Get the best plumbing marketing strategies that will help you generate more qualified leads, booked jobs, revenue, and more from industry experts.
Did you know that the plumbing industry is expected to grow by 15% between 2020 and 2030 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics? This presents a great opportunity for your plumbing company to optimize its marketing and generate more qualified leads.
Why should a homeowner hire you to repair or replace their clogged drain? That’s the major question if you want to create a successful plumbing business. And the answer lies in plumbing marketing. But where do you start marketing your plumbing business?
The way a plumbing company works to market its services has changed entirely in the past few years. A few decades ago, people normally used to go to their local directories or phone books to find a local plumber, but nowadays, prospects depend on Google search results to hire a nearby plumber.
Why should plumbers be on top of marketing?
As the industry continues growing, your company needs to remain competitive and relevant to generate more plumbing leads. Developing comprehensive plumbing marketing ideas can help you achieve just that.
This guide is designed to remove the guesswork and give you successful plumber marketing strategies that will help you get a higher return on investment (ROI). Without further ado, let us dive into our post.
The Benefits of Marketing your Plumbing Business You Need to Know
Most plumbing contractors are always busy servicing clients and operating their businesses to think about marketing. Marketing is one of those things that you don’t know you require until your phone stops ringing. But here are some reasons why you need to market your plumbing business even when your calendar is fully booked:
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Solidify Your Brand
An effective plumber marketing plan strengthens and solidifies your brand’s voice. Suppose you develop a marketing strategy that includes elements of social proof (for instance, online reviews and client testimonials). This is how your company communicates its trustworthiness and authenticity to homeowners. With such an excellent brand and voice, it will be difficult for existing and new clients to turn away.
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Reach More Clients and Grow Your Company
Marketing provides an excellent way for plumbers to increase their exposure in their target market and generate more leads. More prospects will become aware of your plumbing services, which can help to generate more qualified leads into your sales funnel.
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Obtain Data and Insight Into Your Company Operations and Its Clients
Plumbing marketing is not just an effective way to create your database of client contact details, but it can also offer important client insights that help you enhance your business operations and client retention tactics. For instance, if your company targets homeowners, you can obtain relevant data on the type of promotions they love, their ever-changing demands, and a lot more.
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Understand the Plumbing Industry Trends
To stay ahead of the curve, you should always remain updated on the latest plumbing industry trends. Through plumber marketing, you can understand more about current plumbing demand trends, what your rivals are doing, and clients’ needs. By learning more about the industry, you stand a good chance of building a sustainable plumbing company.
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Boost Sales
Your plumbing business stands to gain a lot by creating innovative plumbing marketing ideas and implementing them. The return on investment for effective plumber marketing can be significant.
What is the Target Market for Plumbers?
Identifying your ideal customer helps you to focus your advertising or marketing efforts on a specific segment of the market that needs your plumbing services. Otherwise, you may spend thousands of your hard-earned dollars marketing to a large group of prospects that rarely require your services when you could have spent far less and target property owners you know need new plumbing systems.
A target market for your plumbing company refers to a group of people labeled as clients of your business. The target market normally shares similar demographic traits including but not restricted to:
- Gender
- Age
- Education
- Socioeconomic status
- Location
Determining your target market can assist you to define your ideal clients and develop effective plumbing marketing strategies.
Instead of spending thousands of dollars trying to reach every prospect, knowing your plumbing target market helps you to develop a more intentional and personal outreach, particularly to those who are ready to book your plumbing services.
“When you combine the Buyer Persona/ Profile with Buying Insights, you will have clear guidance for the decisions you need to make to win their business.” -Adele Revella
Here are the different kinds of clients you are likely to encounter in your plumbing company:
1. Homeowners
One of the apparent plumbing company personas is the homeowner. However, it is important to note that this persona varies based on geographical areas. Some homeowners may be too sensitive to cost and prefer to repair their plumbing systems themselves. For other homeowners, their priority is to get the repair done right for the first time.
