Plumber Marketing Basics for 2021

The month of January is always so full of possibility, isn’t it? The start of a new year seems pre-packaged with hope for the future, renewed energy, and fresh perspective. That’s all good stuff, but our happy-go-lucky, get-er-done, “this year’s gonna be MY YEAR” mentality can often lead to—let’s be honest—unrealistic and improbable goals.

I’m sorry to kick over your bucket, but you’re probably not going to lose 45 pounds and compete alongside Dwayne Johnson on “ The Titan Games” and remember to call your mother every week and save more money for retirement and grow your plumbing business by 125% and learn to knit (What? Knitting’s cool these days.) and stop using plastic straws and … you get the idea.

If you just said, “OH YES I WILL!” more power to ya. For the rest of us? Let’s focus on just one of those goals—the one about growing your plumbing business.

Just in case you’re still hungover from New Year’s Eve (that was quite the party, friend), let me state the obvious: To grow your plumbing business, you need to grow your customer base. To grow your customer base, you need more leads. To get more leads, you need good marketing.

Notice I didn’t say, “You need to pull out a wad of $100 bills, tie them in a bundle, and light them on fire.”

I mention that because so many plumbers I talk with have been doing exactly that with their marketing budget. They’re either still doing the same thing they’ve done for years (*cough* Yellow Page ads *cough*) or they’re throwing money at every new trend that pops up–usually with no cohesive plan and no specific goals. In the rare event that these shops do grow their business, they often don’t have the staff to provide excellent service to all of those new customers, and so their growth is short-lived. And expensive.

Ultimately then, growing your plumbing business starts with having an effective marketing plan —one that reaches your potential customers through the right channels at the right time. So, what are the right channels?

As I just said, you have to reach your customers through the right channels. The “s” at the end of the word is intentional. If you’re putting all your marketing eggs in one basket—whether it’s a new website, a PPC ad campaign, YouTube videos, direct mailers, Facebook ads, and so on—your plan is inherently flawed.

Why? Because there’s no one plumbing marketing tactic that’s going to reach all of your potential customers.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say there’s no one tactic that will reach even one potential customer. The truth is, consumers are savvy these days, and they vet companies like crazy. If they see your Google Ad, they’re going to head to social media to see if you’re active there. If they see your service van in the neighborhood, they’re going to Yelp or the Better Business Bureau to check out your reviews.

Here’s my point: You simply can’t rely on one marketing channel to grow your plumbing business. You need to diversify your strategy so lots of different customers at different points in the sales funnel can find you when they need you.

While it’s true you shouldn’t rely on just one marketing tactic, it’s also true that you shouldn’t try everything at once. You have loads of opportunities to spend (and waste) your marketing dollars and, like New Year’s resolutions, you don’t want to go overboard and end up abandoning your goals by February.

In other words, I could teach you about dozens of specific ways to market your shop in 2021. Instead, I’m going to encourage you to stick to the basics—four of which are long-standing approaches and one of which appeared just last year and has quickly become standard practice.

Here are five plumber marketing basics for 2021:

1. Have excellent customer service.
   
2. Get reviews.
   
3. Have a killer website.
   
4. Use SEO best practices.
   
5. Invest in Google Local Services.
   

Let’s unpack each of those briefly.

I realize “customer service” seems like a completely different topic from marketing. But it’s absolutely not—or it shouldn’t be. Let me explain.

You can probably show me how much money you spent on marketing last year. And you can maybe tell me how many new customers you gained. I wonder, though, if you’ve ever taken the time to do the math: How much money did each of those new customers cost you?

Seriously: Do the math. Add up your total marketing expenses for 2018 (billboards, websites, Facebook Ads, everything). Then divide that number by how many new customers you got last year. That number is your Customer Aquisition Cost (CAC), and I’m guessing it might have made you throw up a little. If you really want to throw up, figure out what you earned, on average, from your new customers. Far too many shops spend more money than they bring in—a business model obviously doomed to fail.

Having ridiculously great customer service is one of the best ways to bring down your CAC. Why? Referrals. For every customer who comes to you via referral, your CAC decreases by half. Here’s how: Let’s say you spent $1000 to get Customer A. Customer A refers Customer B. You spent no additional money to get Customer B—so now your CAC for those two customers is just $500 each.

That’s powerful math right there.

To recap: Referrals happen when you offer the best plumbing experience someone’s ever had. Repeat customers happen that way, too. Referrals and repeats are cheap to acquire. Don’t make the mistake of thinking customer service and marketing are unrelated.

Let’s say you decide to improve your customer service experience in 2021. That’s fantastic. But don’t just sit around and wait for referrals to happen. Instead, be proactive in asking for them. Sure, Happy Customer A is likely to tell their friends and family about you—when their friends and family need a plumber. But what all of those people out there who need a plumber and don’t know Happy Customer A?

That’s where online reviews matter. Eighty-four percent of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, and personal recommendations convert at nearly 1:1. Reviews are like gold when it comes to growing your customer base.

You’ll find an entire chapter about online reputation management in my new release , The Book on Digital Marketing for Plumbing and HVAC Contractors.

As many as 97 out of 100 people will research your plumbing company online before they call you. If they can find your website (which I’ll get to in a minute) that website better work . Effective plumber websites are:

1. Mobile-friendly.
   
2. Fast.
   
3. Secure.
   
4. Helpful.
   
5. Easy to use and take action.

Notice “cool” didn’t make the top five most important elements of plumber websites. Sure, it’s great to have a nice-looking website. Unlike the fashion industry, though, when it comes to websites, function beats form every time.

For more, check out this post: Website Basics for Plumbers.

As you likely know, it’s not enough to have a website that offers a good user experience. You must also have a website that makes Google notice you. Getting Google’s attention isn’t quite rocket science, but it is crazy-complex, obnoxiously time-consuming, and, perhaps most frustrating, ever-evolving.

The highest-converting customers you’ll have are the folks Googling “plumbers near me.” To guarantee your shop shows up in the top few search results for that query, you’ll have to spend some money (see below). To help improve your chances of landing above the fold organically:

1. Understand the basics of plumber SEO.
   
2. Know and manipulate (to the best of your ability) SEOranking factors. (There are 209 of them.)
   
3. Focus on getting high-quality backlinks.
   

In 2021, you’re going to have to make smart decisions on where to spend your marketing dollars. For me, there’s no better place to put your money than Google’s new paid opportunity: Local Services. I wrote about Google Local Services for plumbers last year, and it appears the service is around to stay—especially given the rise of AI technology use by everyday homeowners.

Listen, you have better things to do than try to figure out what keywords Google loves these days. If you’re tired of wasting money and time on marketing that doesn’t make your phone ring, we’d love to help. Schedule a free strategy call today.