mail@pirb.co.za 
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- Create a marketplace or a dedicated mobile app
- Develop a professional website
- Create a blog
The plumbing industry is booming, aiming for an all-time high. But is your business getting its fair share of this abundance?
In today’s neck-throat competitive business world, the plumbing sector isn’t limited to individuals with years of experience as entrepreneurs are taking a plunge into this industry.
But exactly who is a plumber? And what do plumbers do on the job? It’s always helpful when developing a business strategy to start with some simple definitions: A plumber is a professional responsible for installing, maintaining, and repairing pipes and fixtures pertaining to heating and/or cooling systems, water distribution, and sanitation systems in residential and commercial spaces.
A plumber is also responsible for inspecting drainage and other plumbing systems for compliance with regional and national plumbing regulations.”
So, if you are considering starting your own plumber business and already set up the office and got the plumbing business cards printed, you’ve landed at the right spot.
We’re going to guide you about the best effective plumber marketing strategies to present your business in the most optimal way possible, surviving and thriving in the digitised plumbing business landscape.
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- Create a marketplace or a dedicated mobile app
- Develop a professional website
- Submit your website to local directories
- Search engine optimisation
- Social media marketing
- Paid advertising
- Cross-platform marketing
- Create a blog
- Share fix tutorials on YouTube
- Engage in online communities
- Establish sound reputation
- Create whitepapers
- Partner with builders in your area
- Run a referral programme
- Email marketing
1) Create a marketplace or a dedicated mobile app
There are two versions:
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- By creating an online marketplace, you can allow multiple plumbing businesses to offer their services to customers through a single online platform owned by you.
- You can opt for a dedicated mobile app if you are interested in selling your plumbing services only.
In the latter case, you can opt for a dedicated mobile app if you are interested in selling your plumbing services only. A dedicated app for your business will allow your customers to approach and hire your services with a few clicks on their smartphones.
By having your On-demand Handyman App Development Platform developed from a reputed app developer, you can benefit yourself with several handy features such as intuitive user interface, instant customer registration and profile approval, customer chat, and multiple payment gateways integration.
It is imperative for you to learn that creating an online marketplace or a dedicated mobile app for your plumbing business is the most effective strategy that will help you grow in leaps and bounds.
Additionally, by approaching a well-established development agency, you never need to worry about your app or marketplace because they will create it from scratch while keeping in mind all the requirements of your business.
In the first option, if you are looking to take your plumbing business to new heights of success then having a marketplace is the most viable option for you. By creating an online marketplace, you can allow multiple plumbing businesses to offer their services to customers through a single online platform owned by you.
You can set certain commission rates and monthly fee options that vendors will pay you in exchange for selling their plumbing services through your platform. There are examples of many successful marketplaces of today such as Uber that may inspire you.
2) Develop a professional website
First things first! You must kickstart your plumbing business endeavour with a good-looking, fully functional plumber website. It is the first step to enter into the digital plumbers market. If you want to compete with the best plumbing service providers in your geographical location, then it goes without saying that you must have a robust digital presence.
With a smartphone in every pocket, people surf the Internet to do a multitude of tasks. Just about everything is a few clicks away from the Internet, whether it be checking for what tools do plumber use or scheduling an appointment with a plumber.
No matter, whether there is a trouble with the shower faucet, making you late when getting ready for the office, or the leaking bathroom tap disturbing your sleep in the middle of the night, consumes can just search the Internet and call out for a specialist to their place at their convenience.
In that case, if you don’t have a website for plumbers services, then you are losing out on potential clients. Having a plumbing website helps in establishing online visibility as well as build trust in the minds of your prospective visitors.
While designing a website for your plumbing company, you need to mull over several factors including the overall presentation, the theme, navigation tab, and features such as online plumber quotes.
Another thing you got to ascertain is that your website has all the key details, including contact number, email address, and the complete address of your offline business location.
3) Submit your website to local directories
After having an up-and-running website for your plumbing business, the next step is to submit your business to the local directories. Ideally, it is best to reach out for a reliable plumber marketing company to list your plumbing services on multiple local business listings.
Some of the most popular local listing directories that you can use for serving your purpose are:
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- Bing
- Yelp
Enlisting your business on these local business listings will help you find relevant clients for your business, saving you the time-consuming process of screening relevant customers from the entire incoming traffic.
Furthermore, the more the number of times people come across your plumbing business doing online research, the more they’ll be convinced to hire your services.
4) Search engine optimisation
In 2023, you won’t expect truckloads of traffic to your plumbing website just by creating a few web pages. Therefore, you need to invest a great deal in search engine optimisation (SEO).
Many tasks need to be accomplished in order to build a robust SEO strategy, starting with adding relevant keywords to the website content, which allows you to draw more leads for plumber estimates.
