Marketing & advertising -learn about UK contractor advertising ideas

Introduction 

As a limited company contractor, can you claim for contractor advertising and marketing costs?? What’s more, if you can claim for advertising for contractors, what sort of costs save tax? In this guide, we’ll look at the difference between marketing and advertising and view some good marketing & advertising ideas for UK limited company contractors. We’ll also research what’s the best advertising for contractors in the UK including local advertising ideas. Indeed, we’ll pay focus on UK contractor advertising ideas and explain what you should think about here. Further still, we’ll take a look at contractor advertising online and see what this entails. If you search online for a contractor marketing company, there are many firms out there that could help you too and we’ll look at this in more detail too.

Many UK contractors will market themselves, and those who do this well will land new UK contracting work. Therefore, when you’re contracting in the UK, new business advertising ideas are something to think about. As part of this, you could look for some marketing and advertising advice. Indeed, your contractor advertising could include an online presence and this is something that is worth your time and thoughts. Therefore, when we look at advertising and marketing ideas, some initial questions from UK contractors which may come to mind are:

• How to advertise as a contractor?

• What is the best way to advertise for contractors?

• Where can you find the best marketing for contractors?

• What should you think about in respect of online marketing for contractors?

• Where can I find the best contractor lead service?

In this guide, we’ll take a look at these and think about some good ways to market your business.

Initial thoughts

Contractor advertising

Let’s take a look at how to advertise your contracting business and some good ideas for advertisements. When you’re a contractor, and you run your own company, there may come a time when you would like to promote your services. As a result, you may look to drum up some new business and think of some company advertising ideas. As part of thinking about new advertising ideas, you should consider how to get clients as a contractor. What’s more, you can then try and think up some good advertising ideas which relate to you and your UK contracting business.

If you come up with some good ideas for advertising and start a campaign with some of the best advertising ideas, this may help lead to new clients and help to grow your business. What’s more, your existing customers may see these adverts for your contracting business. The result of such contractor advertising could be it may help to build your existing customer base too.

Contractor best practices and how to advertise contractor business

In this guide, let’s look into some of the best online advertising for contractors. This is as well as your overall contractor marketing plan, which may help you in the future. If you know how to market yourself as a contractor this can hold you in good stead when you promote your services. To sum up, some good and effective contractor advertising could be key. Indeed, some good ideas to advertise your business will help you promote your skills and showcase your work to a wider audience.

Best marketing strategies for contractors 

Preliminary thoughts

First of all, you could take the time to look for the best contractor advertising ideas. What’s more, you can also look into a good marketing plan. Many small businesses in all industries will look into marketing ideas. As part of this, they’ll look at how such plans could best benefit them. Within your contractor ideas, it is good to know some contractor marketing tips. These will help assist with your own contractor marketing strategy.

Today, many contractors use contractor digital marketing to advertise themselves. Also, they’ll aim contractors’ ads for their products or services at certain target markets. Therefore, let’s look at some ideas for advertising and also some online business advertising ideas. What’s more, when we look at advertising for contractors you could include some of the advertising suggestions in detailed in this guide.

UK contractor business marketing on social media platforms

There are many freelancers and businesses that offer contractor marketing solutions, as well as marketing for other businesses. What’s more, they’ll come up with ideas and a plan to promote your business online in the best way. Therefore, you could look at one of these to provide contractor marketing services and help you with your overall plan to find new contracting work in the future.

Adverts in local press

Adverts in the press can prove to be good advertising ideas for small business. As a UK contractor, you could place your contractor ad in the local or national press. What’s more, such print ads may also have an option to appear on the news website.

PPC advertising

Another area to perhaps think about is some PPC for contractors. PPC stands for Pay Per Click and this means you will be charged each time someone clicks on your contractor ad. Therefore, you could look at some pay per click advertising for contractors.

Other ideas 

Two other small business advertising ideas are part of your overall contractor advertising. These will help you land future new contract work and could include:

• Look at some email marketing for contractors. This will need further research if you consider this.

• Placing some ads on contractor advertising websites. If you do this, it will require investigation in respect of where to advertise for contractors.

Further thoughts

Contractor advertising and marketing

Each part of internet marketing for contractors is worth a look at for your business. What’s more, many business owners and this includes lots of contractor limited company owners, now have their own business websites. When they have this can use it to help stand out on search engines and make posts on social media. We’ll go over social media marketing and advertising in more detail later.

Older methods of adverts include flyers and adverts in the media. These may also be of use but this depends on what type of services you offer.

Some good marketing ideas for contractors and a great plan around this overall can lead to new customers. What’s more, if you think about how to approach this and plan your contractor marketing strategies, your efforts may pay off in the future.

As a result of some advertising and marketing costs, can you now claim these as business expenses? What’s more, if you pay for these through your UK contracting company, will they save Corporation Tax?

