As an owner of a plumbing business, you should know that establishing your plumbing company is merely the first step. Attracting and retaining customers requires plumbing marketing. A significant challenge that plumbing companies face is attracting, capturing, and converting leads into customers. And to successfully do that, your plumbing business needs to invest in digital marketing.
Effective digital marketing strategies will help your plumbing company learn more about customer habits to target your ideal customers better. Digital marketing relies heavily on solid market research.
Because digital marketing spreads the word about your plumbing business, note that it plays a significant role in the reputation of your business. There is no doubt that professional and strong marketing indicates that you are a reputable business. This is another reason why you need to invest in online marketing for your plumbing business.
Also, keep in mind that plumbing is a very competitive market. Your customers are mostly limited to those local to (probably within a thirty to fifty-mile radius) your business location. This is why you have to be extremely focused to get more leads.
You may know that conventional ways of plumber marketing, where a plumbing company would advertise in local newspapers and distribute flyers, do not seem to be working well and can also get quite expensive.
These days, internet marketing is the most suitable place to grow your plumbing business. This is because it is easy to scale. This means that you can reach a wide customer audience with little effort and cost.
In addition, the generation you are working with tends to look up to the internet to find answers to their everyday questions and challenges. And this creates a significant need for investing in online marketing and expanding your plumbing business with it.
What plumbing marketing strategies can I use to grow my business?
Owners of plumbing companies face many struggles and challenges when marketing their plumbing business. For example, one of these challenges is a tight budget. Another challenge is measuring your ROI. Research by LeadPages and Infusionsoft reveals that 47 percent of small business owners, such as plumbing companies owners, handle the marketing efforts and initiatives on their own.
Small business owners struggle to track their ROI to understand whether or not their marketing initiatives are effective. The good news is that creating a marketing plan for your plumbing company will help alleviate some of your marketing challenges.
You can use these marketing ideas and strategies to grow your plumbing business.
1. Local SEO
Note that when it comes to search engine rankings, all businesses strive to be #1. However, did you know that because of Google’s personalized algorithm, most of the top search results (for service related online searches) are businesses listed on Google Maps?
Once your business website is ready, have it checked by an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) specialist. The expert will analyze if your website has all the important and relevant keywords that it requires to rank higher in search engine result pages. Local SEO involves optimizing your business website to increase your visibility in various search engine results pages. It is no secret that optimizing your site is crucial for any plumber’s online marketing campaign.
Note that you can easily optimize your plumbing business website by:
- Optimizing your site’s content for local search
- Claiming as well as optimizing your Google My Business page
- Optimizing the metadata of your webpages (such as meta descriptions and title tags) for local search
- Optimizing all the heading tags (such as H1, and H2, etc.) on your various web pages for local search
And to ensure your spot in the local search results, the content on your plumbing website must be specific to your customer service region and always show your name, phone, and address.
2. Local Social Media
There is no doubt that social media marketing is growing more and more and plays an important role in how your business interacts with its customer base. This is why you have to leverage the immense power and sway of local social media to increase your plumbing business’s reach while improving the overall performance of your digital marketing campaign.
Suppose you can show your expertise, knowledge, credibility, and experience better than the guy down the road who doesn’t use social media. Who will individuals call when they have a problem or issue? Posting informative articles on Facebook, tips on Twitter, and videos on YouTube on how to rectify common plumbing issues and problems are excellent examples of leveraging social media effectively.
Did you know that of all the different social media platforms, Facebook boasts the highest number of users and the most conversion-friendly features? Also, note that Facebook is free and simple to set up.
In addition to Facebook, make sure that you set up your profiles on these social media platforms:
- YouTube
- GMB (Google My Business)
3. Local Advertising
Did you know what holds a plumbing company back from dominating its local area? It is poor customer awareness. By considering the different plumbing business advertising options you have and how you will deploy them, you will start to get ahead of your competitors.
Local advertising is a marketing model used to promote a company online, where you will run paid local ads on various search engines. You will pay a small fee whenever a potential customer clicks on your ad and lands on your business site. There is no doubt that paid advertising helps bring in more traffic to your site and increases exposure for your plumbing business.
One of the best aspects of this effective search engine marketing method is that your business will only be charged a fee when somebody clicks on the adverts you run.
Apart from traditional PPC ads, you may also leverage Google Local Services ads. These ads are usually exclusive to service providers operating locally, such as plumbers, electricians, and contractors.
And when it comes to modern video marketing, YouTube is an excellent platform. Did you know that video advertising on YouTube is affordable and effective? How affordable is it? You can usually expect to pay less than one dollar for each video view, depending on some key factors.
4. Email Marketing
You should know that email marketing is an excellent way to keep in touch with all your existing customers. It is also a great way to stay in a customer’s context. The best thing about email marketing is that it is relatively simple. This is why it should be a crucial part of your online marketing campaign.
These are some of the best email marketing tips to grow your plumbing company:
Think before Sending an Email
Is it compelling? Is the content suitable for your audience? Does your audience care? Note that once you begin sending irrelevant or boring content, you may lose your audience.
Be Contextual
It is important to send content that has relevance to your local customers. If you are close to the holiday season, you should send something related.
Optimize for Mobile
This is important because most people now use their smartphones in order to open their emails.
It is worth noting that adding email marketing to your online marketing plan can help you:
- Generate more revenue by offering coupons, specials, and rebates
- Stay in touch with all your customers
- Improve brand awareness
How can I get more plumbing leads?
As a plumbing company, you depend on plumbing leads to book more appointments, get new customers, and close more sales. Plumbing leads means higher net profit for your business. Did you know that a 2019 Local Consumer Review Survey revealed that 90% of customers used the internet in order to find a local business, such as a plumbing business in the last year? This is why part of plumbing marketing is finding valuable leads that you can turn into customers
5. Invest in HVAC Communication Technology
If your customers incorporate the communicating technology, which was usually located in the thermostats, directly into the cooling and heating equipment, they will be able to keep their current control system or thermostat. This helps them run their HVAC system cost-effectively as it operates at peak performance.
When this intelligent and innovative communicating technology is directly added to the central heating and cooling equipment circuit, then the equipment becomes smarter than traditional HVAC equipment that lacks the communicating technology.
As non-communicating systems are the conventional HVAC system, more technicians know and understand how to work them these days. Every technician must know how to install as well as repair these kinds of units. This is why you should invest in HVAC communication technology.
Benefits of HVAC Communication Technology
- The lowest operating costs and highest efficiency ratings of any system
- Modulates cooling, heating, and blower speed to balance temperatures accurately.
- Lower noise levels because of system components and parts running at less than maximum capacity.
It is likely that your plumbing company is a local business, and typically, customers search for local contractors. This is why you should leverage Google My Business to grow your plumbing business. Use these tips to collect more reviews for your plumbing company on Google My Business. You can also use Podium to improve your overall customer experience with sentiment analysis, reviews, messaging tools, Webchat, and a lot more.
Final Thoughts
As the owner of a plumbing company, you should make the most of these online marketing strategies and ideas to grow your plumbing business and increase customer satisfaction.
While finding customers for a local business such as plumbing can be challenging, it is not impossible! You have many tools and plumbing marketing strategies at your disposal in order to market your plumbing services and see your business take off! Did we mention that you can get started with Podium for free?
