10 Ideas for Marketing Your Service Offerings

What to emphasize in marketing your services

Different business models require their own marketing strategies. If you sell products, you'll want to emphasize things like the price and quality of your goods or customer service options. Service providers tend to find success promoting their unique skills and how their knowledge can help customers thrive.

Focus your marketing strategies on what will highlight these qualities.

• Expertise: What expertise do you offer that customers can't get anywhere else? An experienced coach brings knowledge they've amassed over time, while a makeup artist might become known for a certain style of makeup.

• Specialized strengths: Many service providers prefer to develop their expertise in a very specific niche, which gives them a business advantage. A marketing consultant might focus on graphic design for small businesses, while a hair stylist might win customers over by specializing in a technique, like cutting curly hair.

• Personality: Strong customer relationships are everything for your business. Massage therapists or hair stylists especially can have a very friendly relationship with their clients. Consider where your success relies on mutual trust and personal connection.

• Authenticity: As a service provider, you want your marketing to feel authentic to your brand and the services you offer. That means tailoring your promotion to the customers you want to attract. For example, a service provider working in a corporate space would write more formal social media posts while maintaining their personal tone of voice.

10 marketing ideas for service businesses

A marketing strategy is an overview of how you'll use promotion to achieve your business goals, with individual marketing plans and ideas to support the strategy. When promoting your services, you'll want to build your marketing strategy around your offerings. Use these 10 marketing ideas as inspiration and consider how they can be tailored to your unique services and goals.

1. Establish your unique brand via video content

Video gives service providers a chance to share expertise in a personal, direct way. A coach might create short first-person videos sharing commentary on news of the day or marketing tips, while beauty experts can take time-lapse videos showing off their work. These clips also establish you as a thought leader, which can lead to other opportunities with collaborators or the media.

2. Use photos to demonstrate your unique talents and services

As service providers, it's often more effective to show your work than to tell potential customers what you do. Hairdressers might create photo-driven Instagram posts with a customer before and after an appointment, and use the caption to explain how they created the look. Photographers and graphic designers, whose marketing activities are already visually based, can distinguish their work by sharing behind-the-scenes content or process shots.

Get tips for building your social media presence

3. Incorporate customer testimonials into your website and social media

Customer testimonials are invaluable to service providers. As customers, we're all more likely to trust word-of-mouth over a brand's own marketing. Positive reviews give you a reputation boost and reassure customers that you're trustworthy. These testimonials can be built into the design of your website or woven into social media posts.

Read the full guide to getting and using testimonials

4. Create an email newsletter to showcase your work and expertise

Email marketing is an easy way to keep in touch with your customers. For service providers, launching an email newsletter offers a chance to differentiate your business from others and continue building client relationships. You can talk about recent work, include photos or embed videos, give an update on business plans, and even offer subscriber-only discounts.

5. Maintain a blog that shows off your work

A blog is a great tool for service providers who want to share more about their work, particularly those in content creation. Posts can include everything from expert advice or helpful client information to updates about your business and projects. For example, wedding photographers can create robust posts about their clients that include a selection of photos and details about the day. Try a few approaches that feel natural to you and see what your site visitors connect with best.

Learn how to start a blog

6. Partner with well-known people for conversations

You can establish your deep expertise in a field by having conversations about your work with other people. Podcasts are one of the most popular ways to do this, as you can promote your services to a different audience across multiple channels. But you might also find opportunities to be featured in a blog post or newsletter. When looking for collaborators, start with peers and fellow service providers.

7. Design pricing deals for customers

You have the flexibility to customize your offerings. For example, pricing deals are a great way to grow your customer base. A coach can give a discount to a new client who signs up for a certain number of sessions, while a writer might offer service packages at multiple pricing tiers.

8. Interact with your client communities

Customer engagement is just as important as a customer transaction. Answering social media comments with emojis or an expression of gratitude is an easy way to create a positive impression. Service providers can also join communities dedicated to their niche, such as social media groups or forums. Keep self-promotion to a minimum and instead participate as a member, adding to the conversation and sharing your thoughts. This will also help you build a personal, but authoritative brand.

9. Seek out social media collab posts

Social media is crucial to the success of small businesses, especially service providers. Social media collab posts are the best of both worlds. You can communicate directly with your existing audience and reach potential new customers while working with a peer or business you respect. Instagram makes it easy to tag other social media channels when posting content, while stitching TikTok videos with other accounts is another great way to expand your reach.

10. Take a personal tone in your content

As a service provider, you're often working one-on-one with clients. It's entirely appropriate to promote your personal brand and perspective alongside your professional work. Particularly if you see the same clients on a regular basis, being more open can help them feel more invested in you and your business. First-person storytelling via text or video can lend a relatable touch to your marketing.

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