Research into plumbers and how they promote their business

[andy010]

Hello!

I'm currently doing some research into the plumbing trade and wanted to understand a bit around how smaller traders (micro-business / self-employed) promote themselves to their customers. My research so far has been limited to a Google search, but I'm curious to know a bit around:

- What methods do plumbers use on a regular basis, and which are the most effective? (e.g. Local heros, Which?, business card on a notice board, word-of-mouth, fellow plumbers who are fully booked).

- What do you find your customer's single main priority is when deciding whether or not to use your services? (e.g. price, trust, availability, parts)

- Roughly how much of your week would you say you spend looking for new customers or new business? (3hrs, 4hrs, 5hrs, etc)

- Feel free to add anything else you feel is relevant to the broader topic. Frustratingly I haven't unearthed much else so far, so my current approach is still very broad.

My research is aiming to look into plumbers and related traders who are either self-employed or work in small teams of up to 5 people, located within the UK.

If any of the responses are used as part of my research, I will remove any names or usernames and refer to people anonymously but will recognise the forum as my source.

Thanks very much for your time!
Andrew

 

[Rob Foster]

Hi Andrew I will be pleased to assist you - for this you might like to send me a private msg. In order you get many replies I suggest you explain to the collective wisdom on here why ?

 

[Harvest Fields]

I’m out.

 

[andy010]

So I'm about to enter the second year of my marketing degree and one of my upcoming modules is a business-to-consumer research module. We have been asked to get some initial research done into a possible area and field, and so I have chosen to look at independent traders and micro-businesses of up to 5 people in the trade / plumbing sector. Why plumbing? Well it seems a lot less documented on the research platforms (Mintel, Nielsen, YouGov) I've looked into and usually that means better marks (providing I don't talk garbage in the essay).

Smaller businesses and sole traders have always interested me in general though - big companies have budgets for this and can hire professionals. But how do smaller companies or one-man-bands do it? Do they even bother at all? Do they rely on luck and the direction of the wind?

 

[Welder]

Andrew.
In light of the potential for quid pro quo, might I suggest you formally offer to share the outcomes so that those who potentially contribute can also benefit?
Please DM me. Happy to share some experiences and insights.
David

 

[Bibbs118]

This clown is just after being told how to set up.

Do what we all do, take the risk and hope it works .