Thinking Outside the Toolbox

When considering which businesses might offer the most potential for becoming offline clients, I spent a moment thinking through what actually I might do when trying to find those businesses myself.
Plumbers, electricians, plasterers and gardeners are a popular target for website and social media development but in all honesty, can you say you ever find any of these through the internet?
I for one will simply ask a friend or family member for a contact number of someone they use. If this draws blanks then yes, I do refer to google but I almost never go past page one of the search and never move on to anyone's actual site. I simply type in to the search 'plumbers in Lincoln telephone' and then look down until I find a local number that isn't a directory listing.
Ok, this does then mean that I will only find plumbers who do have web pages but rather than looking for a complex design, I just want the phone number and that is it for me.
Apparently an About Us page is also a commonly viewed page but other than that, how many plumber's blogs did you ever read?
So in the case of these types of businesses, would it be fair to say that a one or two page website would suffice with maybe a duplication on a facebook page and obviously responsive for mobile phone viewing. Maybe even a tap here direct dial button but other than that, what do we really need?
As far as SEO is concerned, surely just 'Plumber in Lincoln' is good enough to get us onto page one. Maybe a couple of other keywords might help but I can't see that any major SEO campaign would be of any great use.
You see, these people tend to be busy anyway. In fact, I have yet to find a plumber with an empty order book, irrespective of whether they are online or not.
So for me,these tradespeople are not the best target groups except for fundamental web presence.
Moving on, there is the fast food businesses which clearly do benefit from online marketing. However, most of these are parts of franchises and might again be harder to penetrate so what do we have left?
For me, the answer is thinking outside the toolbox and trying to preempt what a customer might actually want.
One such example was a radio ad I heard some time back. It was a female 'lawyer' speaking of divorce from the perspective of a woman. For what had previously been thought of as a male dominated profession, suddenly there was a reason for every woman thinking of divorce to pick up the phone. Finally they were being offered empathy and understanding. This was pure brilliance.
So for me, divorce lawyers could easily be a good target for an online presence, and with an angle such as above, would be excellent.
After all, how many of your family or friends were actually happy with their divorce lawyers lol. this is perhaps one industry where word of mouth doesn't really work. This then is a key to seeing great potential for a more complex offline sales opportunity.
So my thinking is don't just follow the sheep to the cafe/plumber/chiropracter, try stepping outside the toolbox and discover a bit more creativity to bring better marketing results.
Thoughts?