Advertising for Plumbing Companies

Every Business is Digital First, Even if You Don’t Think So.

I don’t care what kind of business you are, you will always need a digital footprint. This is the foundation that will allow anyone to find you. Without it, you are pretty much invisible to the modern-day consumer. The phone book doesn’t exist anymore and the one thing that has replaced it, is Google. There are a few things you need to get in place before you spend any money on advertising whatsoever. Take a look at the list here and go make sure that these things are taken care of.

The Digital First Marketing List for Plumbers

• Google Business Listing
• Website
• Google Local Service Ads (GLSA)
• Google Search Ads
• Facebook Page
• Instagram Account
• TikTok Account
• & More…

Yes, you can always do more but I would argue that you shouldn’t focus on that yet. These will cover the bases while you get the rest of your business ready to be found online. So start here and when you have these elements in place you can get to good stuff.

Google Business Listing for Plumbing Companies

This little listing is critical for every business out there. All you have to do is go to http://business.google.com in order to claim one for yourself. 

One word of warning regarding any account that you have for your business. make sure that you are signing up with an email address that is tied to the business and not your personal one. 

Many times my company has started to work with a new Client and no one in the office has access to the previous owner or previous manager’s email anymore and it delays our marketing initiatives by about 1 to 2 months as we get it sorted out through customer support. So please, make sure that you have an [email protected] or an [email protected] that can be used by multiple people in the business to modify and allow access to outside entities for the listings.

Website Built for a Plumber

There are a lot of ways to build a website out there. Some are going to be better than others in regards to giving Google’s search algorithms the signals that they need in order to rank your website properly in the business categories that people are searching for. Often the cheaper website is the one that won’t rank as well as the more expensive option carrot now, if you are new to websites and building a business then maybe this is something that you need to get up and running by yourself or with a very cost-effective manner and then go back after a year to and rebuild it from scratch. I would argue that most new businesses need to focus on conversion optimization (we’ll get to that later) in their website more than they need to think about ranking for certain keywords. 

Here is a list of platforms that I recommend for people to use in priority order of what is the best for small businesses:

Website Platforms We Recommend for a Plumbing Company:

• • WordPress
  • Wix
  • Squarespace
  • GoDaddy Page Builder

• The rest aren’t worthy of your time and money.

Google Local Service Ads

You may have seen these ads before but haven’t known how to actually use them. These ads are relatively new to the market. Google does significant background checks and quality assurance in order to make sure that they are giving the user a business that will take care of them. They often are really cost-effective for leads but they do take some time to set up and get running. So we recommend that you start this process as soon as possible.

https://ads.google.com/local-services-ads/

These ads come with a little green check mark that gives people the Google guarantee. Which is a pretty high credibility source for users on their platform. Now, it’s important for you to know that Google has their own platform for managing these leads as far as booking the call and marking it completed. You will need to manage this in house more than likely. Google also keeps the reviews for these jobs in a separate bucket from your Google Business listing. So make sure that you’re requesting those from your users as soon as you can.

Google Search Ads

No one does search like Google. When I mentioned earlier that the phone book had been replaced by Google this is the spot that I was talking about. There is very little that anyone can do to compete with the Google machine, so we have to learn to work within it. Search ads are incredibly complex but they can yield you calls almost straight out of the gate. 

We highly recommend that if you’re a new business you carve some budget out for here. Keep in mind that the campaign may not work correctly for the first 3 months while you figure out what Google wants from you in order to match you up with potential customers. So start to spend slow and ramp up as you start getting more jobs from these ads. 

Start here: https://ads.google.com

Whatever You Think of Facebook, There’s no Denying the Power of 200 Million People.

Meta owns both Instagram and Facebook itself. Even though they are continually in the press for bad news you can’t deny their user base. Many people don’t like the platform, but I would argue that even more people do. 

They have a number of different ad varieties that you can leverage for your business. Largely, think of it as display advertising, similar to the newspaper or television. It’s an interruption based platform and it’s designed to build awareness for a plumbing company like yours. If you’re looking to generate leads, give direct response tactics a try here.

Instagram for Plumbers? Hell Yes!

Instagram used to be primarily about photo-sharing but now as Facebook has grown to allow people to share out links to other sources people have started utilizing Instagram as more of a lifestyle platform. Which means that the middle-aged woman who is the primary target of most plumbing companies (might not be PC, but it’s marketing we’re talking about here, generalities and stereotypes are how we operate) have moved to it as Facebook has changed.

So get yourself an account and start posting  elements of your day without being cell see. Do yourself a favor and enable cross-posting on to Facebook’s platform for a little extra push.

TikTok for Plumbers? Yeah…Probably Should.

Okay, I know that tik tok is still relatively new for most of the people reading this but I do think that it’s growing at an exceedingly interesting pace. You see Tik Tok is unique in the way it approaches content so that way people get fed what they are interested in more than other platforms. This approach has become so powerful that Facebook and Instagram and YouTube are all pivoting towards this model. It may still be early but it’s worth picking up your account and holding on to it at the very least until you are ready to leverage it inside of your service area. 

This platform gets a bad reputation for being specifically for teens but that is just the early adoption phase which we are out of at this point. Tik-Tok has grown among middle-aged men and women equally. And when you see that demographic on your platform you know that the buying power is there.

Is There More I Should Do for my Plumbing Company? Absolutely.

Remember this is the bones of an Internet presence. It takes more than just this in the long run but a lot of companies who come to us don’t even have these basics in place and that’s why we’re making this article. So start with these and utilize these platforms as much as you can then you’ll have an idea of what your Market wants which is some trial and error that you are going to have to endure in order to learn how to become a business owner instead of just the plumber. 

Here’s a few more ideas about what you should do for your business.

1. Engage in sponsorships in your community.
2. Get your vans wrapped.
3. Leverage direct mail in specific neighborhoods to build a presence.
4. Secure a booth at local trade shows, even if it’s not about home services.
5. Find partnerships with other home service companies to leverage referrals.