Solved: Exeter Growth Marketing Problems (The Real Reason)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

It sounds like you're having a tough time with the local marketing scene in Exeter. I get it. There's a lot of agencies out there that talk about 'growth' and 'market share' but don't seem to deliver much of anything. It's frustrating when you just want someone who gets your business and can actually help you find more customers.

I'm happy to give you some of my initial thoughts and a bit of guidance based on my experience running paid ad campaigns for businesses. This isn't about fancy jargon, it's about what actually works. The problem usually isn't about finding a magic "growth hack", it's about getting the fundamentals right that most agencies seem to skip over.

We'll need to look at who your customer really is... and I don't mean their postcode

Tbh, this is the number one reason I see marketing fail, both from agencies and in-house teams. They start with these vague, useless descriptions. You've probably seen them: "Homeowners in Exeter, aged 35-65, income of £40k+". That tells you absolutely nothing of value. It's lazy and it leads to generic ads that speak to no one and get ignored.

You need to stop thinking about demographics and start thinking about nightmares. What is the specific, urgent, expensive problem that keeps your ideal customer awake at night? What is the pain they are so desperate to solve that they'd actively search for a solution and be willing to pay for it? Your ideal customer profile isn't a person; it's a problem state.

Let's imagine you're an electrician. Your customer isn't just "a homeowner". It's a new dad who's just brought his baby home and suddenly the flickering light in the nursery doesn't seem like a minor annoyance anymore, it feels like a genuine fire hazard. His nightmare is his family's safety. He's not thinking about your company's mission statement; he's thinking "I need a reliable electrician now".

Or maybe you're a high-end landscaper. Your customer isn't "someone with a garden". It's a successful professional who feels embarrassed to host a summer barbecue because her garden looks a mess compared to her neighbour's. Her nightmare is social embarrassment and the feeling that her home, her biggest investment, doesn't reflect her success. She wants to feel proud of her space.

Once you've really nailed that nightmare, everything else becomes easier. You're not just selling a service; you're selling a solution to a painful problem. This insight is the foundation for your ads, your website copy, your offer – everything. You have to become an expert in their frustration. What specific words do they use to describe their problem? What are they secretly afraid of? Do this work first. If an agency isn't asking you these deep, slightly uncomfortable questions about your customer's pain, they have no business spending a single pound of your money. They're just guessing.

This is how you get messages that people can't ignore. It's the difference between a boring ad and one that makes someone stop scrolling and think, "That's me. They get it."

I'd say you need to forget "market share" and focus on profit

Another thing that gets businesses, especially local ones, into trouble is chasing the wrong goal. "Improving market share" sounds impressive in a business plan, but for a small business in Exeter, it's a vanity metric. What does it even mean? Trying to be the biggest? That usually means trying to be the cheapest, which is a race to the bottom.

The real question isn't "how do I get more customers?" but "how do I get more profitable customers?". And to answer that, you need to know what a customer is actually worth to you. This is where most people get it wrong. They obsess over the cost of a lead without knowing what they can actually afford to pay for one. The key here is calculating your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

Let's run through a quick, simplified example for a local service business, say a window cleaner who offers a monthly service. You need to know three things:

-> Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What you make per customer, per month. Let's say it's £30.
-> Gross Margin %: Your profit margin after materials, travel, etc. Let's say it's 70%.
-> Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of customers you lose each month. Let's say it's 5% (meaning a customer stays for 20 months on average).

The calculation is simple: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate.

So, LTV = (£30 * 0.70) / 0.05

LTV = £21 / 0.05 = £420

In this example, each new monthly customer is worth £420 in gross profit to your business over their lifetime. Now you have the truth. Now you can make smart decisions. A common rule of thumb is to have at least a 3:1 ratio of LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). This means you can afford to spend up to £140 (£420 / 3) to acquire a new monthly customer and still have a very healthy business.

Suddenly, paying £30 or £40 for a qualified lead from a Google Ad doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the maths that unlocks growth. Without it, you're flying blind, turning off ads that are actually profitable because the "cost per lead" feels high. Any agency you talk to should be having this conversation with you. If they jump straight to talking about clicks and impressions, they're focused on the wrong things.

You probably should fix your offer before you spend a penny on ads

This is probably the most common point of failure I see. A business has a great service, but their "offer" – the thing they ask people to do on their website – is terrible. It creates friction and kills conversions. The most common offender is the "Request a Quote" or "Contact Us for a Free Estimate" button.

Think about it from the customer's perspective, the one with the nightmare problem. They are stressed and looking for an easy solution. "Request a Quote" sounds like work. It sounds like they're going to have to fill out a long form, wait for a call back, get put into a sales process, and probably be hassled. It's high-friction and low-value. It screams "I'm about to be sold to".