The SEO includes a range of on-page tasks, such as keyword-enriched meta tags, page titles, alt tags, and creating meaningful content as well as off-page SEO, such as guest blogging and sharing your website content across social media channels.
Search engines will crawl your website based on the keywords present on the webpage and will then check whether your webpage with the same keywords is more or less relevant than other web pages/websites optimised for the same keywords.
Whenever someone searches for keywords related to the plumbing industry, such as how much does the average plumber charge per hour or how much does a plumber cost or plumber logo ideas, search engines, such as Google, present them the most popular results.
5) Social media marketing
Gone are those days when social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter were meant only for socially bridging people as one digitalized society. Today, social media marketing, also known as SMM, has become a dynamic marketing and plumber advertising tool to interact with potential customers and to draw more sales.
Popular social media platforms to the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are great places to establish stronger online relationships and win and retain customer trust. By thoroughly investing time and money into social media marketing, you can boost your online brand awareness as well as establish loyalty among your customers.
Plus, you’ll have better insights, the capability to draw more leads and convert them into loyal customers of your business.
6) Paid advertising
When it comes to internet marketing for plumbers, paid advertising is a popular marketing model that you can trust to brand your plumbing business online. Although SEO is the best method to improve your revenue, it takes approximately 6 to 12 months to reach any sort of measurable results.
This is why you need to invest in paid advertising to get your plumbing business off the ground. Promote your plumbing services online by running search engine ads, such as Google Ads. The advertiser requires the plumbing business running the advertisements to pay a small fee whenever someone clicks on your ad and lands on your website.
Paid advertising drives a great volume of traffic in addition to boosting the online exposure that your business gets. Running a paid advertising campaign presents a wealth of perks, including:
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- Faster results
- Reaching out to the right audience
- Better transparency & measurable results
- Full control over the ads
- More exposure and brand awareness
The advertisement must be designed efficiently, it is best to reach out to a trustworthy marketing company as not everyone can design a paid ad. A paid advertising market agency has a wealth of experience and practical industry knowledge to create meaningful ads. You can be creative around your ads to create powerful advertisement campaigns.
The content of the ad must be captivating, something that pulls instant attention. The advertisement content must highlight the top pros and USP of your company, what tools do plumbers use for offering their services, what safety precautions do they follow, how much do plumbers charge, et cetera.
7) Cross-platform marketing
For a basic cross-platform advertising definition, think of any advertising campaign that straddles multiple channels, such as radio, TV, paid search, social media, and more. Each cross-platform campaign starts with careful evaluation and planning.
This is another means to tap into a wider customer base that you were unable to reach out earlier. Cross-platform marketing is a reliable means to promote your plumbing services via increasing your online exposure and targeting a broader audience.
Cross-platform marketing offers a length of benefits that can harness the power of social media platforms, co-sponsor for a good cause, and offer special deals and discounts on standard plumber rates.
Who should you reach out for when doing cross-promotions? The answer is to locate companies that share your business interests. For instance, you have to think of who all be requiring your services, find people in your region residing in houses, apartments, and running brick-and-mortar stores. They will be your target audience.
Once you’ve clearly illustrated how your plumbing services can be helpful to them, offer exclusive discounts on plumbers rates per hour.
8) Create a blog
Every business, irrespective of the industry, must have an active blog running on the website. Most plumber websites’ designs have a blog section, which is a fitting means to share updates, news, and valuable information with your online audience base.
In addition to that, Bill Gates once said: “Content is King”. As most search engines love content, you can rank your website higher on top-rated search engines by creating unique and engaging content around a relevant set of plumbing keywords, such as plumber toolbox, successful plumbing stories, and how much does a plumber charge an hour.
9) Make your business active on video platforms
Videos today are the fastest consumed content over the Internet. Nowadays, tech-savvy people search for anything to everything on YouTube. For instance, someone is having a flooding tap in the middle of the night, what they will do, surf YouTube to get the answer.
YouTube is also used for knowing about the plumber’s toolset, the way a plumbing service is charged, how to become a plumber, and successful plumber stories. While blog posts are useful, in a situation of panic/limited time, videos become the best option.
So, run an active YouTube business channel to share valuable DIY videos along with sharing your online plumber quote template to have a hold over the local market. A few of the best DIY demonstration ideas include: How to deal with a leaking pipe? Fixing a leaking toilet, changing the bathroom faucet, and proven washroom renovation tips.
10) Online community engagement
Another means of marketing your plumbing business is by creating an online community. Online community engagement lets tech-savvy people interact with your business online, this plays an integral role in creating your online reputation.
