Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some of my initial thoughts on your situation. It's a really common question, especially for local businesses trying to figure out where to put their hard-earned cash.

The short answer, and this might sound a bit blunt, is that focusing on "advertising channels in Canterbury" is probably leading you down the wrong path and will likely end up wasting your limited budget. The real game isn't about blanketing a specific town; it's about showing up at the exact moment a potential customer has a problem they desperately need solving. Let's get into what that actually means for you.

We'll need to look at your customer's 'nightmare', not their postcode...

Honestly, most marketing advice starts with demographics. "My customer is a 45-year-old homeowner in Kent with two kids..." and so on. This is almost completely useless for getting results with paid ads. It leads to generic advertising that speaks to no one and gets ignored.

To stop burning cash, you have to define your customer by their pain. Their specific, urgent, expensive, and sometimes career-threatening nightmare. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state.

Let's make this real.

-> If you're a plumber, your customer's nightmare isn't 'a leaky tap'. It's the sound of dripping at 3 AM keeping them awake, the water stain slowly growing on their new kitchen ceiling, and the fear of a massive repair bill.

-> If you're a web designer for small businesses, the nightmare isn't 'needing a website'. It's the deep-seated embarrassment they feel when they hand over a business card with a dated, unprofessional URL on it, knowing it's costing them credibility and customers.

-> If you're an accountant, the nightmare isn't 'tax season'. It's that gut-wrenching dread of opening a brown envelope from HMRC, terrified they've made a mistake that could cost them thousands.

See the difference? We're talking about real, emotional problems. Once you've truly understood and isolated that nightmare, everything else becomes clearer. Your ad copy writes itself. Your targeting becomes obvious. You're no longer just another service provider in Canterbury; you're the specific solution to a painful problem. Before you spend a penny, take an hour and write down, in detail, the exact 'nightmare scenario' your ideal customer is in right before they realise they need someone like you. This is the single most valuable marketing exercise you can do, I promise you.

I'd say you need to choose between 'searchers' and 'scrollers'...

Once you know the problem you solve, you can figure out where to find the people who have it. Broadly speaking, your potential customers fall into two camps: 'Searchers' and 'Scrollers'.

Searchers are people with high intent. Their boiler has just broken down. They need a solicitor for a house purchase. They are actively typing their problem into a search engine like Google, looking for an immediate solution. They are in 'buy mode'.

Scrollers are people with low intent. They are browsing Facebook or Instagram, killing time, looking at photos of their friends' holidays. They are not actively looking for your service. You have to interrupt them with an ad and convince them they have a problem they might not even have been thinking about a second ago.

With a limited budget, you absolutely cannot afford to waste money trying to convince 'scrollers'. You must focus 100% of your initial budget on capturing the 'searchers'. This means, for almost any local service business, your starting point should be Google Ads. It's not about being on the 'top channel in Canterbury'; it's about being the top result when someone in Canterbury searches "emergency electrician near me". One is brand advertising; the other is direct response. You need the latter.

To make this clearer, I've put together a simple flowchart. This is the exact logic we use to decide on a primary channel for a new client.

You probably should focus on Google Search first...

Let's assume you're like most service businesses and your customers are 'searchers'. This means your battleground is Google. Forget Facebook, forget TikTok, forget putting flyers through doors for now. Your goal is to have your business show up at the very top of the page when someone types in a keyword that shows they need you now.

This is what we'd do:

1. Keyword Research: This isn't as complicated as it sounds. Just think about what you would type into Google if you had the 'nightmare' we talked about earlier.
-> For a plumber: "emergency plumber Canterbury", "boiler repair Kent", "fix leaking toilet cost".
-> For a gardener: "garden maintenance Canterbury", "landscaper near me", "hedge trimming service".
You'd target a small, focused list of these 'high-intent' keywords. The key is to include your location (like Canterbury) and words that signal urgency or a desire to buy ("emergency", "quote", "service", "cost", "near me").

2. Campaign Setup: You'd set up a Google Search campaign targeting only the Canterbury area (you can set a radius, say 15 miles). Crucially, you would enable phone call extensions, so people searching on their mobile can just tap a button to call you directly. Many people in a hurry won't even bother clicking through to your website if they can just call.

3. Ad Copy That Works: Your ad needs to speak directly to the pain. Don't just say "Plumber in Canterbury". Use the Problem-Agitate-Solve formula.

Headline 1: Leaky Pipe? Boiler Broken?
Headline 2: 24/7 Emergency Plumber in Canterbury
Description: Don't let water damage ruin your home. Get a fast, reliable, and rated local plumber on site within the hour. Call now for a free quote.

This ad acknowledges the problem (leaky pipe), agitates it (water damage), and presents a clear solution (call us now). It's a million times more effective than a generic ad.

For some businesses, Google's Local Service Ads are another brilliant option. These are the listings that appear right at the very top with a "Google Guaranteed" badge. They are pay-per-lead, not pay-per-click, which can be fantastic for managing a tight budget, but you have to go through a verification process. It's definitely something to look into.

You'll need a website that actually converts...

