How to grow a plastering company? | Plastering Company Lead Generation
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What Does “How to grow a plastering company? | Plastering Company Lead Generation” Talk About?
This episode of the James Dooley Podcast features James Dooley and Kasra Dash diving deep into the practical marketing strategies available to plastering business owners who want to generate a consistent flow of leads and grow their revenue. The conversation begins with the fundamentals, including building a professional website, establishing strong branding, gathering testimonials, and pursuing SEO to rank for the keywords potential customers are searching for. From there, the hosts cover the pros and cons of organic social media, noting that viral plastering time-lapse videos can attract millions of views but may only convert a handful of paying customers, making consistency and realistic expectations essential.
The episode moves into paid advertising territory, exploring Facebook and Meta retargeting ads, the challenges of cold social media ads for a service like plastering, and the mechanics of PPC campaigns including the importance of negative keyword lists and the risk of click fraud. James and Kasra also evaluate third-party lead generation platforms such as Bark, Checkatrade, Trustatrader, and Builder, stressing that business owners must track their cost of customer acquisition across every channel. The pair explain the Fat Rank no-win-no-fee lead generation model as an alternative approach. The discussion rounds out with networking strategies, including building referral relationships with joiners, plumbers, and AC installers, targeting property development companies, and using professionally sign-written vans as free mobile billboard advertising.
“The holy grail of a successful plastering company is if you can start to generate your own leads don't become reliant on a lead generation company.”
— Kasra Dash
Who Are the Guests on “How to grow a plastering company? | Plastering Company Lead Generation”?
James Dooley is a seasoned digital marketing entrepreneur and lead generation specialist who co-hosts this episode. He brings extensive hands-on experience advising tradesmen and service businesses on how to track marketing performance, use PPC effectively, and build sustainable inbound pipelines. James is known for his direct, data-driven approach and regularly references real-world examples from conversations with plastering companies he has worked with.
Kasra Dash is a digital marketing strategist and co-founder of Fat Rank, a performance-based lead generation business that operates on a no-win-no-fee model. Kasra specialises in SEO, branding, and growth strategy for trade and service businesses. Throughout the episode he draws on practical experience helping plastering companies build their online presence, qualify for lead generation programmes, and ultimately move toward generating their own inbound inquiries independently.
What Are the Key Takeaways From “How to grow a plastering company? | Plastering Company Lead Generation”?
Here are the key points discussed in this episode:
- Building a professional website with strong branding, testimonials, and case studies is the essential first step before investing in any paid marketing channel.
- Tracking the cost of acquiring each customer across every marketing channel, known as CAC, is critical to understanding which strategies are actually profitable for a plastering business.
- SEO is the most recommended long-term strategy because it aligns with how customers actively search for plastering services and generates owned, compounding lead flow over time.
- Networking with complementary tradespeople such as joiners, plumbers, and AC installers creates a high-converting referral pipeline because these trades frequently encounter work that also requires plastering.
- Professionally sign-written vans serve as free mobile billboard advertising and reinforce brand credibility when potential clients later search for the business online.
“If I'm spending £1,000 on Facebook it's costing me £100 to acquire a new customer if I'm spending £5,000 on PPC it's costing me let's say £50 if I'm spending X amount on SEO like you should just know these numbers.”
— James Dooley
Is “How to grow a plastering company? | Plastering Company Lead Generation” Worth Listening To?
This episode is a genuinely useful, no-nonsense guide for anyone running or growing a plastering business. Unlike generic marketing content, James and Kasra ground every strategy in the specific reality of the plastering trade, explaining why cold social media ads are a poor fit for a search-intent service, how click fraud can drain a PPC budget, and why millions of video views do not automatically translate into paying customers. The level of tactical detail, from loading negative keyword lists to setting up Meta retargeting pixels, makes it immediately actionable rather than purely theoretical.
