Plumbing is one of the few truly “recession-proof” businesses on the planet.
No matter what happens in our hectic, ever-changing modern world folks are always going to need indoor plumbing, reliable and safe water supplies, and a system to get rid of waste. Which means that plumbers are always going to be in high demand.
At the same time, this doesn’t mean that you can start a new plumbing company from scratch, hang out at your shingle, and just wait for clients to start beating a door to your business. There’s already a lot of competition out there in pretty much every local community and you’re going to need a marketing plan that helps you cut through the clutter, rise above the noise, and more effectively market and advertise your plumbing services.
10 Marketing Strategies For Plumbers In 2020
Below we dig into 10 very effective plumber marketing ideas you want to take advantage of, marketing approaches and solutions that give you every edge and advantage to succeed in today’s hyper-competitive business environment.
Get a Modern Website Up and Running
Plumbers by and large have a bit of an unfair reputation for being a bit “old-school” when it comes to taking advantage of new technology.
Nobody really thinks about how many new tools, new solutions, and new training plumbers leverage on a regular basis to offer great services. At the same time, it’s not exactly stretching the truth to say that most plumbing sites especially for smaller, independent style businesses are usually a little bit older and outdated.
If your site falls into that category it’s time to give it a touch-up. You want your site to be your perfect 24/7 salesperson, mobile responsive, and well optimized to capitalize on all the leverage that online marketing efforts have to offer.
Leverage Search Engine Optimization
Trying to optimize your website for keywords like “plumbing services”, “plumber”, or “plumbing company” is a surefire way to waste a lot of time if you’re not targeting local related keywords instead like, “<city> plumbing services”, “<city> plumber”, or “<city> plumbing company”.
It’s always a good idea to shoot for the top 3 spots on the keywords that are most relevant to your ideal customer, but if you can really invest in locking up the first spot for the first three spots you’ll be able to push a flood of targeted traffic to your site and transform your lead generation efforts almost instantly. This can take your business to the next level.
Roll Out Paid Online Ad Campaigns
Of course, the trouble with organic search engine optimization, even local organic search engine optimization, is that it’s going to take a little while for you to see a return on your investment.
The wheels that change the ranks of different Google search results move very slowly. It may take a month, three months or even six months for you really see your organic search engine optimization efforts bear fruit and nobody wants to wait that long to build their business.
By using paid online advertising campaigns (sometimes called Pay Per Click or PPC advertising) you’re able to get the best of all worlds.
Take Advantage of Social Media
There aren’t all whole lot of plumbers out there that would rather spend time on Instagram than tackling important jobs and helping clients, but social media posts are a critical part of marketing these days.
At the very least you’ll want to be present on all of the major social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter). If you can regularly post interesting content, engage with your followers, and find ways to market without using your social media exclusively as a platform for advertisements you’ll find it’s a great source for top-notch leads.
Partner Up Through Joint Ventures
Joint ventures with other tradespeople in your local area like electricians, foundation experts, roofers, general contractors, kitchen remodeling experts, bathroom renovators, etc. can help funnel you a flood of leads faster than maybe anything else out there.
Joint venture marketing is an approach where you and related companies promote one another’s services to your own clients as well as those that are asking for a recommendation. Steering business in the direction of these companies that are working to steer business your way as well. Reach out to local companies in your area and check if they are willing to work together to earn more business for each other.
Build Listings on Local Directories
Plumbing is a very local business and that means that those searching for your services online are going to be looking at a specific geographical area for companies that they might hire. This is why it’s such a big piece of the puzzle to have your business listed on local directories (like Google Business, for example).
If your business is not listed on popular directories you are certainly losing customers to competitors that are on platforms like Bing, Yahoo, Yelp, Facebook, Angie’s List, and the like.
Create Video Content for Your Market
Video content is a game-changer in the world of online marketing today, especially in an industry like plumbing. Everyone is familiar with the idea of plumbing as a general concept but have absolutely no idea of the complexity of the intricacy of this trade.
A handful of DIY videos, helpful hints and guides, and even layperson breakdowns of some of the more complex plumbing components of the trade that are done in a fun and engaging way can help you generate leads from platforms like YouTube.
It’s important to remember that you always create video content for your perfect prospect, though, rather than just posting generic video content that you hope casts a wider net. The quality of your leads skyrockets significantly with this laser-focused approach. Making videos for common plumbing issues that specifically target your local area is one great way to go about it.
Encourage Online Reviews
Online reviews can make or break service businesses, and you want to do absolutely everything you can to not only encourage people to leave online reviews at all of the major review platforms – including Google, Angie’s List, Facebook – but you also want to encourage people to leave really great reviews.
Some really savvy plumbing company owners have even created “templates” that they share with their clients when they ask for reviews to be posted online. This helps you kind of steer people to leave the most effective reviews possible.
Sometimes the biggest reason people don’t leave reviews is just that they don’t know what exactly to say in them. The easier you make that for your customers the better off you are going to be.
Have a Referral Reward System in Place
Referral marketing is always a huge piece of the puzzle when it comes to success in the plumbing world. Unfortunately, not a lot of plumbers actively have a system to get better referrals from their clients or a system to reward those that push a lot of referral business to them.
Not only should you have a system to ask for referrals in place but you should also have some great rewards to give people that are helping put more money in your bank account.
The better your rewards the more frequent your referrals will be, giving you all kinds of opportunity to build your business really quickly as people are going to trust those that they know..
Use Good Old Fashioned Direct Mail
At the end of the day, everyone seems to want to focus exclusively on the online advertising and marketing opportunities out there which is understandable.
On one hand, online advertising gives you an opportunity to track and optimize in a way that traditional advertising methods really can’t. On the other hand, online marketing efforts are way more competitive than ever before and that means there’s a lot of potential in “old-school” methods.
Believe it or not, people’s physical mailboxes are a lot less cluttered than they ever used to be in the past. Good old-fashioned direct mail can be used to great effect these days and can help you get a lot of leads and a lot of business.