Starting your own business is an exciting step forward in your plumbing career, but it can be daunting to launch a solo venture if you don’t have an established clientele. Marketing can help you develop this clientele — but how do you market a new plumbing business?
Plumbers can market their services with a combination of web advertising, social media outreach, reviews, and traditional marketing methods. By incorporating a variety of different advertising approaches, you can reach a wider audience and garner more business. Learn more about all of the plumber advertising strategies that you can use to increase revenue.
How Do I Advertise Myself as a Plumber?
There are many different methods you can use to advertise your plumbing services, but a plumber’s stream of business often comes down to one factor — reputation. Customers want to do business with a professional who will provide effective solutions to their plumbing problems. More importantly, they want to hire somebody who is dependable.
If you meet these criteria, you can advertise yourself by emphasizing the value, reliability, and trustworthiness that you offer to clients. Finding the right channel for your advertising may still be a challenge, though. Consider the following eight avenues you can use to launch your plumbing business marketing campaign.
1. Build a Website
According to statistics, one third of U.S. consumers search for a local business each day. This figure proves just how important it is for plumbers to have an online presence in the form of a dedicated website. You need a site that clearly describes the services you provide, offers user-friendly navigation to visitors, and is compatible with mobile browsers.
Make sure that your contact information is readily available on every page, too, so that users can call or email directly from your site. Perhaps the most important element of a plumbing business website, though, is its branding. You need to create a consistent and unique brand that your customers will remember.
To accomplish this, you should craft a logo for your company or enlist help from a graphic designer to create one. The logo should incorporate the name of your business as well as a visual indication of the service you provide. This may be an illustration of a plumber, a wrench, or some other memorable symbol of your plumbing business.
Branding also incorporates the language you use on your site. You should generate content that markets your business and your services in a clear, concise way. Developing a unique tone for your marketing content will help to reinforce your business’s branding.
2. Focus on SEO
Building a website is a great start for your web-based plumber marketing campaign, but you’ll need to do more if you want to effectively reach local customers. You’ll also need to develop a strategy for search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is the practice of customizing a website’s content to increase its ranking in search engine results.
SEO is a common tactic used to boost a website’s appearance in location-based searches. If your plumbing company serves a specific area, for example, you want to ensure that you’re the first result for customers who search for plumbers in that area. SEO will increase the likelihood that your site is one of the first results. There are several ways to focus on your SEO strategy.
One of the most important is called geotargeting. Geotargeting entails using keywords that align with local customers’ search terms. By using these keywords — which include the service area you are targeting — you can boost your ranking in searches, increase traffic to your site, and win more business. Developing high-quality content is another effective SEO strategy that can increase your ranking. You can achieve this by maintaining a blog on your site that consistently updates with fresh, high-quality content.
3. Google Maps and Reviews
If you’ve ever searched for a local business and been dissuaded by a low rating, you know just how important reviews are. One source even says that 72% of customers take Google Reviews into account when they’re looking for a business. Indeed, it’s clear that Google Reviews are an essential component of any plumber advertising plan.
Achieving a high search engine ranking won’t benefit your business if it’s accompanied by low reviews — or no reviews at all. You can encourage customers to submit positive reviews by providing them with a link directly to your Google business profile. You can also use text and email reminders that encourage customers to leave reviews.
Plumbers should also be aware of the importance of Google Maps. Plumbing problems are often an immediate issue, and customers who are searching for a solution will likely look locally first. They may search by location to find the plumber that’s closest to them.
You need to ensure that your Google business profile has a physical address associated with it so that you aren’t missing out on this business. Your plumber marketing campaign could even incorporate emergency service for nearby customers. This may help to boost revenue from clients in your immediate area.
4. Social Media
Social media is yet another important part of your plumber marketing strategy. While a website is useful, it doesn’t allow you to connect with prospective customers the way that a social media platform does. Social media is a uniquely effective marketing tool for this reason — in addition to marketing your plumbing services, you can create content for followers to share and you can follow prospective customers to increase the reach of your marketing, too.
The interactive element of a social media platform makes it perfect for generating engagement and drumming up business. A social media profile with a solid following can also boost the overall credibility of your business. In order to take full advantage of these benefits, though, you need to develop a specific plumber marketing strategy to employ in your social media. Consider the demographic you want to target, for example, and decide how you’ll generate content that appeals to them.
