Twenty-five years ago, digital marketing for plumbers would of been non-existant, instead you’ll of been marketing your business though good old fashioned leaflets and adverts in the local paper or even the yellow pages to reach your customers.
Your plumbing company has probably had to adapt in many ways to reach new customers, and with so many potential customers now searching for a plumbing company online, that’s the place to be to market your plumbing business if you want to get their attention! According to the independent, the average Briton will spend over 22 years of their life online, just let that sink in for a moment.
In the modern day, marketing your plumbing company is still essential when it comes to getting those leads and opportunities . However, digital marketing is now the way forward. Afterall, the main reason for marketing your business is to obtain new customers, and digital marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways for any service business to raise their brand awareness.
So, where do you start?
Well, reading this blog means you’re already off to a good start, pat on the back for you.
Feel free to skip to the parts that interest you using the list below, or if you’re very comfy and have a cuppa on the go, stick around for the whole thing.
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What exactly is digital marketing for plumbers?
Digital marketing refers to any marketing that you do online, including social media advertising, search engine optimisation, ads and pay per click (ppc).
Anything you do to promote your business online and drive more traffic to your website is digital marketing.
So whether you’re a plumber that’s new to the digital marketing world, or you want to put a digital marketing strategy in place for your growing business, this is the essential guide for your plumber marketing in 2023. But be warned, it’s a lengthy read.
Get started: Professional website design
The first step in becoming a digital marketing-proficient plumber is to create a great-looking website. A professionally designed website boosts your credibility and authority in the market against your competition.
The whole point of digital marketing is to increase your plumbing leads and make some money, you can’t do that if you don’t have anywhere to direct your customers! Whilst some social media platforms allow customers to reach you, a lot is left unsaid and creates a funnel of low quality leads – ain’t nobody got time for that!
Surprisingly, 27% of small businesses don’t have websites, either relying on word of mouth or retaining existing customers for future work, a somewhat limiting approach.
Now if you’re a small business, you might think a website is an unnecessary expense. However, the truth is that a website can bring you lots of business without having to continously advertise it, such as linking it through your google my business profile, on the side of your van, or across your socials.
Professional websites will help raise your brand awareness, educate customers about your services and boost your rankings in search engines. This will give you many online advantages against your competition, especially if you’re online and your rivals aren’t.
It’s time to cash in on all of those customers who are using google instead of the yellow pages.
So, what are your options for a website?
You have a couple of choices when it comes to building a website for your plumbing business .
Create your own or get someone else to make one for you. You might think we’d always advise you to pick the latter option, but if you’re just starting out, spending a chunk of your childrens inheritance on a professional website might not be the best use of your dosh to begin with.
Need help creating content for your DIY design? Take a look at our plumbing content guide for more information.
There are several DIY website builders out there, that offer very low cost, pre-made designs that will get you online. Whilst they’re not usually optimised to rank well on google like a custom design, it’s a good place to start whilst you’re finding your feet with your business.
As an established plumbing company, we’d strongly advise investing in a professionally designed website, anything less could potentially harm your business appearance and credibility.
A custom-built website means you get a high performing website that provides a high-quality user experience and is also more likely to convert visitors. Plus it means you’re not wasting time messing around with HTML code or security certificates and you can get on with what you’re good at – plumbing and leave the rest to us!
Want to get started on your plumber website?
Get in touch with our team today.
Social media
Done correctly, social media marketing is a great tool for generating customers – nearly half of tradespeople say that having a social media presence helps them get more work.
Given how much time we spend watching people dance on TikTok and arguing with them on Twitter, social media can be the perfect place to find our target audience. The question is, which is the best for my business and finding that perfect potential customer?
Let’s take a look at the best social media platforms for your business.
1. Facebook
Facebook is bursting with homeowners, and with business page functionality to direct those potential clients to, Facebook can be a great platform for promoting your business.