Homeowners have beliefs and mentality that are contrary to the suggestions of professional plumbers. For example, repairing plumbing problems themselves becomes their major priority. As a consequence, they opt to do DIY plumbing instead.
2. Real Estate Agents
Realtors typically perceive plumbers as their partners. Why? It is because the goal of a real estate agent is to help clients in selling/buying properties or houses. Generally, many homes require plumbing repairs before they are put on sale.
Such repairs need to be done faster, more efficiently, and within your budget. If they find a professional plumber like you, they can rest assured that their problems will be resolved promptly. Plumbers utilize specialized tools that assist them in monitoring tasks, projects, and even the plumbing services they offer to customers.
3. Small Business Owners
Like restaurant entrepreneurs, small company owners need plumbing services that are responsive and quick. They care more about elements such as the capability and actual size of your plumbing company since they wanted to look for a reliable partner with whom they can have a business relationship in the long term.
4. Facility and Property Managers
This buyer persona wants your plumbing services to be available round the clock. Property managers are always on the lookout for affordable rates. They work in the commercial sector. They may need services such as bathroom and kitchen repairs, flood restoration, and pump truck services, based on the situation.
Digital Marketing for Plumbers-Where to Start?
The internet provides numerous opportunities for your plumbing business to reach potential clients or leads. How do you get valuable plumbing leads, though, and increase your return on investment (ROI) from plumbing marketing?
By learning about internet marketing for plumbers and using digital marketing services.
Keep reading to know about marketing for plumbing companies, from the tactics that provide the most value to the online marketing services available for plumbers.
Without further ado, here are different types of digital marketing strategies you can use to grow your plumbing business.
First things first.
1. Set, Adjust and Manage Your Plumbing Marketing Budget
Allocating a plumbing marketing budget implies committing a specific percentage of your revenue to advertise your services in whatever combination works best for your business to reach more clients.
Plumbing industry experts recommend that you allocate at least 10 percent of sales towards marketing your service if you want to grow your business. Set your plumber marketing budget, then look at your plumbing marketing expenses and where you should spend those advertising dollars to obtain maximum return on investment. Options may include conventional advertising on newspapers, billboards, TV or sending and printing direct mail fliers.
Mastering digital plumbing advertising strategies – from Google local service ads, paid social media posts to targeted email marketing campaigns-boosts your brand awareness for your plumbing business and helps to improve your online reputation.
Test a combination of digital and traditional plumbing marketing ideas for optimal results or concentrate on one before going to another. Once you have allocated your marketing budget, adjust and manage it regularly by monitoring results for every campaign.
2. Make Your Plumbing Website Your 24/7 Sales Representative
Many home service contractors, especially plumbers, wrongly think a cell phone is all that is required to connect with people in their neighborhood. But nowadays, people turn to Google to find information about plumbing services near them. To stay ahead of the curve, your plumbing company needs its website.
Your plumbing website should be your 24/7 sales representative and should generate massive amounts of new leads. If you want your plumbing website to work while you sleep, it should have these features:
- It needs to load fast: The average client expects your plumber website to load in less than three seconds.
- It Should be optimized for mobile devices: More than 50% of all online traffic comes from tablets and smartphones.
- It should be secure: Over 40% of the plumbing websites on the first page of Google are HTTPS, which should not be a surprise because Google has already confirmed that they favor HTTPS sites.
- Frictionless: Clients should be able to obtain what they require from your plumbing website within one or two seconds. That implies helpful shortcuts, seamless navigation, and quality content that resolves their issues.
- Quality, helpful content: A major ranking factor in Google or Bing search results is the quality of your plumbing content.
- Functional: Your plumbing website should be coded properly for SEO, which implies adding structure to your website with metadata like optimized images, meta, and title tags.
If your plumbing website is missing any of these features, you need to redesign it ASAP or else lose new leads to the competition.