This is the bit where most businesses fall down. They spend money on ads to get clicks, but send that expensive traffic to a homepage that's confusing, untrustworthy, and doesn't clearly tell the visitor what to do next. It's like paying for a glossy advert in a magazine and then giving a phone number that's always engaged. A total waste of money.

Before you spend a single pound on ads, your website—or at least a dedicated landing page—needs to be sorted. It doesn't need to be fancy or have 50 pages. It needs to do three things exceptionally well:

1. Build Instant Trust: Does it look professional? Is your phone number clearly visible at the top? Do you have real photos of your work or your team (not stock photos)? Are there reviews or testimonials from other local customers? 2. Answer Key Questions: What exact services do you offer? What area do you cover? Why should they choose you over the competition? 3. Provide a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA): What is the ONE thing you want them to do? "Call Us Now for a Free Quote". "Fill Out This Form to Schedule an Appointment". Don't give them 10 options. Give them one, and make the button big and obvious.

Lots of business websites have a vague "Contact Us" page. That's too much work for someone in a hurry. Delete it. Your offer needs to be a clear, low-friction next step. A "Get a Free, No-Obligation Quote" button is much more compelling. It offers value to the visitor with minimal commitment. I've sketched out a basic visual structure for a landing page that works. It's simple, but it has all the elements you need to turn a visitor into a lead.

And you've got to understand the numbers...

With a limited budget, you can't afford to guess. You need to know your numbers. The two most important metrics for you are your Cost Per Lead (CPL) and your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

CPL is simple: if you spend £200 on Google Ads and get 10 phone calls, your CPL is £20. Your goal is to get this as low as possible over time.

LTV is a bit more involved, but it's the metric that unlocks proper growth. It tells you what a new customer is actually worth to you over the long term. The real question isn't "how low can my CPL go?" but "how high a CPL can I afford to acquire a great customer?".

Here’s a simplified way to think about it for a service business:

LTV = (Average Value Per Job * Number of Repeat Jobs) * Gross Margin %

Let's say you're an electrician. Your average job is worth £300. A happy customer calls you back once every two years for the next six years (so 3 repeat jobs). And your gross margin after materials and costs is 60%.

LTV = (£300 * 4 total jobs) * 0.60 = £1,200 * 0.60 = £720

Suddenly, that £20 CPL doesn't look so bad, does it? If a new customer is worth £720 to you, paying £20, or even £50, to acquire them is an incredible deal. Knowing this number gives you the confidence to invest in advertising, because you know it's not a cost; it's an investment with a predictable return.

To help you with this, I've built a small interactive calculator. Play around with the sliders to see how small changes to your average job value or repeat business can massively impact what you can afford to spend on ads.

So what sort of CPL should you expect? It varies massively by industry and location. From our experience, we’ve run ads for childcare services where the CPL was around $10 per signup. On the other hand, we're running a campaign for an HVAC company in a competitive area and they are seeing costs of around $60/lead. One of our best consumer services campaigns was for a home cleaning company which got a cost of £5/lead. A good starting point is to budget for somewhere in the £10-£50 range and hope for the best, while being prepared for it to be higher initially.

So, what does this look like in practice?...

This is all a lot to take in, I know. It's a very different way of thinking than just "what paper should I advertise in?". The good news is that it's a proven process. To make it super clear, here is the exact plan I would recommend you follow. This is the main advice I have for you:

When social media *might* make sense...

I've been quite harsh on social media ads so far, but that doesn't mean they're useless. They just serve a different purpose, and are usually a 'Phase 2' activity once your Google Ads are working profitably.

There's an uncomfortable truth about running 'awareness' campaigns on platforms like Facebook. When you tell the algorithm to just "reach" as many people as possible, it does exactly that. It finds the cheapest people to show your ad to. And who are the cheapest people? The ones nobody else wants to advertise to, because they never click, never engage, and certainly never buy anything. You are literally paying Facebook to find you the worst possible audience for your product.

So, if you do use social media, you MUST optimise for conversions (e.g., leads), not reach or awareness. Here's where it can work:

1. Highly Visual Services: If you're a landscape gardener, an interior designer, or a wedding cake maker, Instagram and Facebook can be powerful. Your work is your advert. You can run ads showcasing your best projects to people in Canterbury with interests in "Home and Garden", for example.

2. Retargeting: This is probably the most powerful use for a local business. You can show ads on Facebook specifically to people who have already visited your website from a Google Ad but didn't get in touch. It's a gentle reminder, keeping your business top-of-mind. It's very cheap and can be very effective at converting people who were on the fence.

But again, this is for later. Nail Google Search first. Get a steady stream of profitable leads coming in. Then you can think about reinvesting some of the profit into expanding your reach on other platforms.

This is a lot to take on, and getting it right, especially the technical setup of the ad campaigns and the conversion tracking, can be tricky. With a limited budget, every pound wasted on a poorly configured campaign is a pound that could have been a profitable lead. This is often where getting some expert help can pay for itself very quickly by avoiding those initial, costly mistakes.

We do this stuff day in, day out for businesses of all sizes, from local service providers to B2B software companies. If you'd like to chat through your specific situation in more detail, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can look at your business and give you a more tailored plan of action.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh