MarketingBeginnerPreview
Marketing for Local Service Businesses
A practical, numbers-driven system for plumbers, HVAC contractors, cleaners, and landscapers to generate predictable booked jobs from local search, maps, reviews, and paid social.
Owners and marketers of local home-service businesses who want a reliable flow of booked jobs.
Course content
Workbook & downloads
Put the course into practice — a printable workbook plus editable templates you can fill in and reuse.
Preview the workbook
This workbook turns the course into action for your specific business. Work through one section per module, filling in real numbers and completing each setup task as you go. By the end you will have an optimized Google Business Profile, a live review flywheel, running ads, and a tracked 90-day plan with your own cost per booked job.
The Local Lead Engine and Your Numbers
Define your buying modes and calculate the unit economics that make every later decision objective.
Exercise: Classify Your Services by Buying Mode
List every service you sell. For each one, label it urgent, planned, or recurring, and note where the customer most likely first looks for it. This tells you which channel to prioritize first.
- Which of your services are urgent (customer needs it today) versus planned (researched over days)?
- Which services are recurring, and how could you turn a one-time job into a repeat relationship?
- Based on your mix, should you invest first in LSA and the map pack, or in reviews and referrals?
Worksheet: Your Unit Economics
Pull the last 90 days of jobs and fill in each field. Leave the calculated fields blank until you have the inputs, then compute them yourself.
- Number of jobs in last 90 days
- Total revenue in last 90 days
- Average job value (revenue divided by jobs)
- Average direct cost per job (labor plus materials)
- Gross margin per job (average value minus direct cost)
- Target maximum cost per booked job (10 to 20 percent of margin)
- Estimated lead-to-booked-job rate (percent)
- Maximum cost per lead you can afford
Checklist: Set Up Lead Tracking This Week
- Create a shared lead scorecard spreadsheet your whole team can access
- Sign up for a call tracking tool such as CallRail and create one number per channel
- Place each tracking number on its matching channel (LSA, GBP, Facebook, website)
- Train everyone who answers the phone to ask: How did you find us today?
- Schedule a recurring 30-minute Monday block to update the scorecard
Google Business Profile and the Map Pack
Build, verify, and feed the free listing that drives the most calls for most local service businesses.
Checklist: Profile Setup and Verification
- Claim and verify your profile at business.google.com
- Choose the single most accurate primary category for your trade
- Add relevant secondary categories for adjacent services
- Confirm name, address, and phone match your website and directories exactly
- Set an honest service area and hide your address if you are a service-area business
- Write a 750-character description naming your services and towns served
- Upload at least 10 real photos of trucks, team, and before-and-after work
- List every service individually with descriptions and price ranges where possible
- Turn on messaging and the call button
Exercise: Seed Your Q and A and Google Posts
Write the questions customers actually ask and your clear answers, then plan a month of weekly Google Posts so the profile stays active.
- What are the five questions customers ask most before booking, and what is your best one-line answer to each?
- What seasonal offer or tip fits each of the next four weeks?
- What single call to action (Call now, Book online) will you use on every post?
Worksheet: NAP and Citation Audit
Lock one exact format for your business details, then record the status of each major directory listing.
- Exact business name (one approved format)
- Exact address format
- Exact phone number format
- Google Business Profile status (claimed or not)
- Yelp listing status
- Bing Places status
- Apple Business Connect status
- BBB and industry directory status
- Inconsistencies or duplicates found to fix
Google Local Services Ads and the Review Flywheel
Launch pay-per-lead ads at the top of search and build a system that produces a steady stream of reviews.
Checklist: Local Services Ads Launch
- Gather proof of business license for your trade and state
- Gather proof of general liability insurance at the required level
- Complete required business and technician background checks
- Submit your LSA application and pass Google screening for the badge
- Set a weekly budget tied to your maximum cost per booked job
- Confirm a process to answer every LSA call live and fast
- Set a weekly reminder to dispute genuinely invalid leads in the dashboard
Exercise: Design Your Review Ask Script
Write the exact words and timing of your review request so it happens on every completed job, not by chance.
- What one sentence will the technician say in person to ask for a review?
- What will the follow-up text say, and how soon after the job will it send?
- Who logs which customers were asked, and how will you avoid double-asking?
Worksheet: Review Flywheel Tracker
Record your starting review position and a monthly target so you can see the flywheel building. Leave the change and average fields blank until you compute them yourself.
- Current Google review count
- Current average star rating
- Target new reviews per month
- Reviews received this month
- Net change versus last month
- Percent of reviews responded to
- Review automation tool in use (Podium, NiceJob, Birdeye, or none)
Checklist: Referral and Reactivation Loops
- Define a concrete referral reward and write it on cards and invoices
- Hand every customer two referral cards at job completion
- Add referral source as a column in your lead scorecard
- Screenshot your best reviews and schedule them as social posts
- Plan a seasonal reactivation text or email to past customers
Facebook Ads, Speed-to-Lead, and Your Plan
Add paid social, convert leads in minutes, and assemble everything into a budgeted 90-day plan.
Worksheet: Facebook Local Campaign Setup
Plan your first Meta campaign for one service and one area before you build it in Ads Manager.
- Service being promoted
- Target towns or radius
- Audience signals (homeowners, lookalike from customer list)
- Audiences to exclude (existing customers)
- Daily budget
- Primary offer or hook in the ad
- Call to action (lead form or click-to-call)
- Tracking number or lead form for attribution
Exercise: Audit Your Speed-to-Lead
Honestly assess how fast leads are answered today and where they fall through, then fix the weakest link.
- How long does a typical web or Facebook lead currently wait for a response?
- What happens to calls that come in after hours, and how could you capture them?
- How many follow-up attempts do you make on an unanswered lead or an open estimate, and what should that number be?
Worksheet: Your 90-Day Rollout Plan
Assign each major task to a 30-day phase, an owner, and a budget. Leave totals blank until you add them up yourself.
- Days 1 to 30 tasks and owner
- Days 31 to 60 tasks and owner
- Days 61 to 90 tasks and owner
- Monthly LSA budget
- Monthly Facebook budget
- Monthly tools budget (call tracking, reviews)
- Total monthly marketing budget
- Marketing budget as percent of revenue
Checklist: Quarterly Review and Reallocation
- Compute cost per booked job for every channel from the scorecard
- Identify the lowest cost per booked job channel to scale
- Identify any channel you cannot trace to revenue to cut or fix
- Reallocate next quarter budget toward proven channels
- Set the date for your next 90-day review meeting
Your Action Plan
- Pull your last 90 days of jobs and calculate average job value, gross margin, and your maximum cost per booked job
- Stand up the lead scorecard and install call tracking with one number per channel
- Fully optimize and verify your Google Business Profile, including primary category, photos, and services
- Lock one exact NAP format and fix your listings on Yelp, Bing, Apple, and the BBB
- Launch the review flywheel with an in-person ask plus automated text and reminder
- Apply for Google Local Services Ads and complete screening to earn the Google Guaranteed badge
- Tighten speed-to-lead so every lead is answered within five minutes and every estimate is followed up
- Launch a geo-targeted Facebook and Instagram campaign for one service and one area
- Start a named referral program and repurpose your best reviews into social proof
- Hold a 90-day review against the scorecard and reallocate budget to the lowest cost per booked job
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