Trade Business Marketing Plan UK — How to Build a 90-Day Marketing Plan That Actually Brings in Jobs (2026)

Why 90 days — not a year, not a month

A one-year marketing plan is too abstract to act on. It sits in a drawer. A one-month sprint doesn't give most marketing channels enough time to produce results — Google Business Profile, referral habits, and organic social all compound over time. Ninety days is the sweet spot: short enough to feel achievable, long enough to generate real data about what works.

The 90-day format works like this:

• Set a specific target. Not “more jobs” — something measurable. “8 new domestic boiler jobs per month.” “4 bathroom renovation enquiries per week.” A number you can track.
• Choose 3–4 channels maximum. More than that and nothing gets done properly. You spread thin, half-commit to everything, and wonder why nothing works.
• Set weekly actions for each channel. Not monthly goals — weekly tasks. “Post one job photo to Google Business Profile every Monday.” “Ask every completed customer for a review before leaving site.”
• Review every two weeks. Check what's moving — enquiries, leads, reviews, booked jobs — and adjust based on the data, not gut feeling.

Foundation work: weeks 1–2

Before you spend a penny on advertising or post a single piece of content, the basics need to be solid. Most tradespeople skip this step. Don't.

Google Business Profile

Claim your listing if you haven't already, verify it with Google, and complete it to 100%. That means: business category, opening hours, service areas, a description that mentions your trade and location, photos of your work and van, and your contact details. If you have zero reviews, your target for week two is your first five. Call your five best recent customers and ask them directly — not via text, by phone. The conversion rate on a direct ask is far higher.

Your website

You don't need a redesign. You need two things: a phone number that is clickable on mobile (surprising how many aren't), and a clear call-to-action on every page. “Get a free quote” or “Call us today” with a button that actually works. Check your site on your phone right now. If you can't tap the number to call it, fix that this week.

Your existing customer list

Go through your last 24 months of completed jobs. Ask yourself three things about each customer: Could they leave you a Google review? Do they have more work coming up? Who in their network might need your trade? This exercise takes an hour and will surface more immediate opportunity than almost anything else in this guide.

The 4 channels that work for tradespeople

Pick three or four of these. Not all of them. Depth beats breadth every time.

1. Google Business Profile and local SEO

This is the most valuable long-term channel available to a UK tradesperson. When someone searches “plumber near me” or “boiler service [town]”, the local map pack — three businesses with star ratings and a phone number — captures roughly 44% of all clicks. Everything below it shares the rest. A well-maintained GBP profile with regular reviews and posts can generate a steady stream of inbound enquiries at zero cost per lead.

Your targets for this channel: one new Google review per week and one new post per week. Posts can be job photos, seasonal tips, or a before/after from a completed job. Consistency matters more than quality. A profile that's updated regularly signals to Google that the business is active, which improves your position in local search results.

2. Referral system

Referrals are the most profitable leads a trade business receives. The customer already trusts you before they've spoken to you. They're less likely to price-shop, more likely to book, and more likely to refer further customers themselves. Most tradespeople get some referrals passively — but they leave the majority on the table because they never ask.

Define your referral ask and use it every time. Write a post-job WhatsApp message and send it within 24 hours of completing every job. Track which customers have been asked and which haven't. The referral channel doesn't require money — it requires discipline.

3. One paid platform

Checkatrade, MyBuilder, or Google Ads — choose one. Not all three. Each one rewards attention and investment: a Checkatrade profile with 80 reviews beats one with 12; a Google Ads campaign that's been optimised over 90 days beats one that was set up and forgotten. Spreading budget across three platforms produces mediocre results on all of them.

Pick the one that matches your trade and job value. Test it for 90 days. Measure cost per job booked — not cost per lead. After 90 days, you'll have real data to decide whether to keep it, scale it, or switch.

4. Social media — one platform, organic only

Choose Facebook or Instagram. Not both. Post once a week minimum. Before/after photos consistently outperform every other content format for trade businesses — they demonstrate skill, show real results, and give the audience something specific to share. Facebook community groups are particularly valuable: local homeowner groups and neighbourhood recommendation groups where people actively ask for tradesperson referrals.

Organic social won't be your highest-volume lead source, but it keeps you visible in your local area at zero cost. An hour a week is enough.

