Resources
Marketing Strategy Playbooks
Most local marketing fails on sequencing rather than effort
Call (714) 823-3164 or ask a question. Clear recommendations, even if we never work together.
Marketing strategy playbooks help you decide what to do before you spend. They cover how to pick channels by job type and ticket size, how to split budget between paid and organic, and how to sequence the first 90 days. They also cover competitor research and setting targets you can check at the end of a quarter.
Most local marketing fails on sequencing rather than effort. An owner writes blog posts for four months while the Google Business Profile sits in the wrong category. A company builds forty city pages for towns its crews have never driven to, and none for the two zip codes producing half the revenue. These playbooks are about deciding before spending. They cover choosing channels by job type and ticket size. A $180 service call and a $40,000 remodel do not come from the same place, and they do not close on the same timeline. The budget material gives realistic splits between paid and organic at different revenue levels. It also names the point where adding another channel starts hurting the ones already running. Competitor research gets practical treatment. You learn what to look at in a competitor profile, and which of their pages to read. You also learn how to tell whether their rankings come from current work or from a domain registered in 2009. There is a 90 day sequencing template, because a plan without an order is a wish list. Target setting closes it out. It covers the difference between a number you can verify at the end of a quarter and a number that only sounds ambitious in a meeting. Owners planning a year, operators comparing proposals, and anyone who has been busy for months without knowing what changed should start here.
More resources
Local SEO Guides
Local SEO GuidesGoogle Business Profile Checklists and Guides
Google Business Profile Checklists and GuidesReputation Management Resources
Reputation Management ResourcesPPC and Advertising Guides
PPC and Advertising GuidesWebsite Conversion Guides
Website Conversion GuidesVideo Marketing Resources
Video Marketing Resources
Start with the job, not the channel
Before you pick a channel, list your job types from the last 12 months. For each one write down how many you did, the average ticket, roughly what it costs you to deliver, and whether your crews like the marketing strategy work. Four columns, one page.
The ranking usually surprises people. A plumbing company might find drain cleaning is 60 percent of calls and a fifth of the profit, while repipes are 8 percent of calls and nearly half of it. That gap decides where the marketing money goes, and it is invisible until somebody writes it down.
Now check capacity. If you can only run two repipes a month, a campaign that produces eight leads a week for them is a problem, not a win. Marketing plans that ignore capacity produce angry customers and bad reviews.
Everything else in a plan follows from this page. Which cities, which channels, which pages, which budget. Skip it and you end up optimizing for the marketing strategy work that keeps you busiest instead of the work that pays.
Channel fit by ticket size and urgency
The same company needs different channels for different jobs. These are typical shapes for a Southern California trade, using plumbing as the example.
| Job | Typical ticket | How urgent | Where to start |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clogged drain | $150 to $400 | Today, right now | Map pack and Local Services Ads |
| Water heater swap | $1,800 to $4,000 | This week | Map pack plus a tight search campaign |
| Whole house repipe | $8,000 to $20,000 | Weeks of research and two or three quotes | Service pages, reviews, and remarketing |
| Commercial maintenance | Recurring contract | Months, and often a bid process | Direct outreach, referrals, and a real proof page |
Ranges vary by trade and by year. The pattern holds: urgent low ticket work comes from maps and ads, considered high ticket work comes from pages and reputation.
A 90 day sequence that does not skip steps
Order matters more than effort. Doing step three first is how companies spend six months and end up with nothing they can measure.
Tracking comes first because everything after it gets judged with those numbers. A plan without a tracking step is a plan you cannot grade.
Competitor research you can do in an hour
You do not need a subscription to learn most of what matters about the three companies beating you.
Search your main term from their zip code
Use a private window so your own history stays out of it.
Count reviews and the rate they arrive
Reviews per month tells you more than the total ever will.
Open their three most important pages
Look for questions they answer that you do not.
Check their categories on Google
The primary category is the clearest tell of what they aim at.
Look up how old the domain is
Old domains hold position longer, which changes your timeline.
Check whether they run ads
Search at 8am and again at 8pm. Budgets often run out midday.
Read their one and two star reviews
Whatever they get complaints about is your sales angle.
Write down the one thing they do better
Copy that one thing. Ignore everything else they do.
Budget decisions that hold up
Most budget mistakes are about spreading, timing, and patience rather than about the total amount.
Do this
- Fund two channels properly instead of five partially.
- Hold back about 10 percent for testing something new.
- Set a floor for each channel and pause it rather than run below the floor.
- Count the cost of your own hours when comparing doing it yourself.
- Review spend against booked jobs, not against leads.
Not this
- Split 2,000 dollars a month across five channels.
- Cut the channel that is working to fund a new idea.
- Sign an annual deal during your slow season without checking cash flow.
- Start a channel nobody has time to run.
- Judge a new channel after three weeks.