3. Optimize Your Plumbing Website for Local SEO to Get Found by Prospects Online
Think about a modern busy homeowner as your brainstorm about plumbing advertising ideas to enhance your business’s search engine optimization (SEO) rankings. SEO is a plumbing marketing term used to describe the steps required to make sure that Google and other search engines find your business website when people search for your plumbing services.
Here are some tips you can use to optimize your plumbing company website for search engines:
- Select location-specific keywords: For instance, plumbing contractors Manchester, TN or Murfreesboro plumbers.
- Use a consistent name, address, and phone number.
- Create and optimize your plumbing Google business profile.
- Add your plumbing company to local online business directories.
- Create high-quality plumbing SEO content.
- Integrate plumbing keywords throughout your website.
- Get backlinks from authorities in the plumbing industry.
If you are a plumbing business in Nashville, for example, make sure that you use “Nashville toilet repair” as one of your primary keywords. Use variations of the plumbing keywords on your landing pages, subheads, blog contents, meta descriptions, and meta tags to enhance the SEO health of your plumbing website.
Implementing good SEO strategies into your plumbing marketing plan ensures your site can be found on Google for phrases and words your prospect is actively looking for.
If you boost your plumbing website’s visibility, that can drive more visitors to your website, which converts your site into a lead generation machine that can work for your business 24/7/365.
4. Claim Your Free Google Business Profile
Your plumbing business must have an online presence to reach the right prospects or clients. The initial step for so doing starts with claiming and verifying a Google Business Profile listing. It is a part of local SEO and helps prospects discover your plumbing business easily online.
Google Business Profile is a free service by Google that helps you to create a listing on the web. Here, you can include all the important information related to your plumbing business, such as contact information, address, and hours of operation.
You can also add posts and images related to your business on GBP. Customers can also leave reviews about your plumbing business and share videos/images on this profile. With an updated Google Business Profile, there is a high chance of your company appearing for Google’s 3-pack and local searches too.
5. Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising to Reach People Looking for Plumbers
If you are searching for paid plumbing marketing solutions, Pay-per-click advertising is a perfect option. PPC ads are paid ads that show up in search engine results above organic listings.
PPC ads are one of the tested and proven ways to get valuable leads for your plumbing company. You only pay when prospects click on your ad. Because PPC ad targets prospects who are already looking for plumbing businesses like yours, it will assist you to get more qualified leads.
Like plumbing SEO, you will perform keyword research to identify the appropriate keywords for your campaign. Once you have picked your keywords, you will be required to bid for the placement of your ad.
You will also require to set your maximum bid, which is the amount of money you are willing to spend every time a prospect clicks on your ad. This amount should be flexible and can be altered at any time. Keyword research will assist you to know the value of plumbing keywords so that you can set the right bid.
Your quality score and the maximum bid will affect your ad’s placement. Once your ad is placed, you will launch your PPC ad.
This technique helps you to set a budget that works for your plumbing company. Whether you invest $100 or $1000, you are the one to choose. However, you need to know that the amount of money you invest will affect your plumbing marketing campaign’s success.
PPC also gives you total control over your Google or Bing ad campaign. This means that you not only choose your budget but also select the time to run your ad and for how long. This helps you to build a campaign that works for your target audience and your plumbing company.
6. Social Media Marketing for Plumbers
Among the cost-effective plumbing marketing ideas, developing a social media presence to maximize your reach is actually near the top. It is low-cost (free if don’t use paid ads), and there is no question that plumbing contractors that don’t have a social media presence in the modern market lose their marketing potential. A social media platform provides you with better credibility, accessibility, and visibility to find your plumbing services. Plus, you can use posts to show off previously completed projects and satisfied clients.
When posting on social media, it is crucial to have a variety of content, like videos. Uploading videos can be helpful for prompt DIY plumbing problems, and the viewer may then call you for other plumbing service needs. For an unsought service such as plumbing, the visibility and shareability of posts can help your company to be more present in local clients’ minds.
