The Four-Step Local Service Marketing Blueprint

Reading Time: 15 Minutes

Between mastering your craft, managing staff, and just keeping the lights on day-to-day, marketing often takes a backseat. But poor marketing means leaving sales on the table and never reaching your true potential.

I started FloweMedia to fix this problem. To provide hardworking business owners like you with a proven blueprint to simplify marketing and reach the levels of success you deserve.

In this post, I'll walk you through that four-step blueprint forged from over a decade of hands-on experience growing local service companies.

You'll discover:

• How to clearly define your brand essence to make marketing resonate
• A streamlined process to turn strangers into lifelong customers
• Must-have technologies to automate repetitive marketing tasks
• How to create a website that attracts and converts your ideal clients

Follow this framework, and you'll have the formula to attract more attention online, convert interest into sales, delight customers into referrals, and ultimately, help your business thrive.

Let's get started on unlocking your potential!

With your brand foundation set, the next step is creating a Marketing Roadmap - a streamlined sequence for attracting and converting customers.

Our Marketing Roadmap includes 5 essential systems:

1. Lead Generation - Strategies like content, SEO and social media that help you get discovered by potential customers.
2. Lead Nurturing - Ongoing value-adding communication that earns trust and moves leads towards a sale.
3. Appointment Setting - Tools and scripts to efficiently book quality meetings with promising prospects.
4. Consultative Selling - Skillfully diagnosing needs, tailoring solutions, and closing business during appointments.
5. Retention & Referrals - Delighting customers so they become raving fans who refer others.

This Roadmap connects your tactics into one revenue-driving growth engine.

For Molly, we mapped out a plan to generate wedding leads, nurture them via email, book venue tours, close bookings, and gather reviews.

CTA: Let's start mapping out your optimised path to success.

The first system in your Marketing Roadmap is lead generation - the methods for driving new potential customers to your business.

For established local brands, the two essential lead sources are:

1. Google Business Profile - Google search is often the first stop for customers searching locally. Complete your free Google Business Profile to be discovered and showcase key information and reviews.
2. A Primary Social Channel - Choose one social platform like Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn where you can attract and engage your audience, where they already 'hang out'.

Other effective tactics include:

• Lead magnets on your website to capture visitor information
• Targeted paid ads to reach those searching for your services
• Networking events to connect with prospects in-person

For Molly's wedding venue, we helped her claim and optimise her Google Business Profile and started providing content to help her build her Instagram audience through relevant photography and captions.

CTA: Let's start brainstorming the ideal lead sources for your business.

One of the most effective ways to generate leads from website visitors is offering a lead magnet. A lead magnet is a free valuable piece of content like an ebook, tip sheet, cheat sheet or toolkit that website visitors can get in exchange for their contact information.

This solves a critical problem - according to statistics, 90% of website visitors will leave and never come back. But a compelling lead magnet gives them a reason to exchange their details so you can continue nurturing them.

Some types of effective lead magnets include:

• Special reports
• Product and pricing brochures
• Consultation vouchers
• Educational webinars
• Discount codes

For Molly's wedding venue, we used her beautiful brochure with pricing and imagery as her website lead magnet. This entices engaged visitors to provide their information.

In general, a good lead magnet should provide value, match your ideal audience interests, and collect contact details you can use for follow up.

CTA: Let's strategise the perfect lead magnet to turn your website visitors into leads.

Once you've created a compelling lead magnet, you need an effective landing page for prospects to opt-in. This page is crucial – according to WordStream data, the average conversion rate for lead generation pages is just 2.35%.

The best way to maximize conversions is A/B split testing. This involves creating two different page versions and seeing which converts better.

We are helping Molly test two lead magnet landing page designs for her wedding venue. Version A saw a 36% conversion rate. But Version B highlighting reviews is currently winning with a conversion rate of 41%  – that's a 13.9% improvement and at the moment of writing this post, it's only day 10 of the test!

Why are our results so high, right out of the gate? Most of that is down to Molly and her superb product and reputation. All we've done is add our thousands of hours of know-how to make it work for her.

Overall, our clients typically see between 18-25% more leads through continual landing page split testing.

Optimisation is key. You can’t improve what you don’t measure.

CTA: Let’s start testing your page designs and copy to identify what resonates with your audience and drives the highest opt-in rates.