Setting up a business profile is very simple, and for time short business owners, requires little maintenance. A nifty chatbot feature which auto replies to messages can help reply to messages so your customers aren’t waiting for you to reply whilst you’re on the job!
Happy customers can leave reviews, which are very helpful to secure new business and Facebook ads can directly target your ideal customer to promote your business more aggresively online.
Share your knowledge through video and text content to educate your customers, and you’ll create a pocket of warmed up leads that will reach out to you when they need your services.
Facebook leans into a residential user base, so perfect for your bathroom installations, boilers and fixing the “YouTube DIYers first attempt”, but perhaps not as worthwhile if your target customer is in the commercial or industrial sectors.
2. Linkedin
No longer the sterile, tie wearing stuffy online-office it was in 2010. LinkedIn is the business hub of social media, connecting like-minded business owners looking to secure contracts and create useful business relationships, plus, there’s no need to even make chit chat at the water fountain, winner!
LinkedIn actively encourages you to grow your network, advertise your services and connect with like minded business owners. Their business page feature is the most comprehensive of any social media platforms, allows you to invite connections to follow your page, keep up to date and you’ll appear in search results.
LinkedIn is also a perfect spot for finding new talent for your company, and likewise if you want to find digital marketing services to help grow yours. LinkedIn is full of individuals promoting their SEO services, video marketing services, content marketing (incase you’d rather hand this side of the business over to a professional) and helpful to find a specific plumbing marketing agency within a few clicks.
If you’re planning on giving social media some of your time, LinkedIn will offer you the best bang for your buck. I would argue it’s the best free online marketing tool almost every business can benefit from using and is great for connecting with a commercial or B2B (business to business) audience.
3. Instagram
Holiday selfies anyone? Or would you rather just show off your epic copper tube bending skills. Primarily a visual app, Instagram is perfect for showing off your work and finished projects via photo or short video clip content and is a great social media marketing tool.
Business is personal, and Instagram is perfect for showing the human side of your business, keeping users informed up to date projects and offering free advice to a millennial first time buyer audience. Whilst you can add links onto your profile to your website, expect frequent direct messages and a personal approach to getting more work.
Some useful tips for social media marketing
If you decide to promote yourself on any social media, there are two things you should consider.
First, it’s better to choose one or two platforms rather than spread yourself too thin across them all. Figure out where your ideal customers hang out, and get in front of them.
Secondly, you need to engage with people. It’s no longer enough to create a company page and wait for people to find you. Research the hashtags used, join local groups and make a name for yourself.
Stick to the above, and then when people need a plumber, you’ll be the person they contact.
PPC and paid social
Pay-per-click advertising, or PPC, is when you spend money for your business to appear in front of your target audience. This can either be at the top of the search engine results, such as Google ads, or on your social media platform of choice. You can set a budget for a specific campaign, and everytime a user clicks your website link, it deducts an amount from your budget. The amount it charges per click depends on the keywords and audience you’re targeting and can range from pennies to pounds per click.
Whilst it can be a great way to build brand awareness and leapfrog in front of your customers, it’s not ideal for everyone. You need to spend time optimising and refining your ads to ensure you don’t waste money appearing in front of the wrong people. PPC is great plumbing marketing tool and working with a Google Ads or digital marketing agency would be highly beneficial to the overall marketing campaign to get the best results.
Our top tip
Use geotargeting to ensure your ads only appear to people in your local area and negative keywords to exclude the wrong search terms from your campaign. It’s worth noting that PPC only works when you have the budget to continually invest, if you want to spend your money on organic search results and long term results, then plumber seo is where you should put your pennies when it comes to digital marketing services.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO, or search engine optimisation, is the process of optimising your website for search engines. This increases your search page ranking, and captures organic traffic (website visitors from search engine pages only) so you appear in front of your customers.
Some plumbers opt for paid ads over SEO due to the speedy return on investment, but with some patience and the correct execution, i.e working with a reputable digital marketing company, SEO is a better long term investment for your business.
