The plumbing industry has experienced a steady growth and the trend is expected to get stronger. This suggests that plumbing contractors have to improve and intensify their marketing campaigns to get a significant share of the market. Unfortunately, more often than not, plumbing advertising tends to be an afterthought because most contractors are focused on delivering exceptional service to their customers.Lead generation is usually something that people start to take seriously when the flow of clients is dwindling. But this should not be the case. In addition to keeping your business running smoothly with top notch plumbing software, this is a critical business operation. Bringing in new leads and new business should be done even when you have sufficient clients. In this article, you’ll learn about some strategies to generate leads for your plumbing business.
1. Grow Your Plumbing Advertising with Local SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a marketing technique that starts with the use of keywords when creating your website content. This involves creating informative content with optimized page titles, subheadings, page content, page descriptions and more. Learn more about SEO strategy in the Academy article on SEO for Contractors.Every time a potential client searches the keywords you optimized your marketing content for, Google will be quick to pull up your page. So, getting your keywords right is of the utmost importance to plumbing advertising. Of course, you need to know what keywords are trending in your industry. If you don’t know what people are searching for, it will be hit or miss ranking for the right keywords and generating leads. See what keywords are trending and how stiff the competition is to rank for them with Google AdWords Keyword Planner.When you use local SEO in the right way, it can be quite instrumental in connecting your business with valuable potential customers. Basically, this boils down to on-site optimization as well as off-site optimization. The former focuses on making your website and content easy for Google navigation and ranking. In addition, you should look into optimizing your web site for loading speeds, ease of navigation, and mobile responsiveness.Off-site SEO optimization is all about link building. Here, you have to focus on quality backlinks. While some people are tempted to take shortcuts and buy links, the best strategy is building organic links progressively. If you produce quality content, others will find it and link to it from their own sites.
2. Do a Search to Identify the Older Homes in Your Area
As a home gets older, the tendency to have plumbing issues increases significantly. You can visit Zillow or other real estate sites to find what year homes were constructed. By targeting these customers, you will find an audience that’s more aware of their needs and more likely to reach out to you.While this isn’t a passive plumbing advertising strategy, it can be quite rewarding if you are diligent in identifying the older homes. To illustrate, if you have successfully identified several homes within your operational area, you can target them with various advertising programs. Whether you will use targeted Facebook advertising or direct mail, you stand a chance to win many new clients.
3. Publish Regular Blog Posts with Informative Content
As digital marketing strategies get better, you might be tempted to think that blogging is outdated. The truth is that blogging remains to a potent strategy for establishing a connection with your audience. As far as Google is concerned, blog content is the second best method of lead generation. At the same time, it is reported that at least 60% of consumers read a blog post on a site before making a purchase decision.Creating regular content will create a consistent stream of readers (and customers) for your business. When coming up with plumbing advertising content, stick to issues that are highly relevant and helpful to your audience. In a nutshell, your blogs should be interesting or helpful to your readers. This will boost confidence in your services in the long run. And all of this keyword-rich content will only help you with your SEO goals.When writing your content, strike a good balance between medium and long-form articles. However, you should always ensure that your long-form content is interesting and informative. This will keep your audience on the site as opposed to a short blog post that takes about two minutes to read. The time a person spends on a page and your site in general is a critical aspect of SEO because Google views your content as more useful if people spend a longer amount of reading what you have to say.
4. Stamp Your Presence on Facebook for Easier Plumbing Advertising
When you use local social media groups, it’s easier to get business leads. In most cases, community Facebook groups have several people who are actively seeking a credible referral for plumbing services as well as other contractors.If you want to be considered an expert in a local Facebook group, you can start by sharing useful content regularly. As a plumbing advertising strategy, make an effort to help members who are struggling with minor plumbing issues. If you are too busy to tackle these issues, you might want to get a virtual assistant to manage your Facebook account. Before long, you will be the preferred plumber in your area.While social media is all about interacting with your friends and peers, you must also set your boundaries. When you are participating in a group on behalf of your plumbing business, make sure your content serves the best interest of the business. At the same time, maintain a professional tone to command outstanding authority and don’t give away too much advice for free. Always give a little information and then offer to do a free consultation in person. That will be your opportunity to provide an estimate and offer your paid services.
5. Partner with Local Hardware Stores
When you partner with businesses that are relevant to your industry, plumbing advertising and generating new leads becomes easy. If you reach out to the local hardware store, you can establish a mutual business relationship. Ideally, you will be sending clients to the store and, in turn, you’ll be getting referrals.
6. Focus on Gaining Property Management Contacts
At times, the plumbing business can be tricky because most customers aren’t excited to have to call you. When they call you, it’s because something went wrong and they’re looking for a service that solves their problems once and for all. As such, you shouldn’t bank on frequent repeat clients. Instead, try to reach out to owners and managers looking after huge properties and complexes. The idea here is to have clients with repeat business opportunities because they are more profitable than single-property clients.
Start Using These New Advertising Strategies
In any business, competition can be quite ruthless. But if you are creative and spend the time doing your research, plumbing advertising can be easy and productive.Try a few of these strategies out and then concentrate your efforts on the ones that deliver the most results for your business.