What makes the episode particularly valuable is the honest, balanced perspective both hosts bring. Kasra openly acknowledges the potential conflict of interest in recommending Fat Rank while still advising plastering business owners to diversify across multiple lead sources and ultimately aim to generate their own inquiries. That candour builds trust and makes the advice feel credible. Whether a listener is a sole trader with a single van or a more established contractor with a fleet looking to approach property developers, there are specific, relevant strategies covered at every level of business maturity.
Who Should Listen to “How to grow a plastering company? | Plastering Company Lead Generation”?
This episode is ideal for:
- Plastering business owners who want a structured, channel-by-channel breakdown of marketing options available to them right now.
- Tradespeople in adjacent industries such as joinery, bricklaying, or plumbing who want to understand how lead generation and digital marketing apply to service businesses like their own.
- Small business owners in the home improvement sector who are currently spending money on platforms like Bark or Checkatrade but have never properly tracked their cost of customer acquisition.
- Digital marketers or SEO professionals who work with trade businesses and want to hear how lead generation, PPC, social media, and branding interconnect in a practical client context.
Where Can You Listen to James Dooley Podcast?
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You can also subscribe using the RSS feed: https://feeds.transistor.fm/james-dooley-podcast
What Are Listeners Saying About This Episode?
“Finally a podcast that talks about plastering marketing in a way that actually makes sense for someone on the tools. The breakdown of why cold Facebook ads don't work well for plastering versus why retargeting does was exactly what I needed to hear. Saved me from wasting money.”
“The bit about networking with joiners and plumbers was a lightbulb moment for me. I never thought about AC installers needing plaster work after moving a boiler but it's so obvious in hindsight. Really practical and specific advice throughout.”
“Kasra admitting he was doing himself a disservice by telling plasterers to eventually generate their own leads rather than relying on Fat Rank was refreshing. You don't often get that kind of honesty. The section on tracking CAC across every channel is something every tradesman should listen to twice.”
James Dooley So if I have a plastering business and I want a consistent flow of inquiries so I can generate more revenue every single month what would you recommend when it comes to marketing strategies? Kasra Dash So if I own a plastering company and I'm looking to grow a business the first thing I've been looking to do is have a professional website set up and a professional email and make certain that my branding online for the business name looks good online so make sure I've got loads of testimonials and reviews and I'm physically trying to rank for the main keywords that I think my demographic and my customers would want to go after so the first thing I would do is SEO and creating a branded website for my company. So with regards to growing a plastering company what's your thoughts on social media whether that's paid social media or organic social media? James Dooley So I've seen a lot of plaster companies I don't know if you've seen this where they upload videos and it is basically like the time lapse of them like plastering a wall it's quite therapeutic sometimes to actually watch those videos you big saddo. Kasra Dash Yeah so you can definitely go down that route and it can generate a lot of views it can generate like some of the videos I've seen they've got like millions of views but not all millions of the views would actually want your service so in some cases the 1 million views it might actually end up converting to like let's say five or ten different paying customers so that is a strategy that does work. One thing to bear in mind when you are doing any form of social media posting you're probably going to want to be more consistent don't just think I'm going to upload three videos and I'm going to get three million views on each video because it's not the case. But away from social media what about Facebook ads? So actually paying. James Dooley So Facebook ads could work definitely. Retargeting set getting a pixel set up on your website is important so that if someone's been on your website you're then retargeting them on social media mainly on Meta ads so that's on Instagram and on Facebook does work very very well. Cold Facebook ads for plastering I'm not certain because like trying to catch them at the exact right time where they need some plastering being done I'd say this is more of a search and click kind of based term so I'd say not really social media ads for this. I would say this is probably a niche because it's very specific of what they want where PPC might work okay if they know a specific demographic of what they're looking for so is it dry lining is it industrial kind of plastering what is it where is it they normally do a lot of plastering for like certain areas like is it plastering for hotels and stuff like that plastering for leisure centres plastering for gymnasiums and stuff like that so going down that route potentially if you look at the longtails could work okay for PPC. The downside