Marketing for small businesses: how to get more customers

How to get more customers: five things in order

The order is the same whether you clean facades, sell saunas or lease out machinery. What varies is how much each step costs and how long it takes.

1. Be there when they search

Most services are bought the moment the need arises. The roof leaks, the moving date is coming up, the letter from the Norwegian Public Roads Administration arrives. The customer types “[service] [city]” into Google, and whoever shows up there with a price, a phone number and availability gets the job. That’s the cheapest customer you can get, because she has already made up her mind.

Two things get you that spot. Google Business Profile is free and is what shows up on the map: fill in services, opening hours, phone number and photos of your work, and text every happy customer a link to leave a review the same day. Google Ads on “service + city,” limited to the area you actually drive to, is what gives you volume. Start with one service in one city and make it profitable before you expand.

2. Make it easy to get in touch

When ads “don’t work,” the problem is often the page they land on. Someone searching “flyttevask Oslo” (move-out cleaning Oslo) who lands on a homepage saying “We offer everything in cleaning” has to go looking. Many don’t bother.

Make one page per service: price or price estimate, a phone number you can tap on mobile, a few real reviews, and a form with few fields. It can be built in the tool you already have (WordPress, Wix, Squarespace). Having the price there matters more than the design. These are also the pages Google ranks when people search for the service.

3. Measure inquiries, not clicks

Without tracking on forms and phone calls, neither you nor Google knows what works. The platforms optimize for what you ask for, and if you ask for clicks, you get clicks from people who never call. Tracking is set up once (Google Ads conversion, Meta Pixel, GA4 and call tracking) and takes about a day. It’s the first thing we do for every new client.

4. Be remembered before they need you

Some services people don’t search for until someone has given them the idea: exterior painting, a new bathroom, a sauna in the garden. There, you have to show up first. Facebook and Instagram with real photos and short videos of your jobs, shown to people within 10–30 km, does that. Retargeting people who have visited your site keeps you visible during the weeks the decision takes. The boost button is not the same as a campaign; here’s the difference.

5. Work out what a customer can cost

Everything above costs money, so you need to know how much you can afford to pay for an inquiry. That depends on what a customer is worth to you, not on what others pay.

For comparison, an inquiry for Utvendig Renhold (facade and roof cleaning) cost NOK 163 on average over 90 days, including searches for their brand name (around NOK 188 without). More numbers, with caveats.

Do it yourself, buy, or skip?

What it costs

You set the ad budget yourself, but Google needs around 15–30 conversions over 30 days in a campaign for smart bidding to work. At NOK 250–300 per inquiry, that means NOK 5,000–9,000 a month for one service in one area. With less than that you can still advertise, but you should manage bids manually and keep the campaign narrow.

Management costs either your time or an agency. We take a share of the value we create, not a fixed monthly fee, and it only pays off for us once that share reaches around NOK 20–30,000 a month. That’s why we work with established businesses with a monthly ad budget of at least NOK 30,000. If you’re not there yet, the list in this article is what we would recommend you do yourself.

What doesn’t bring more customers

• “Visibility” without measurement. Impressions and likes say nothing about how many people called.
• A new website before tracking and ads. A new site without traffic is an expensive brochure. Build the landing pages you need, measure, and do the rest afterwards.
• Every channel at once. The budget gets spread too thin for any of them to learn.
• Replying tomorrow. Someone has to own the inbox and the phone before the ads are switched on.

The order, summarized

1. Complete Google Business Profile, and ask for reviews (this week).
2. One page per service with price and phone number (the next two weeks).
3. Tracking on forms and phone (one day, ideally bought).
4. Google Ads on one service in one area (up and running within a couple of days).
5. Once it’s profitable: the next service, the next area, then Facebook and Instagram.

Where customers look in your industry, and which mistakes keep coming up: marketing for service businesses and marketing for tradespeople. The full channel overview is in digital marketing.