3 Marketing Ideas for Locksmiths
Why Locksmiths?
Locksmiths are unique in the digital marketing world because of their somewhat checkered past (particularly in the search engines). Nobody seems to agree exactly how or why it started, but in the past (and even today) fake locksmith listings have been put on Google and replaced real businesses. This shady practice has led to customers calling the scam artists, who promptly send out an untrained and unprofessional technician to service the client. Unfortunately, it kept getting worse, as the “locksmith” would then up the cost of the service by over 200% in some cases leading to very unhappy customers.
In this article, we are going to cover how to market your business if you are a legitimate locksmith tired of getting your brand/business besmirched by frauds.
1. Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is the art of making a website show up first in Google when someone types in a particular keyword. For example, if you are a locksmith based in Rochester, NY, you would want to appear when someone types in any combination of those words, so they can find your business. Unfortunately, SEO can take a long time to learn, and there is a lot that go wrong. Fortunately however, there are other options like locksmith directories that are already appearing very well for so called money keywords. Getting your business listed on one of these directories will give you a page dedicated to your business (like this one: findlocksmiths.org/locksmith-buffalo-ny) which has the possibility of generating a good amount of traffic. Another option is to actually learn to implement some of the more basic local SEO techniques so that you can work on making your website appear yourself.
2. Pay Per Click
Pay per click (PPC) is a system by which you have your advertisement displayed on a media platform, and pay each time someone clicks on it. The most popular PPC programs are Google Adwords and Facebook Advertising. For local locksmiths Adwords is recommended, for the simple fact that someone locked out of their house will not be likely to go on Facebook, but would probably look up a locksmith in their area via Google. Another great thing about Google Adwords is that the top ads appear above even the local map result (the very top of the page). That means your ad will be the first thing someone sees when they make a search. However, a thing called banner blindness means that the clicks to advertisements only account for about 10% of the search volume. What this means is that if your term get 100 searches per month, your advertisement will only ever generate 10 clicks over the course of the month, while appearing #1 in the organic search through SEO will generate about 30 clicks (#1 gets about 30% of the clicks).
3. Social Media Promotion/Brand Building
This will be a two part section talking about social media and brand building. Social media is booming, and this technique will likely not bring in customers right at the get go, but will build a list of people who will have you in mind when they need your services. Essentially it centers around building up as much of a social media presence as possible. Building up sales videos, and other promotional material is important. Investing in a clean and high quality website, as well as a great and memorable logo is also essential when it comes to having people remember you and your business.
Bonus Tip
Build an email list and offer promotions to your customers. This is invaluable, and having a list of people you can push promotions to will ensure that you are at the top of their mind when they need you. While the difference in calls cannot be measured in terms of clicks to a website, it will make a difference if you take it seriously and is possibly one of the most valuable marketing tactics to date. For more on the importance of list building, refer to the video below.