Once you begin generating leads through tactics like your website, social posting or just speaking to people, you need an organised system to manage and track those opportunities. Using a pipeline tool allows you to view, sort and progress leads through the sales process.

Popular free options include Trello or Airtable. But our proprietary tool TryggR takes pipeline management even further with automation.

With TryggR, leads automatically enter your pipeline and progress based on actions taken. You get a real-time view of every lead and where they are in your sales funnel.

As you can see in the example pipeline graphic below, Molly can easily view her wedding leads grouped by stage - new prospects, those contacted, booked for tours, sent proposals, and closed bookings.

Having a pipeline dashboard lets you pick up stalled opportunities and ensure every lead gets properly followed up.

CTA: Let's start tracking your prospects through a clear sales process.

*Data for illustration purposes only

Once you've captured leads, you need to continually nurture them towards a sale. Automated email sequences are extremely effective for lead follow up for busy local business owners.

These sequences automatically send a pre-written series of emails or SMS to leads over days or weeks. Each email and text message provides valuable information and incentives to convert.

For Molly's wedding venue, we created a 9 email and SMS sequence over 30 days.

So far, this has resulted in:

• 100% delivery rate (industry average is 83 - 89% - emailtooltester)
• 53% open rate (average is 17% - Mailmunch)
• 20% click rate (average is 2.3% - Campaign Monitor)

* Delivery rate is the percentage of emails sent and received.

** Open rate is the percentage of emails delivered that were opened.

*** Click through rate are the percentage of link clicks in each opened email.

Automated sequences allow you to follow-up at scale. And you can track performance to improve messaging and offers.

Setting up hands-off workflows saves hours of manual emails and text messaging and ensures no promising leads slip through the cracks.

Let's discuss implementing sequenced follow-up for your business.

Did You Know?

Turning leads into face-to-face appointments is critical. Yet up to 30% of bookings result in no-shows, costing businesses thousands of pounds each month.

Automated appointment reminders via email and text drastically reduce this problem. Studies show companies sending reminders cut no-shows by up to 70%.

For Molly's wedding venue tours, we set up online calendar integration with automatic reminders at 2 days, 1 day and 2 hours before scheduled visits.

This provides convenient self-booking and virtually eliminates missed appointments.

Let's discuss implementing automated reminders and other conversion optimisations to your appointment setting process.

CTA: Say goodbye to wasted time from no-shows!

The third Marketing Roadmap system focuses on your in-person or virtual presentations and consultations. This is your opportunity to demonstrate expertise and tailor solutions.

To excel at presentations, focus on:

• Structuring your demonstration or pitch for maximum impact
• Actively listening and diagnosing customer pain points and needs
• Overcoming objections and guiding the prospect's decision

There are three potential outcomes from an effective presentation:

1. Yes - The prospect is ready to purchase. Progress them immediately into your sales process.
2. No - This lead is not ready to proceed. Remove them from active prospects.
3. Maybe - The prospect still has uncertainties. Place them into an automated long-term nurture sequence to continue building trust.

For Molly's wedding venue tours, her goal is using consultative listening to inform how Westfield Farm could host the couple's perfect celebration.

CTA: Let's start planning impactful presentations that maximize your conversion rates.

The fourth system in an effective Marketing Roadmap is your sales process - the steps to officially sign and onboard new business.

While specifics differ across services, the sales process typically involves:

i. Providing a proposal, quote or agreement

ii. Having the prospect consent to terms via contract

iii. Clearly outlining expectations and scope of work

iv. Checking-in on completion to ensure satisfaction

v. Following up on ongoing performance and fit

The goal is ensuring new customers feel zero regrets or uncertainties. Delighting them during onboarding lays the groundwork for referrals down the road.

For something like Molly's wedding venue, this may involve providing rental packages and pricing, having couples sign agreements, outlining details like catering, checking in after the wedding, and following up on wedding photos or feedback.

CTA: Let's start optimising your sales process to maximise new customer lifetime value.

The fifth and final system in an effective Marketing Roadmap is referrals – turning satisfied customers into vocal promoters.

Referrals create exponential growth through reviews, word-of-mouth, and introductions. To encourage referrals:

• Delight customers with service that exceeds expectations
• Make it easy for happy clients to leave reviews
• Implement referral reward programs to spur introductions

For Molly’s wedding venue, delighted couples, guest and suppliers organically rave about their magical time at Westfield Farm Weddings. Molly also makes review generation easy through a system linked to her Google Business Profile.

