than this – it has to do with any content you produce and publish, even if it's not on your website. You might publish articles somewhere else (like Medium.com or LinkedIn.com – just go to your profile and click "Publish a Post"); you might get quoted in a story by the media; you might publish a video to YouTube; etc. All of these are opportunities to be seen by prospective customers or to remind current customers that you're out there without always having to pay for ads. They're also all opportunities to drive people (through links) to the most related pages on your website.

Local Maps

Assuming you have a physical address for your business, make sure you claim or create your business listing in Google My Business and similar services (like Bing Places and Yelp) so that you can show up on search engine and local business maps when locals are searching for an electrician. Take advantage of the opportunity to update your profile in these with details about what you offer, pictures of your business, and so on. This process will naturally add appropriate keywords into your listing, helping the search engines match you to people’s searches.

Finally, ask your satisfied customers if they would be willing to review you on any of these sites. Many people won’t bother, but it often takes just a few reviews to push you into great visibility for appropriate searches. (See the image here and how few reviews – shown in parentheses – these electricians have ... and they have premium coverage in Google's local search results.) These reviews also build social proof about the value and trustworthiness of your business.

This is one of the easiest wins you can have for online visibility. Just don’t rely on this alone, since these may one day become paid listings rather than free.
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