Your offer’s only job is to provide a moment of value. It needs to be an easy "yes". It has to solve a small, real problem for them for free, to earn the right to solve the whole thing later. You need to change from a high-friction, low-value offer to a low-friction, high-value one.

So, instead of "Request a Quote"...

-> An accountant could offer a "Free 5-Point Health Check for Your Small Business Finances."
-> A marketing agency could offer a "Free Local SEO Audit That Shows Your Top 3 Keyword Gaps."
-> A personal trainer could offer a "Free 15-Minute Fitness & Posture Assessment."

For our electrician, instead of a vague quote, they could offer a "Free Home Electrical Safety Check". This is brilliant. It provides immense value, directly addresses the customer's core fear (safety), positions the electrician as a trusted expert rather than a salesman, and gets them in the door. Once you're in the house and you've built that trust by providing real value, presenting a quote for the actual work needed is a much, much easier conversation. You've already proven your worth.

The number one reason campaigns fail is the offer. You can have the best ads in the world, targeting the perfect audience, but if you send them to a page with a weak, high-friction offer, you will waste your money. A great offer makes a complex service feel simple, tangible, and less risky for a buyer. It's about building trust first.

If your business is more product-focused, like a local craft bakery, the same logic applies. Don't just show pictures of bread. The offer could be "Sign up to our list and get a free sourdough starter guide" or "First-time online order? Get a free pastry on us." It's a small gift that starts the relationship. You have to give a little to get a little.

You'll need to fight on the right battlefield

Once you've got your customer nightmare defined and a killer offer, then you can think about where to run ads. So many businesses get this the wrong way round. They pick a platform because it's trendy or because someone told them they "have to be on Instagram" and then wonder why it's not working.

The best ad platform is simply where your target audience can be best reached when they are most likely to need you. For most local service businesses, this is not social media. It's Google.

Think about the customer's mindset. When their boiler breaks, they don't scroll through Facebook hoping to see an ad for a heating engineer. They go to Google and type "emergency plumber exeter". They have an urgent need, and they are actively searching for a solution. This is called 'intent', and it's gold dust. This is why Google Search Ads are usually the most effective starting point for local services.

You can target keywords that show clear buying intent:

-> "Electrician near me"
-> "Emergency roof repair Exeter"
-> "Best family law solicitor Devon"

Google Local Service Ads (the ones with the green checkmark) are even better if your industry is eligible. They pre-vet you, which builds immediate trust with the searcher. You only pay per lead, not per click, which is great for managing your budget.

So where does something like Facebook or Instagram fit in? They can be useful, but not for "brand awareness". That's an uncomfortable truth. When you run a campaign with the objective of "Brand Awareness" or "Reach", you are telling Meta's algorithm to find the cheapest people to show your ad to. And who are the cheapest people? The ones who never click, never engage, and definitly never buy anything. You're paying to reach the worst possible audience. It's a total waste of money for a small business.

The only time to use social ads is when you have a very specific audience you can target and a very compelling offer. For example, a high-end restaurant in Exeter could target people with an interest in "Fine Dining" and who live within a 10-mile radius with an ad for a new tasting menu. Or a kids' activity centre could retarget people who have visited their website. But you must always, always optimise for a conversion – a booking, a lead, a sale. Awareness is a byproduct of making sales, not the other way around.

I remember one campaign we worked on for a home cleaning company. We created a simple offer - "Get Your First 2-Hour Clean for £25" - and targeted homeowners in specific affluent postcodes. We optimised for leads and got them for just £5 each. It worked because the offer was strong and the targeting was tight. But for most urgent-need services, Google is where the battle is won.

This is the main advice I have for you:

As you can see, there's a bit more to it than just boosting a post on Facebook. Getting this stuff right requires a bit of strategic thinking upfront. It’s about building a proper system for acquiring customers, not just running a few ads and hoping for the best. The reason you're struggling to find a reliable service is that many of them skip these foundational steps because it's hard work. It's easier for them to charge a retainer, run some generic ads, and send you a report full of vanity metrics like 'reach' and 'impressions'.

Doing this properly takes expertise and experience, especially with the nuances of each ad platform. One campaign we're running for an HVAC company in a competitive area sees costs of around $60/lead, which is profitable for them because of their high job value. We’ve run others for childcare services where the cost was just $10 per signup. It varies wildly, and knowing what's a good price and how to acheive it is where the real skill lies.

If you get the foundations right, paid advertising can be a predictable and scalable way to grow a local business. If you get it wrong, it's one of the fastest ways to burn through cash.

Hope this gives you a much clearer framework for thinking about this. It's the kind of stuff you should be quizzing any potential agency on. If they can't have this kind of conversation with you, they probably aren't the right fit.

If you'd like to chat through your specific business and how these principles might apply, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can take a look at your situation and give you some tailored advice. It might help you get some clarity on the best path forward.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh