For Business

How WA Trades Businesses Can Reach More Local Customers

Published July 2026 · 3 min read

For most local trades and services businesses in Western Australia, the hardest part of growing isn't doing great work — it's being seen by the right people at the right moment. Here are four practical ways to win more of the right customers, without wasting budget.

1. Start with the customers already looking for you

Before spending a cent on advertising, make sure you're easy to find when someone actively searches. A complete, up-to-date Google Business Profile is the single highest-value free tool available to a local business: it puts you on the map, shows your hours and phone number, and lets customers review you. Add real photos of your work, keep your details current, and make sure your service areas are listed. When someone in your suburb searches “electrician near me,” you want to be the obvious choice.

2. Turn happy customers into your best marketing

Word of mouth still drives more local work than almost anything else — it's just harder to scale. The fix is to make it easy and routine to ask. After a job goes well, ask the customer for a quick online review, and make referrals worth their while. A steady stream of recent, genuine reviews builds the trust that turns a search result into a booked job, and it costs you nothing but the habit of asking.

3. Stop paying to reach the wrong people

The most common way local businesses waste money is broad advertising — ads served to a huge audience, most of whom are nowhere near you or aren't in the market for what you do. You pay for every impression, but only a sliver are potential customers. For a local trade with a defined service area, that's money spent reaching people who will never call.

The smarter approach is to advertise to a defined, local audience — ideally one that's already in a spending mindset when they see you.

4. Advertise where ready-to-buy locals already are

This is where a member-based audience becomes powerful. ShopRite has served Western Australian workplaces and organisations since 1996, and its 200,000+ members come to ShopRite specifically to find trusted businesses and save on the things they're about to buy. That means when your business appears in front of them — in the ShopRite app, in member emails, or on the website — you're reaching people who are local, engaged, and already looking to spend.

It's the opposite of broad advertising: instead of paying to reach everyone, you reach a Western Australian audience that's primed to act, alongside a brand they already know and trust. For a local trades or services business, that combination — local, high-intent and trusted — is exactly the audience worth paying to reach.

The takeaway

Growing a local business isn't about advertising louder — it's about being seen by the right people. Get the free basics right, earn trust through reviews, and put your advertising budget where local, ready-to-buy customers already are. Do that, and every dollar works harder than it would shouting into a crowd.