The online interactions bring relevant traffic to the business website, as people engaging via the Q&A communities, such as Quora and Yahoo Answers, have a greater chance to become your client. Here, in this post, we’ve rounded up the best places where you can answer to the common queries of people regarding the plumbing industry, such as:
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- How much do plumbers charge to install a toilet?
- How does a plumber gets verified?
- How do plumbers get paid?
- What are the various types of plumbing jobs?
- How much do plumbers make an hour?
You can also make your brand active on various forums and online discussions. These include Quora, Yahoo Answers, Answers.com, Reddit, and Facebook groups. In a nutshell, by taking part in online communities, you can showcase your team skills and expertise to your prospective clients, further building trust with them, and establishing brand awareness.
11) Establish a sound reputation
While, it takes years of industry experience to build a robust reputation, but today there are several tactics for this. Several studies in the recent past suggest more than 90% of online customers surf the internet for online reviews, and most of them opt for businesses with higher ratings. Marketing experts suggest that one negative review can overpower hundreds of positive ratings for your plumber business.
First, offer the highest standards of services and use the best plumbers’ tools and equipment so that you don’t leave any customer with a bad feeling. Once the job is done, request the customer to give you feedback on Yelp, Google Business or Facebook, so ask your friends or relatives to present ratings, this will provide your business a competitive edge over its market rivals.
Also, you can charge higher plumber prices per hour if your business has a good reputation in the market.
12) Create whitepapers
A whitepaper is a great means to showcase the details of the plumbing services you’ll be offering to customers. The whitepaper document is created with the motive of marketing your company to your prospective clients. So, whether someone is renovating the house or plan to revamp the plumbing fixtures, they’ll go through your company’s official whitepaper to know your business is the best choice.
When creating the whitepaper, your company’s focus must not be on marketing your plumbing services, instead, clearly illustrate how your products and services can make life easier. Additionally, it is advisable to approach a reputed plumbing marketing company that can help you meet all your marketing goals while understanding all your requirements.
13) Partner with builders in your area
One of the best strategies to grow your plumbing business is partnering with builders in your geographic location, to land big and fixed plumbing jobs easily. So, search your area to find builders who are developing residential and commercial properties, and collaborate with them for all plumbing works. However, provide the most competitive plumbers’ price list, also be ready to negotiate the terms and conditions, and you must be good to go.
14) Run a referral programme
Leverage your clients to refer your professional plumbing services to others, you can encourage them to referrals by offering additional deals and discounts. However, you have to ensure that the referral programme is quite easy to understand. Your business website must include all the essential details with regards to the referral programme – so publicise on the various social media platforms.
You can offer exclusive incentives for customers who are ready to share their positive experiences on their personal social profiles or write online reviews on various customer feedback sites such as Yelp.
An example of a referral incentive is one annual free of cost plumbing maintenance service. Referral programmes are one of the best advertising strategies for plumbers and you have to utilise it in order to make your overall marketing more effective.
But you have to ask for referrals – if you don’t request nobody will give them. So, motivate your long-term customers for referrals by joining your referral programme, social media platforms, or word of mouth.
15) Email marketing
When it comes to promoting your plumbing business to a target audience, email marketing is one effective way to connect with the existing clients and to gain more customers. Furthermore, email marketing can help your business target individuals looking to hire professional plumbers.
However, when drafting email marketing you must mull over a number of factors, starting with what is the right customer base for your audience. Are they willing to hire services offered by your plumbing company? Do they find your plumber labor rates to be reasonable?
You have to ensure that you are not sending irrelevant content that doesn’t make any sense because then you’ll end up losing your prospective customers. The text of the email must be contextual and relevant to your customers. For instance, if there is a holiday or festival, the theme of the content must be in accordance with that.
The customer base needs to build the email address list, and the open email rate of conversion is quite high.
Excellent customer service – bonus strategy
Last on the list of strategies for marketing your plumbing business is providing best-in-class services along with competitive plumber hourly charges to your clients. This is the most effective yet proven strategy to grow your plumbing business.
Whether your plumbing company relies more on drawing new customers to your business or recurring clients, offering the best customer service is the surest way to survive in this cut-throat competitive industry.
No matter if you have vast plumbing experience, you must surround yourself with people – front office staff and billing people – that care about your company’s reputation. This further will help you to build a good market reputation.
While automation is pivotal to offering the best customer service, there is no substitute for the personal touch.
Conclusion
All the above-mentioned marketing strategies are relatively easy to implement in the quest to grow your plumbing business over the virtual world of the internet.
However, you don’t have to try all these marketing techniques, you can pick one that is best suited to your company’s model. You must opt for the marketing strategy that your company can use to drive leads and sales, without putting a big burden on your finances.
Above all, you need to keep in mind that the internet today plays a vital role in the growth of any business, and that includes your plumbing business.
Written by Eamonn Ryan, developed from a US article by Merrick Brian