If you really want to invest in your social media strategy, you can learn about the algorithm of your chosen platform and create a content strategy that boosts your impact. Posting specific types of content or posting at times of peak traffic, for example, can optimize your social media reach to your target audience.
5. Make Helpful Video Content
Videos are one of the most popular forms of social media content. In fact, it’s reported that 86% of businesses incorporate videos into their marketing scheme. This content can make a big splash for a plumber advertising campaign because it’s engaging, interactive, and useful — three traits that make for effective social media material.
In addition to posting videos to your social media platforms, plumbers can establish dedicated video channels on platforms such as YouTube or TikTok. These channels allow plumbers to reach new demographics and establish trust with prospective clients. Customers are likely to feel more comfortable inviting you into their homes if they’ve already seen you in action.
Videos also make for great marketing content because they provide an obvious illustration of the need for professional plumbing services. You can create DIY content that shows viewers how to take care of common plumbing problems around the house — but many people will watch a DIY tutorial and realize that they do not actually want to do it themselves. The value of your services then becomes evident to viewers. You can further incentivize prospective clients to call by offering discounts and deals if they mention the video or your social media profile.
6. Referral Programs
A satisfied customer is one of the greatest assets you can have in your plumber advertising campaign. Few forms of marketing are more effective than word of mouth, and you can even incentivize word of mouth marketing by offering customers bonuses for referrals. There are many ways to do this, including offering deals, providing bonus services, or promising a discount to the referred customer.
Of course, the most effective way to incentivize a referral is to simply provide great service that they feel compelled to tell others about! Maintaining a genuine focus on customer service will generate word of mouth organically. Great customer service is thus the crux of any successful plumber advertising campaign — but it’s about much more than just fixing pipes or unclogging drains.
Plumbers can provide great service by being consistently communicative with customers, leaving a job site better than the way they found it, and providing transparent pricing for clientele. Maintaining principles like these will massively increase your customer satisfaction rates, and in turn, make it much more likely that you receive referrals. If you want customers to provide positive feedback, you need to give them a good reason to do so.
7. Traditional Advertising
Social media, video content, and word of mouth are all important parts of a plumber marketing campaign — but traditional advertising methods shouldn’t be overlooked. Nearly everybody will require the services of a plumber at some point, so limiting your efforts to channels such as social media could exclude a portion of your potential clientele.
This means you should include traditional advertising methods such as TV placements, print ads, billboards, and mailers in your plumber marketing campaign, too. These strategies will help you reach demographics that may not use the web often or be on social media.
When you’re exploring traditional advertising methods, consider what your budget is. You’ll likely find that TV advertisements and billboards are on the pricier side, so if you’re just starting your plumbing business, you may not have the budget to invest in these options.
Many local publications offer affordable print advertising packages, though. Mailers are similarly inexpensive to print and send to local recipients. Consider what kind of return on investment you expect and gauge which traditional advertising channel is the best fit for your plumbing business goals.
8. Local Sponsorships
Connecting with your community is key to establishing trust among prospective customers. In addition to fostering word of mouth, it can increase brand awareness in your target area. There are many ways to establish your business’s place in the local landscape, but investing in local sponsorships is one of the best strategies.
Think about sponsoring your local little league team or serving as a partner for an upcoming festival. Investments like this can pay off in dividends because they allow you to publicize your business while demonstrating your support for your town.
When you sponsor an event, a team, or a local organization, you will likely have your business’s name and logo placed prominently on promotional materials. This increased visibility for your brand is great, and it’s especially effective because it builds an association between your company and the community.
You want to be the first plumber that comes to mind when somebody has a leak or a broken pipe, and sponsorships establish a sense of familiarity that will make you the top choice for prospective customers. Few other plumber advertising strategies can offer a comparable return on investment — and of course, the benefit of supporting your community is a reward in and of itself.
Develop a Plumber Advertising Strategy That Works
As the owner of a new plumbing business, you need to find ways to jumpstart revenue. Doing so will be a struggle, though, if you do not have an effective plumber advertising strategy. Developing this strategy may not come naturally to you — you specialize in plumbing, not marketing — but there are a few simple elements that can make your plan a success.
By soliciting referrals and investing in sponsorships, for example, you can generate word-of-mouth buzz. Similarly, by developing video content and establishing a social media presence, you can attract customers from the web. The most vital part of your plumber advertising campaign, though, is ensuring that your clients are satisfied. You need to be able to back up your marketing with remarkable customer service. When you do this, you’ll see your plumbing business start to boom.
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