Owning a plumbing business requires expertise and knowledge. The most important experience is related to plumbing services but business owners often take on multiple responsibilities. That includes digital marketing, which is a necessity if you want to attract new clients to your small plumbing business and achieve your most important growth goals.
Here at Select Funding, we partner with plumbing businesses every day, providing them with the financing and guidance they need to be successful. That includes providing funds to fuel their marketing efforts. If you need some guidance about plumber marketing and where to put your resources, we’ve created this guide for you, with information about social media, advertising, web design, and more.
Digital marketing involves everything that you do online to identify your brand, connect with your target audience, and promote your business. No small business, especially service businesses like plumbing companies, can afford to ignore digital marketing. Here are some statistics that indicate why digital marketing services are important to plumbing companies:
These numbers illustrate that it’s necessary for every plumbing company to find ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors locally, retain existing customers, and attract new leads and customers on an ongoing basis.
Digital marketing services are typically provided by marketing agencies who specialize in things like search engine optimization (SEO), search engine and social media advertising, blogging, and email marketing. Hiring an agency can help you refine your website, improve your search rank, and beat out your competitors.
Effective plumber marketing starts with a well-designed and optimized plumber website. Your website is where you can use SEO, including local keywords and markers. Good SEO does the following things:
A good plumber’s website should have certain qualities and characteristics that make it useful and memorable. Here are some of the most important things to include:
Including these essential elements in your plumbing website will make it easy for people to find you online and provide them with the information they need to choose you instead of one of your competitors.
Once you have an effective plumber’s website, you can think about other digital marketing strategies to try. Here are some of the most effective strategies we know.
We talked a lot about SEO on your website, but off-site SEO can be just as important and impactful. Effective off-site SEO includes making sure that your company listings, sometimes referred to as NAP (name, address, phone number) listings are standardized. It might seem silly, but even something as simple as having one listing with an abbreviation and one without (St. vs Street) can make a difference.
Advertising on search engines such as Google or social media sites like Facebook can make a huge difference when it comes to attracting leads. Advertising on Google requires bidding on keywords, and local keywords unique to your service area are best. Plumber social media marketing allows you to target people who are homeowners or business owners in your area. You can set your own budget and use Facebook’s detailed analytics to review your ad’s performance and refine it as needed.
While social media advertising is undeniably important, so are regular social media posts. We suggest choosing one or two social media platforms, with Facebook being ideal for consumer marketing and LinkedIn preferred if you do plumbing work for other businesses. Social media posts may include written content, photographs, images, videos, and more. Remember that it’s better to stay active on one or two social media sites than it is to have a lackluster or sporadic presence on many sites.
Online reputation management is a must for every company and it’s particularly essential for service providers, including plumbing companies. To manage your reputation, you’ll need to encourage online reviews and then monitor review sites. Make sure to respond to all reviews, positive and negative, and do whatever you can to mitigate negative reviews. A lack of responsiveness will indicate that you don’t care if your clients have negative experiences, so respond publicly and professionally, take the conflict offline if you can, and do whatever you can to help turn the reviewer’s experience around.
Your online marketing may also include a digital referral program. Referrals can be a great way to grow your business because people often prefer to get a recommendation for plumbing services from someone they know. You can promote your referral program on your social media or to your email list, and you may also have information about it on your website and social media profiles.
Email marketing gets an average return on investment (ROI) of $36 for every $1 spent. That’s higher than most other marketing formats, so it makes sense to use email marketing to promote your plumbing business. You can collect email addresses on your home page or run a social media campaign where you give away some unique content to entice people to opt into your list. From there, your list can be segmented to nurture leads and keep in touch with existing clients. It may also be useful for informing people about your referral program or encouraging people to leave online reviews about your services.
Plumber marketing doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does require working capital if you want your marketing strategies to be effective. The information we’ve included here can help you decide which marketing tactics to use to promote your plumbing business.
Do you need working capital to pay for digital marketing services and advertising? Select Funding is here to help! Click here to learn about our small business financing for plumbing companies and begin the application process today.