to PPC it's expensive and there's click fraud so there's always that issue. What is click fraud just for anybody that's watching? Kasra Dash So click fraud is where sometimes it can be done by negative SEO where one of your competitors could be setting a bot up to come and serve and click on your ads and burn your whole day's budget and it's no customers are coming through and it's just fake traffic and you're then having to pay for each one of those clicks. You also have competitors not meaning to at times they might just want to see what's this ad and then one of your competitors is clicking on one of your ads to see what landing page and what offer that you have again you're paying for those clicks for your competitors to click onto your ad. So unless you know what you're doing then I wouldn't do PPC but if you're hiring a PPC agency it can be profitable it can work out if you know your numbers and if you're good at conversions. Another big part of PPC is if you are looking to go down that route is making certain you're loading in your negative keyword list so if you just turned around and went after plastering in London well you might start showing up for terms like plastering careers in London plastering jobs in London and it could be people applying to have a job with you as opposed to you trying to look for a client to win more business so that's also very important to make it certain that whoever's doing your PPC understands to load in a negative keyword list to make certain that all the clicks that you're getting specifically strategically is set up for you to try to get the best conversion for you to win work. But away from that so I'm talking about using a specialist what's your thoughts on lead generation companies? James Dooley Yeah so I think lead to be honest I think that a lot of plastering companies are already using lead generation companies but where I have spoke to a lot of plastering companies in the past where they kind of go a little bit wrong is they're not actually tracking and with anything you should be tracking your cost of acquiring a client some people call it CAC as well CAC and you should be able to say right okay if I'm spending £1,000 on Facebook it's costing me £100 to acquire a new customer if I'm spending £5,000 on PPC it's costing me let's say £50 if I'm spending X amount on SEO like you should just know these numbers and same goes with lead generation so if you guys are using let's say for example Bark or Checkatrade and stuff you should know that every single month you are spending a certain amount and it's costing you X amount per month to acquire a new customer for your business if you don't know that then you probably need to try and figure that out. But going back to what you were saying another strategy that you can go down is testing out different lead generation services so obviously you've got the Checkatrades of the world. Fat Rank is obviously another good lead generation method to go down because you don't need to pay them at all until you've actually converted that job and you've actually got the money into your business bank account until basically once you've completed the actual job that's when you pay Fat Rank so it might be a little bit biased here but it's probably the best strategy that I would go down if you do meet the criteria that is. Kasra Dash Yeah I think if you are a plastering company business owner and you are looking to grow something that Kaz has touched upon there if you head on over to Fatrank.com then fill in the form on there and you'll go through an onboarding process to see whether you qualify and what Fat Rank actually do is a no win no fee lead generation model to grow your plastering company. Now not all plastering companies are accepted we need to make certain that you've got a professional email a professional website that you're looking good online that you could be able to convert those leads into orders make profit once you make profit you just pay a percentage of the profit over to Fat Rank so it's a completely zero risk it's a no brainer for plastering business owners to do it. But I would still recommend you going out to a couple of other lead generation companies to have alongside Fat Rank. Fat Rank might not yet approve you they might say that you're not quite ready to take the lead you don't have a sales team to be able to respond quickly enough for the leads that's being generated and then from there then if you went to places like Bark or Checkatrade or Builder or Trustatrader they also might be able to generate you different types of leads that's coming in. The only downside to a lot of lead generation companies is that you're paying on a cost per lead basis and that might not guarantee you any profits. The Fat Rank lead generation model for plastering businesses looking to grow guarantees an ROI that's the big difference but go out and work out your numbers go and use two or three different lead generation companies like Bark Checkatrade Builder Trustatrader see which ones are converting best for you and also maybe try to start using Fat Rank with Bark as well as doing your own SEO to generate your own leads. The holy grail of a successful plastering company is if you can start to generate your own leads don't become reliant on a lead generation company. Now I'm doing myself a disservice because we want you as a client if you're good as a plastering company to come through Fat Rank