Marketing experts for plumbers typically recommend that you focus on one of these social media platforms including:
From here, you will be required to access most of the online social media users. Another social media marketing tool for plumbers you may consider leveraging is Facebook ads.
We highly recommend that you choose the social media platforms that your prospects or clients are utilizing instead of using a single one.
7. Manage Your Online Reputation
It’s frustrating when a client goes online and writes a bad review about your plumbing business, particularly when you have done your best to offer the best service possible. But prospects care about online reviews, and that’s why it is crucial for plumbing business owners to manage their online reputation.
To achieve this, you should claim your plumbing business on online directories like Google Business Profile and Yelp. This will allow you to reply to online reviews and confirm that all the business details listed are accurate.
Homeowners want excellent client service and constant communication with their plumbing contractor, and you can show your service by promptly and professionally responding to each review:
- Appreciate customers who leave stellar reviews.
- Respond professionally to negative and neutral reviews. Acknowledge the reviewer’s concerns and if possible, request them to contact you and offer you a second chance to make things right.
Once you have completed your work, ask clients to leave a review on your online profiles. Here are some strategies that can help you to leverage the power of online reviews in plumbing marketing:
- Engage with clients whenever they leave online reviews- this helps people to know that you are a serious plumber who values clients.
- Use testimonials in content marketing campaigns to attract similar clients.
- Make sure that your contact details are visible readily on all profiles.
- Ask for reviews and referrals from clients when a project is completed.
- Help people to leave reviews on your Facebook business page.
- Engage and monitor authentically!
8. Email Marketing for Plumbers
If you are a plumbing business owner, you understand that idle trucks and silent phones mean a high overhead cost and upset crews. If you want to attract new clients while retaining existing ones (and keep your calendar filled with booked jobs), then consider incorporating email marketing into your advertising strategy.
There are several factors that you need to consider when creating a plumbing email marketing plan, like making sure that your email is responsive and also looks great on both mobile phones and computers, ensuring it is CAN-SPAM compliant, and writing persuasive calls to action to generate more plumbing leads online.
Here are some tips that can help you get started with email marketing for plumbers:
- Set your plumber email marketing goals to help you evaluate the effectiveness of your plumbing marketing campaigns so that you can refine future email advertising campaigns.
- Build your email list.
- Create high-quality email marketing content.
- Test, track, and optimize.
9. Invest in Video Plumbing Marketing
Businesses and homeowners want to know precisely the benefits they are likely once they hire you as their plumber.
Specifically, they want to know what projects each plumber has completed previously and how they were done. You can write about these amazing projects on your plumbing website, but videos and photos are much more convincing.
Include videos or photos of previous projects throughout your website, and think of dedicating one page or two to a gallery portfolio. You can also create unique videos to show prospects how you have completed particular projects, specifically ones that presented issues or were complex along the way.
As part of your plumbing marketing strategy, you might also opt to include interactive tools on your estimate or contact page. This makes your website more compelling and also helps customers visualize your work, which might be the final motivation they require to contact your plumbing business.
10. Content Marketing
One of the goals of digital marketing for plumbers is to generate more qualified leads. However, you can obtain those leads without providing information. Your prospects or clients turn to Google to research their options, as well as general details about hiring plumbers, and your plumbing website should offer everything they require.
The best content type for a plumbing business may be blog posts in form of answers and questions. Create a blog post title with questions that most people ask you as a plumbing business owner, and write a blog by answering the question as comprehensively as possible.
Create pages that answer particular questions and address common problems. These pages should mention your specialties, services, and any other details that may attract a customer. Be sure to do plumbing SEO so that your posts can be found in search engines like Google or Bing. Then, add a compelling call to action requesting readers to submit a contact form. It should help visitors to leave their name, email, and address, along with other important information.
By offering valuable information, you show site browsers that your plumbing business is a reputable resource for resolving their questions. And as you establish that trust, they are likely to contact your plumbing company.