The content calendar — what to post and when

The most common reason tradespeople fall off social media is not knowing what to post. Here's a four-week rotation that removes that decision:

• Week 1: Job completion photo with a brief description of the work and the location. “New consumer unit fitted in [town] today — full rewire of a 1970s semi. Clean finish, all signed off.”
• Week 2: A tip or piece of advice. “Three signs your boiler needs replacing before next winter.” “How to spot damp before it causes structural damage.” This builds credibility and gets shared.
• Week 3: Behind-the-scenes content. Van pack in the morning, tools laid out on site, team arriving at a job. People trust tradespeople they feel they know. Behind-the-scenes content builds that familiarity.
• Week 4: A customer testimonial or review highlight. Screenshot the Google review or quote it directly. “Another five stars from a happy customer in [town] — thank you, [first name].”

Repeat the cycle. Consistency beats creativity for trade businesses. Posting once a week for twelve months will outperform posting daily for three weeks and then going quiet.

The referral ask — highest ROI activity in your plan

This is worth its own section because most tradespeople still aren't doing it consistently. Here is the exact language to use at the end of every job:

“Hi [name], thanks so much for the work — glad it all went well. If you know anyone who needs [trade work] done, I'd really appreciate a mention. I'm always looking to work with people like you.”

Follow that with a WhatsApp message within 24 hours of job completion:

“Great working with you — don't hesitate to recommend me if anyone asks.”

That's it. Two touchpoints. Sixty seconds of effort per job. The tradespeople who do this consistently report that referrals become their single largest source of new business within six months.

Tracking what works

Ask every new customer “how did you find us?” and record the answer. It takes five seconds. Without it, you're guessing which channels to keep investing in and which to cut. Write it on the job card, note it in your CRM, put it in a spreadsheet — the medium doesn't matter, the consistency does.

After 90 days, rank your channels by three metrics:

• Jobs generated — raw volume of booked work from each channel
• Cost per job — time and money spent on the channel divided by jobs booked
• Customer quality — average job value, ease of working with, likelihood to refer or review

Cut what isn't working. Double down on what is. This single discipline — measuring and acting on the data — is what separates trade businesses that grow consistently from those that run the same reactive cycle year after year.

Setting a marketing budget

Rule of thumb: 3–5% of turnover for an established trade business that wants to maintain its pipeline; 8–12% for a business in active growth mode that needs to build market presence.

Example: a plumbing business turning over £200,000 a year should be spending £6,000–£10,000 on marketing annually. How to split that budget:

• 60% paid channels — Checkatrade membership, Google Ads spend, or a combination. This is where the volume comes from.
• 30% tools and software — job management software that handles review requests, CRM to track enquiries, any content scheduling tools.
• 10% ad-hoc — van signage refresh, printed flyers for a new area, a seasonal promotion.

These percentages are starting points, not rules. After 90 days of tracking, the data will tell you whether paid channels deserve more or whether the budget is better spent on tools that support free channels like GBP and referrals.

Seasonal marketing — plan for demand cycles

Trade businesses are seasonal. Demand peaks and troughs are predictable. A marketing plan that ignores them will always be reactive. Build seasonal activity into your 90-day plan from the start.

• Spring (March–May): External works, garden rooms, painting and decorating, roofing inspections. Homeowners emerge from winter wanting to tackle outdoor projects. Push those services with job photos and targeted GBP posts.
• Autumn (September–November): Boiler servicing, winterising properties, heating checks. Gas engineers and heating engineers have a natural seasonal spike here. Start the push in September before competitors do.
• January and September: The two biggest “get it sorted” moments in the year. After Christmas and after the summer holidays, homeowners make decisions about projects they've been putting off. These are prime quoting periods. Be visible and be ready.

Map out these seasonal windows at the start of each 90-day plan and build your content, outreach, and paid activity around them. A heating engineer who runs a boiler service campaign in August — before the October rush — fills their diary while competitors are scrambling for capacity.

When to hire a marketing professional

The 90-day plan above is designed to be run by a tradesperson with an hour a week to spare. But there are three scenarios where outsourcing makes sense:

• Turnover above £150k and you're too busy to market yourself. At this point, the opportunity cost of doing it yourself is higher than the cost of paying someone else. Your time is better spent on the tools or managing the team.
• Google Ads. This is the one channel where specialist knowledge pays for itself immediately. Trade marketing agencies who run Google Ads every day know which keywords convert for which trades in which regions. The wasted spend from a badly set up campaign will almost always exceed the agency fee. Use a specialist or don't use the channel at all.
• Social media management. If you hate social media and consistently let it slide, a virtual assistant to handle posting costs £200–£600 per month. If it means the channel actually gets done consistently rather than going quiet for weeks, it's worth it. An active social presence beats a theoretically-better one that you never maintain.