My first ‘Pillar’ article

I found a great blog post today on how to find blog readers. One of the tips was to write what is called Pillar articles – basically a tutorial-style article aimed to teach your audience something.

Here’s my first Pillar article. It focuses on how to identify a joiner’s target audience is, as I am actually in the process of doing this for real it should a fairly accurate description…I would really like to think this could help other tradesmen and joiners out there – let me know what you think.

So, who are my customers?

My main area of custom is surely the domestic market – those people owning their homes or those with a responsibility for maintaining the upkeep of properties (tenants and landlords for example). This market will probably be within my immediate locality but I am happy to travel approx 40 miles or so…but with diesel prices the way they are at the minute this can be a tricky balancing act.

However, I reckon this can be broken down into more specialist areas…

House owners. A range of services may be required from fairly simple jobs like fixing a broken door lock or window to more complex structural work like laying wooden floors or refurbishing whole rooms.

Homeowners in older properties are, as a general rule of thumb, more likely to need joinery services regularly than those living in new builds.

The cost of housing is definitely encouraging more people to attempt their own building projects. The Federation of Master Builders (FMB) reckon a quarter of all new houses will be self-builds by 2010, so there is plenty of scope to secure work here.

Buying-to-let is a still popular despite the current credit-crunching trading climate, and landlords are bound to be a source of custom. Most landlords I know invest in major redecoration and renovation projects either between lets or on an annual basis, in order to keep their properties stylish and fresh.

Joiners may work as sub-contractors on construction projects, usually being brought in at the second-fix stage to finish newly built houses, apartments, hotels and offices.

Shopfitting is a specialist area of joinery and commercial clientele could range from pubs and cafés to cinemas, leisure centres and bookshops.