Advertising for contractors and recent times 

In many senses, being a limited company contractor is no different from many other businesses out there. Many years ago, most would not even look at ads for contractors as genuine business costs. Even so, times have now changed, with the presence of the web and social media in today’s digital world.

The internet is now where many UK contractors find new contract work for their company. Therefore, contractor advertising online is the place where you should aim your focus. To follow on, you may look to create some contractor ads for your company and your profile with a view to increase your chances of landing your next contract.

The difference between marketing and advertising

The role of advertising is where a company pays to deliver its message to a target market. In contrast, marketing will cover much more. This process will include all of the aspects of the advertising work. What’s more, it includes the market research which is required to serve those adverts properly.

The business marketing will include the overall planning process. What’s more, the work needed to is to price the goods and services to your target audience. It also includes how to monitor the efficiency of all activities you undertake. Indeed, this could comprise some research on consumer behaviour and plan which future campaigns to do.

Good ideas for UK contractors

Marketing tools and contractor advertising online 

Professional marketeers will use various methods to promote a business’ products or services. One of these is called marketing mix which focuses on a number of different areas in a detailed marketing plan. Depending on what type of job you work in, there may be some contractor marketing companies that can help you form a plan. Besides, having experience in setting up a contractor’s campaign in terms of a contractor’s advertising and marketing plan, they’ll have other ideas too. One of these could include contractor video marketing among other ideas.

When we look at a marketing strategy for contractors, there are a fair few main types of contractor marketing ideas. Indeed, these are there to help you sell products or sell your services. These marketing tips for contractors will form part of an overall campaign for your company in the future. Therefore, some of the marketing tools for contractors which you can use will include:

The types of marketing and contractor advertising costs that you can claim 

Let’s now look at some advertising ideas for business that can help form part of your contractor ads. When we research the types of contractor business marketing help, they may be well worth paying for and we will take a look at these below.

Update your CV professionally

You could hire a CV expert to review your CV and help you update it. We have a great contact on this website that can help with this who has a great LinkedIn and FB groups. Indeed, the CV expert can add your job and contracting experience and detail your knowledge and skills as well as other factors. As a result, this may help attract potential hiring managers to you in the future. What is more, this service is quite cheap and could be a good investment for your future.

Update your LinkedIn profile

One can consider hiring a LinkedIn profile expert to take a look at and `spruce’ up your profile. As part of this, they can ensure that the layout is correct and it shows your work experience and achievements. What’s more, they’ll ensure that they show certain keywords, which recruiters use when searching LinkedIn for new candidates. Just like the above, this service is also not very costly and could be a good move for the future.

Set up your own website

You can create and run your own contracting website and look after your brand management. When you do this, you could carry out any updates in your own home office. What is more, how about contractor website ideas and where you could start with this? First of all, many IT contractors have an idea of where to start, but if you are unsure about certain aspects, you could use a template like WordPress (WP). WP will help you with the basics and has lots of free themes that you could use. On the other hand, you could hire a web designer for specific parts that you don’t understand, such as web templates and a logo, etc. What’s more, your website will have annual hosting costs on web servers, and the yearly fee is typically less than £100.

Once your site is set up, you could look into some contractor website advertising ideas. First, you could add an up-to-date CV. Next, you could add a page that lists your services and products. What is more, you could add some pages which detail the types of skills you work in.

Contractor advertising ideas -other costs which you can claim 

When we look into advertising for contractors, there are some other types of business advertising ideas and marketing costs. During the course of your work, you may incur these and they could include:

• The cost of a business computer that you can use for your company work, which includes advertising and marketing.

• The cost of a web domain or domains that will show your business name. Indeed, this will give your business a professional image when it has its own domain. It would help if you used this as part of your business website. What’s more, you could also use the domain name for business emails. Also, you will need to renew domains on an annual basis, and this typically costs less than £30.

• Other web costs may include Google Adwords, Facebook, and Twitter adverts. What’s more, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for your website is a further area to think about. Indeed, search engines the main one of which is Google ranks websites on content. Well-written content is what search engines look out for when ranking sites on the internet.

• Adverts in the UK press and media. When you do this, such methods of contractor advertising in terms of print ads could be both in the local and national media. What’s more, you might also choose to use some of the UK online business listing sites.

Final thoughts 

In this guide, we look at the difference between marketing and advertising and what you can claim as a small business. When you have your own company, marketing and advertising for contractors are valid business expenses. What’s more, if you have a business advertising idea, it may be worth looking at this. Indeed, it is good to come up with some contractor advertising ideas as well as contractor marketing ideas to assist you in the future. A key thought is you can deduct these against your UK contracting company tax bill, if they are solely for your business.

As a final thought, you may look to market your business through forms of business entertainment. This could include meals out with past, present, or potential new clients. If so, you can treat these as business expenses, but they do not save tax. Please read our business entertaining guide which covers this area in more detail.

Link to Contractor Advice UK group on

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