As you can see in the image, Molly has a dashboard allowing her to request 5-star reviews from couples and easily respond to and share them to her website and through social channels.

CTA: Let’s start strategising how to light the referral fuel that ignites sustainable business growth.

While we've covered the complete Local Service Marketing Blueprint, implementing everything at once can be daunting. But there is an instant way to shortcut to results - our TryggR Essentials toolkit.

Think of TryggR Essentials as the 80/20 of the system - automating just a few vital activities for immediate impact.

For Molly's wedding venue, creating her full marketing roadmap took three months to optimise each stage. But with TryggR Essentials any service business can have near-instant results.

The Essentials toolkit streamlines the most important tasks to:

• Never miss an inbound lead
• Seamlessly nurture and convert every prospect
• Gather customer feedback and reviews

With just these three shortcuts, your growth trajectory shifts upward immediately while gradually expanding your full blueprint.

Let's explore how TryggR Essentials can provide instant 80/20 wins right away.

Imagine you could double your lead generation simply by engaging callers you’re already missing each day. With TryggR’s Missed Call Text Back tool, you can.

This automation captures leads at the very top of your sales funnel - people reaching out interested in your services. Studies show 30-60% of these inbound calls go unanswered, leaking potential business.

But TryggR instantly texts every missed caller, nurturing leads in real-time you otherwise would have lost.

By responding to missed calls with text messages, clients see lead response rates jump from 40% to over 90% almost overnight. You recapture a fortune in lost opportunities.

Missed calls are just the start. Optimising ongoing lead engagement is crucial for middle-funnel nurturing. TryggR’s Unified Inbox centralises all prospect communication for seamless follow-up.

Without a unified view, leads reach out across phone, email, SMS, chat apps, Facebook, and more. Responding efficiently across these fragmented channels is impossible.

But the Unified Inbox threads all modalities into one simple stream. You instantly see the full history with a lead right at your fingertips.

This provides immense internal efficiency. Employees no longer waste time piecing together scattered histories. And for prospects, you appear responsive, knowledgeable, and professional.

For Molly, Unified Messaging has helped her keep the premier service she's know for, even as she gets busier as all details are handled in one centralised place.

CTA: Let’s discuss how centralised communication can accelerate your lead response and conversion.

Positive online reviews are crucial for establishing trust and social proof at the bottom of the funnel with late-stage leads. TryggR’s automated Review Requests make gathering feedback simple.

With just a few clicks, you can instantly ask happy customers to leave five-star reviews that publish across the web. This builds tremendous credibility.

The more reviews you generate, the greater the compounding impact. Increased star ratings and referrals from reviewers grow your brand visibility.

For Molly's venue, sending review requests to newlyweds is growing her reputation which she uses to attract new couples and provide vital proof to couples' at the decision stage. This peer content attracts and reassures potential couples throughout the entire customer journey.

Having a large volume of reviews also minimises the impact of any negative feedback. One bad review out of 50 positive stands out as an outlier.

CTA: Let's discuss amplifying your reputation through an automated review generation strategy.

The final piece of an effective Local Service Marketing Blueprint is a tailored website aligned to everything we've built so far - branding, roadmap, and technology.

Most businesses view their website as a standalone project - picking a template, adding some photos, and publishing generic content. This inevitably leads to poor results.

Our methodology is different. Website design comes last, informed by all previous foundational work on brand, strategy and automation.

We optimise your site for conversions by:

• Incorporating established branding for personalised messaging
• Structuring layouts and content to attract and guide your ideal customers
• Integrating lead generation forms and calls-to-action with your marketing roadmap
• Building in capabilities like chat to sync with automation tools

This complete integration is why our website design converts so effectively. It operationalises everything into a growth engine.

Let's discuss building your digital hub engineered for real results.

What you now have is rare clarity on what matters most – and what doesn’t.

Finally you can align brand, roadmap, technology, and website into an integrated marketing engine. One optimised to continually attract, convert, and retain customers.

You're tired of disjointed tactics draining time and money. Of losing sales due to lack of strategy. Of frustration as complexity stalls growth.

At FloweMedia, we live to bring this clarity to local business owners like you. To help you transform marketing from source of stress into an engine for sustainable results.

Let's connect this week to map out how to rapidly turn your potential into profit.

The time for change is now. Growth awaits.