7 Digital Marketing Steps to Grow Your Plumbing Company
1) Get a Website
Traditional forms of marketing – radio, television, newspaper, and billboard ads – have their place in building awareness about your company. You can use those mediums to get your name out there locally. However, 80% of consumers search online before they ever call your number. There are two key reasons for this trend:
- Savvy: consumers have the opportunity to learn about your company, read reviews, and have confidence in you before they invite you into their homes.
- Convenience: If a homeowner is not experiencing a plumbing concern, your radio or television commercial is just inconvenient noise while they wait for their show to return.
Your potential customers are not likely to search for you in the paper or through the Yellow Pages. They are going online. For an expert plumber, your website functions as a 24-hour front door to your office. Whereas traditional marketing forces you to condense your message into a few sound bites or catchy phrases, a website allows you to explain your expertise the way you would face-to-face.
Remember: many users will leave a website without making a call, if it is poorly designed, or they cannot quickly find the information they need.
2) Optimize Your Website for Search Engines
If having a website is like a front door into your office, search engine optimization is the process of making sure your door is in on a high-traffic street. In other words, if no one can find your website on search engines (Google), then they are not going to interact with your expertise. Search engine optimization for plumbers is not difficult, but the process can be time-consuming. If you are doing it yourself, some steps include:
- Developing target keywords. Keywords are the words and phrases for which you want to show up at the top of the search engine lists. When someone searches “plumbers near me”, you want to show up on the first page of results, preferably near the top.
- Learning the technical stuff. Google will reward you for making sure you use your keywords well in your titles, h1/h2/h3 headers, image alt tags, metadata, and meta keywords are optimized.
- Mobile-Friendly. Your website should look and function the same on a phone as it does on a browser. 89% of your customers will search for and find you on a mobile phone.
- Making content. The best thing you can do for your website’s optimization is to create content. Google sends robots to look for new content, so if you are blogging and created new words, your website will be rewarded.
These first two steps are difficult projects to do yourself, especially initially. In the same way, you would not expect a homeowner to do their own plumbing, trust web design and development to experts. Cube Creative is here to help with your website and search engine optimization.
3) Promote Website in House
Make sure your salespeople, administrators, and plumbers know about your website and are promoting it with people. Send your existing customers to your website and Google listing for reviews.
4) Social Media
Social media can be a game-changer for plumbers. You can create a Facebook page for free, invite your friends and customers to follow you (through tools provided by Facebook as well as word-of-mouth), and run low-cost, high ROI ads. Facebook and social media marketing resource your existing customers with a tool to share you with their friends, family, and coworkers. Social media is word-of-mouth.
Social media is most effective when you can use it to send followers to your website.
5) Paid Advertisement
Google and Facebook ads are less expensive than traditional advertising, more effective, and provide metrics to prove their ROI. Even if you are planning to still utilize some traditional methods, use those things to send people to your digital spaces, where they can bookmark and follow your company.
6) YouTube
Plumbers often field multiple phone calls per week from homeowners searching for DIY advice. Often, it is not worth your time to send a technician to do the simple task about which they are asking, or you know you are on the phone with someone who has no intention of paying for your services. You can take note of those frequently asked questions and create a YouTube channel where you provide demonstrations for quick fixes. You can also use it to show homeowners how difficult plumbing should be left to the experts. Your YouTube videos can be shared on your website and social media outlets.
7) Email
It is common practice to collect email addresses from your customers. Use services such as Hubspot, Mailchimp or Constant Contact to send quality marketing emails with special offers and encouragements to interact with your content.
8) Get Help
You’re a plumber because you are an expert in your field. We are experts when it comes to digital marketing. We would be happy to help you get the word out about your plumbing company. Give us a call, if you are ready to utilize the power of digital marketing for growing your plumbing business.
