Most trade businesses I talk to think they need more leads. More Google ads. More leaflets in letterboxes. More Facebook posts. But when I ask them how often they email their existing customers, the answer is almost always the same: they don’t.
That’s an issue. And it’s costing them.
You already have a list of people who have paid you money, trusted you in their home or on their vehicle, and had a good enough experience that they paid on time and loved your work. That list is the most valuable marketing asset your business owns. It’s also the one most trade businesses completely ignore.
The maths are simple
It costs roughly five times as much to win a new customer as to keep an existing one.
I’ve seen this play out in almost every business I’ve worked with over 20 years in email marketing. The trade businesses that grow consistently aren’t necessarily the ones spending the most on ads. They’re the ones staying in touch with the people who already know them.
A plumber who emails his customer list once a month, with something useful, a winter pipe check reminder, a quick tip about water pressure, a special offer for returning customers, will get calls that his competitor never will. Not because he’s a better plumber.
Because he’s the one people remember when they need a plumber.
What you need to send
I’m not talking about a newsletter with a header image, three columns and a recipe for banana bread. I mean a simple, plain email that says something useful and gives people a reason to get in touch.
For a trades business, that usually looks like one of three things. A seasonal reminder, a maintenance tip relevant to the time of year, or a special offer for past customers only. That’s it. You don’t need a marketing degree. You need a list and fifteen minutes.
The key is consistency. One email a month is enough to stay front of mind. Two is better if you have something worth saying. More than that, and you’ll start burning people off your list.
A real example
Roverland was a specialist Land Rover dealer I worked with a few years ago. They had a customer list, a good reputation, and almost no email marketing programme. We set up a simple campaign, nothing fancy, and the result was $2.1 million in vehicle sales traced back to a $1,500 campaign. That’s not a typo. The customers were already there. We just gave them a reason to come back – a new vehicle launch.
The lesson isn’t that email is magic. The lesson is that people who’ve already bought from you are far more likely to buy again if you stay in touch.
How to start today
Export your customer list from whatever system you use. Xero, your job management software, your phone contacts, and even a spreadsheet. Get it into Mailchimp, which is free for the first 500 contacts. Write one email. Something useful, something honest, something that sounds like you. Send it.
That’s the whole system to start with. One list, one email, one send. From there, you build on it. But the hardest part is the first one, and it’s much simpler than most people think.
If you want a head start, we’ve put together a free email checklist for trades businesses that covers the five emails every trades business should have set up, what to write in each one, and how often to send them.