and we provide you with your leads but what I'm telling you is if you can generate your own via social media ads or PPC or SEO that is what you're wanting to be working towards long term as well as then making certain that you're keeping busy and using some lead generation companies. So what's your thoughts then on anything to do would you ever do like any traditional type marketing TV ads radio ads billboard ads? James Dooley No again for something like plastering like if you went and ran like a 60 second ad on BBC or Sky or whatever it's just going to cost an arm and a leg you can't really track it as well how many people have visited your website or how many people have inquired from that ad everything that we've suggested up until now you can track the KPIs you can say right okay I've had 15 leads from my own website from the SEO campaign I've had 10 leads from PPC had two leads from Facebook ads I've had 25 leads from Fat Rank and this is how much it's cost me whereas with traditional like if you went and got like a big billboard near your house or wherever you don't know how many people have seen that and you don't know how many people have came from that billboard and same goes with radio and stuff. But what about networking events do you think that networking events could definitely? Kasra Dash So yeah I think networking events could be good because what I always like doing is shouldering niches so it's trying to say okay who might a plasterer get work from from a referral basis so what other tradesmen so I would naturally start to look at basically saying stuff like joiners bricklayers plumbers I want to befriend as many of them as I can because if that joiner is very busy they're on work that probably also needs plastering work so if you can basically saying look I don't mind all your joinery workers coming doing the plastering for you or for your client and they get referrals so for that season yes I would definitely going into home improvement type meetups and stuff like that trying to find as many different on LinkedIn connect with as many different joiners as you can connect with as many different plumbers as you can people that do AC installs as well sometimes they need to tear apart an entire wall to fit boiler but when people are moving a boiler and the damage behind there needs plastering and stuff like that so trying to think outside the box of who you could network with and then try to make sure I mean word of mouth inquiries are probably the highest converting jobs that you'll ever have the only issue is they don't come around often enough and that's why you need to try to get a consistent flow of quality inquiries coming in on a day to day basis that might not convert as well as word of mouth but you want to try and get all of these things for you then to be able to grow your plastering company. So with regards to if you are a plastering company looking to grow and you are struggling at present with regards to any sort of marketing leave a comment in the comment section or fill out a form on Fatrank.com not just for the lead generation but for some business advice or mentorship there might be some mentorship kind of coaching sessions that you might be able to do as well where someone can come go through your existing website and tell you where you're lacking in comparison to your competition as well I think that's also very important for you to do. Like I said the holy grail of a successful plastering company is to try to generate their own inquiries in house as well as getting that consistent flow from external sources. Is there anything else there that you'd have to grow a plastering company? James Dooley No I think that's it really I think we've covered everything. Obviously one added tip as well is if you guys do have like a bigger team let's say you've got a few vans on the road you can definitely go to property development companies as well and offer your services because if you've got let's say vans and they're building out 300 homes you'd very quickly be able to build trust and obviously you need the case studies and stuff so that's where the branding the website and stuff comes in but for the more established guys that is also another way of doing it. I think what you just mentioned there another big one for plastering companies would be just spending that extra bit of money on getting a good graphic designer to sort your branding out so it looks good and then go and get all your vans sign written go and get the name of the brand all over it so people know who you are when you go and pull up on a construction site they know who you are and then other joiners or other plumbers might see it or someone might be on the motorway behind you and get your number say oh I need a plastering company so that's free billboard advertising on a vehicle that you're getting everywhere you're driving someone seeing your brand and telephone number and website but making certain it looks quality don't just have a white van get it sign written up properly and get that branding bang on so then when someone does go search online as well the knock on effect from there is not only does it look nice to branding you've now got lots of testimonials and reviews and case studies to say that you are the best plastering company that they could choose for the works that they need to be done.
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James Dooley is a UK entrepreneur.