SEO can typically be broken down into 4 sections:
- Local SEO
- On Page SEO
- Off Page SEO
- Technical SEO
Whilst the majority of these areas should be implemented by a professional SEO agency or freelancer, some simple yet important local SEO can be implemented by you, to help give your plumbing business a boost on Google.
We have a more in depth guide If you’d like to learn more about SEO.
Give it a go & get found fast with some easy local SEO...
Type any service into Google, such as “plumber near me” and you’ll be met with a list of local businesses at the top of the page, this is local SEO. Showing up in front of customers on Google who are nearby is simple, free and great for your diesel bill.
The only way to show up here is with a Google Business Profile.
Having an optimised google my business profile to list your services, opening times, contact information and photos of your work alongside positive customer reviews has a huge impact on plumber marketing, as more than 80% of customers read reviews before making a purchase.
Already have a google business profile but no calls? How do you compare to the other businesses that show up in the area. Ensure your profile is up to date, and you’re constantly asking previous customers to leave you a google review to help boost your ranking.
Email marketing
Many plumbers don’t think of email marketing as a way to promote their business. However, out of all the digital marketing channels at your disposal, it has one of the best returns on investment around.
For every £1 you spend on your email marketing, you can expect to get £36 back!
Set up a lead capture box on your website that people can fill in to be added to your email marketing list. Don’t put them on the list without their permission though; otherwise you might get a stern letter from the ICO!
Use your email marketing list to inform potential clients about your recent blog posts, your latest offers, and even the latest developments in the plumbing world. By keeping in contact with the people on your list, you’re not only reaching new customers, but retaining existing ones too.
How to measure your plumber marketing
Now you have the knowhow for your digital marketing, how can you keep an eye on the results?
There are variety of free tools you can use to manage your website performance. Why bother you may ask? Well simply, how do you know if your marketing efforts are working or not without the stats? We love stats.
Here are some of the best free tools you can use to keep track:
1. Google analytics
Google Analytics is essential for measuring website traffic, user behaviour and page engagement. Setting up Google Analytics is fairly straightforward but it does require some code adding onto your website, so worth getting your website designer to add this as soon as your website goes live, as it can take a while for data to pull through.
2. Google search console
GSC is a useful tool for plumbing companies to find any errors with your webpages and monitoring how they perform on the SERP (search engine results page). You can also track the number of impressions your website gets on Google vs how many users are actually clicking through to your website. GSC is an essential tool for improving your SEO and marketing campaign.
3. Google my business
GMB gives you an insight into how people are finding your website and on what device. A useful tool to ensure you have all of the correct information displayed on your Google My Business profile, for example, if you have 0 calls from here, do you have the correct number on your profile?
4. SEMrush
SEMrush is a free 3rd party digital marketing tool useful for finding keywords for your website, tracking your performance and how you compare to your competition with domain overview tools. SEMrush has it’s own website ranking tool, offers audits and backlink information, a real must for anyone venturing into indepth SEO.
5. AHrefs
AHrefs is another free 3rd party internet marketing tool, great for measuring keywords and tracking performance. The most useful tool is the website audit health score, directly linking you to the pages with issues and the fixes required.
6. Keyword surfer
Keyword surfer is a Google Chrome plugin which, when you search for a keyword on Google, displays the amount of searches per month it gets and the average PPC cost for this keyword. Using a combination of SEMrush & Keyword Surfer will give you a rounded overview on the chosen keyword.
How much does digital marketing for plumbers cost?
Digital marketing can vary from a couple of hundred to hundreds of thousands of pounds per month. The more you can budget towards your marketing, the more effective and the higher the return on investment can be.
Decide what is the most effective marketing route for your business and invest in that space. A lot of internet marketing is free and only requires some of your time, patience and perhaps a few YouTube tutorials.
The essence of plumber digital marketing starts with being online in the first place, so if you’re looking for a brand new website design for your plumbing business, get started with us.
