Lead Generation for Plumbers: Tips + Best Practices

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If you’re looking to add new customers to your list of clients, you’ll want to figure out how to generate new leads efficiently. Read on for our list of best practices when it comes to lead generation for plumbers and some lead generation strategy tips to help ensure quality leads.

Why Lead Generation Matters for Plumbers

Plumbing can be a competitive field, which is why lead generation for plumbers is a crucial component to any marketing plan you put in place.

If you want a guaranteed source of new customers coming your way, use a diverse marketing plan that includes a mix of tactics like SEO concepts, social media marketing, email marketing, and Google Ads.

Business owners also need to understand that lead generation isn’t truly successful unless it’s producing high-quality plumbing leads that frequently conclude with a paid plumbing job. There are other metrics to consider if you’re a plumber or own a plumbing business such as:

• Your overall reach in the community you serve
• Traffic to your website
• The fierceness of the competition in your area
• Your investment in specific parts of your business strategy (such as advertising)
• Your existing connections, customers, and networking

Lead generation is not a “set it and forget it” style of business activity and often requires monitoring and critical thinking so you can make tweaks to your strategy when things aren’t working.

Vigilance is especially necessary as it’s how you ensure your business stays relevant and in tune with your audience as you adjust advertisements, alter marketing tactics, and interact with customers over social media or email.

Strategies to Succeed

Every plumbing business will be different, but you can expect to use more than one of these techniques to attract new customers from several different sources.

Create a High-Quality Online Presence

The best thing you can do for your business is to have a professional-looking website that provides your clients with some necessary information about your business.

Include information such as:

• Contact information for your business (phone, email, address, etc.)
• The geographic areas you service
• What plumbing services you offer
• Certifications
• Testimonials or reviews

High-quality websites no longer need to cost thousands of dollars, and many business owners are turning to all-in-one services that provide you with a website, template, and hosting for one monthly fee.

These website builders do a bit of SEO for you, which ensures that your website ends up looking professional and working well for both you and potential customers. These services also allow you to customize each page to reflect vital information about your business and what you do.

It’s also a good idea to add in some kind of social media presence where you can tag your business and entice customers to leave reviews. This additional information can help add credibility to your company and inform potential customers while also encouraging them to contact you.

Not all customers will require your assistance today, but cultivating a high-quality online presence using social media, marketing, and advertising can increase brand awareness, which makes it more likely a customer will contact you for future plumbing services.

In addition to a professional-looking website, you’ll want to set up your Google My Business listing, which makes it easier for customers to find your services online.

You’ll also want to tell your customers why your service is preferred over the competition and provide reviews to back up your claims.

Don’t Shy Away from Smart Advertising

When you are considering advertising options, it’s vital that you look into where your customers originate and where you might find potential customers in your area.

Once you have this information, you can better target specific geographical locations, so your ads reach your target market.

For example, in 2019, the average Facebook user spent 38 minutes on the platform each day, and Facebook’s user base is continuing to lose younger users.

This shift might make Facebook an excellent platform for reaching homeowners in your area through advertising and generating new leads.

To drive higher profits, you’ll likely need to invest in advertising for a number of reasons, including raising brand awareness, generating exclusive leads, and finding new sources of quality plumbing leads.

New plumbing businesses and more established businesses will both need to put ongoing effort into advertising. This need means that you’ll require an advertising budget and a solid strategy that puts your money into a well-structured campaign, which can take time to fine-tune.

Network in Your Area

Lead generation for plumbers doesn’t have to stay in the digital realm. Some good old-fashioned networking with homeowners associations, local construction projects, peers, and other businesses can go a long way.

Once you know your potential customers and where you can connect with them, you can also network for free using content marketing or social media. If you want to get your business into a specific project, having networked in your area can make it more likely you’ll get the job.

Plumbers focused on home repairs can also get leads from speaking at HOA meetings or by joining local plumbing professional organizations. It also doesn’t hurt to network with other plumbers who might refer customers to you when their workload is full.

Lead generation for plumbers that work in the commercial realm might include introducing yourself to facility managers, attending local events to network with facility managers, and asking questions about what these individuals are looking for in terms of plumbing services.

Use Content Marketing and Inbound Marketing to Your Advantage

Inbound marketing is where you provide answers to people’s questions when they search online by bringing them to your site, and you can accomplish this in a few ways.

First, you can use social media marketing since the platform often gets used for professional tasks such as looking for products and services.

Second, blogging or creating content to answer common questions your customers might have is also another form of inbound marketing that can direct more customers to your site.

It’s worth noting that 77% of companies have a content marketing strategy, and the most common measurement when it comes to the success of this strategy is total sales.

Content marketing is similar as it includes things like:

• Infographics
• Videos
• Written guides
• Blog Posts

Once a customer is already on your site, your content marketing strategy can help keep them there and convince them to request your services. Content marketing also establishes you as an expert in your industry and increases your business’s credibility in your customers’ eyes.

Find Ways to Track Marketing Performance

Some business owners prefer to hire a marketing consultant to assist with tracking performance, as creating a marketing plan and tracking how well it works can be a tricky job.

However, plenty of plumbers and business owners manage to track marketing performance using various analytic tools and metrics that gauge performance accurately.

It’s worth noting that many services, such as Google Ads, also offer a dashboard with various statistics and analytical information about how your ads perform and how often they receive clicks. There’s also a service called Google Analytics that you can use to track stats on various websites you create.

Frequently Asked Questions

Finding the best lead generation for plumbers typically involves more than one component. Read on for the answers to some frequently asked questions as you get started creating your strategy.

Do I need to know a lot about SEO to generate plumbing leads successfully?

You don’t need to be an SEO expert to get started with the basics, but some individuals find that getting some temporary help allows them to progress faster.

It’s entirely possible to learn about SEO online from free resources and implement some basic strategies. Still, if this seems daunting, you can always get a consultant to review your site and make some recommendations, so you have an idea of where to begin.

I don’t know anything about online advertising. Where do I even start?

Many plumbers enjoy learning about online advertising options through sources online, and there are several free and paid options to get you started.

If online advertising sounds entirely unappealing, there’s also the option of hiring an advertising or marketing consultant that you can pay by the hour for their services.

One of the most straightforward online advertising strategies is pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements, which allow you to create relevant ads for your business that appear on Google search results when someone searches for a term related to your business or ad.

What are some quick things I can do to help boost leads?

If you already have an online presence, the fastest thing you can do is ensure that they look professional and credible, so customers feel comfortable contacting you for your services.

You can also reach out to previous customers, ask them to leave reviews, and reach out to contractors you’ve worked with to ask them for reviews or testimonials.

It’s also a good idea to set up your Google My Business listing to make it easier for customers to find you and increase your local reach.

Wrap Up

Once you have the necessary information about your business, such as your service area and the home services you provide, you can begin crafting a lead generation system that will help you land high-quality potential customers.

Plumbing lead generation can include various tactics such as:

• PPC through a service like Adwords
• Search engine optimization
• Email marketing
• Social media
• Yelp and other online review services
• A Google My Business page

All of these tactics help you extend your business’s reach and get your message to your target customers.

Regardless of how you put together your strategy, the plumbing industry is competitive, and all service providers and plumbing contractors can utilize some of the techniques we’ve discussed to gain an advantage.