Google Vs Offline Marketing For Plumbers

In a conversation on Facebook today, I was asked why I think offline marketing works better for trades, and why I was sceptical about the results that Google Ads, SEO, Google My Business, and social media can bring.

Let me start by saying, that I'm not a sceptic when it comes to the internet, and that my opinion is specific to plumbers, electricians and other trades, carrying out general work for domestic customers.

In this instance, I know from my own, first hand experience, that offline marketing can work better. It has the potential to bring in higher value customers at a lower cost of advertising, using methods that are far more under your control and can get faster results.

Let me also state that in no way am I saying that you shouldn't do SEO, run Google or Facebook Ads, post on social media, or have a well optimised Google My Business Profile. I encourage it, and train my clients how to do it effectively.

I'm just saying that all of these things should be done ALONGSIDE offline marketing, and that getting your offline marketing working effectively should be your priority.

In my own business, we ran hundreds of campaigns to at least 10 different niche websites in electrical, plumbing, boilers, bathrooms, kitchens, EICR's, garden lighting, shower repairs and emergency call outs.

We dropped over a million leaflets and ran ads in every type of magazine, from glossy lifestyle, to local parish newsletters, driving potential customers to these websites.

At our peak, print and distribution on leaflets alone ran well into 4 figures every month, with yet more monthly outgoings on publication subscriptions.

We also had costs for direct mail and postcard campaigns, as well as memberships to local business networking meetings.

Would I have LOVED to have got rid of all of that cost (and significant hassle) every month to just run ads online?

Absolutely.

And believe me, I tried.

I tried for 7 or 8 years to transition that marketing online, so that I could lose that cost, yet never even got close to a stage where I believed it to be possible.

In fact, offline marketing worked so well, that we started running our own newsletter, which eventually became a local publication distributed to 4,000 houses per month, as a marketing tool and side business (highly recommended by the way, and probably the topic of a future blog post).

The only comparable success we saw with Google, was when running ads for emergency call outs, and to a certain extent, shower repairs.

For all other services, Google brought us lower quality enquiries, at a higher cost, and this mostly applied to Facebook Ads too.

Now once again, I'd like to re-iterate that this doesn't mean that we weren't getting profitable customers from Google or Facebook, it's just that the relative performance of these platforms in terms of quality of customer, and time / cost / hassle investment, wasn't as high.

In my opinion, the reasons for this are varied. You have to put yourself in the position of the customer.

Yes, you can get leads online, and just to re-iterate AGAIN, I'm not saying for a second that you should discount Google, Google My Business and social media from your business entirely. You should be using any and all platforms available to you, and especially if you are selling bigger ticket items (boiler installations, bathrooms etc) with the margins to cover the cost & make a healthy profit.

However, what are people actually doing when they're 'searching' on Google for a plumber?

Most of the time, they're researching. Unless it's an emergency, their intent to buy isn't quite where it needs to be for them to pick up the phone.

And while they're researching, your competitors ads, websites and profiles are of course, but a mere click away.

Once their attention has gone elsewhere, it's extremely difficult to get it back.

There is also the fact that digital marketing has become saturated with people trying to live a freelance, laptop lifestyle who don't actually know anything about marketing.

The effect they're having on search engines is to push click and conversion costs up, while providing sub standard results of searches, which can only make customers more wary of businesses they find online.

The living of a digital marketing depends on selling you digital marketing, and they don't really know how to do anything else.

They certainly haven't spent their own money to draw any useful conclusions, and to most of them, the best results they can get online are the best results that can be found anywhere. Other forms of marketing simply aren't on their radar, and would be dismissed (sometimes with extreme derision) as old school or prehistoric.

Traditional marketing threatens the 'mystique' of what they do, and therefore, their income. As Charlie Munger once said, to a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, and so digital marketers will simply sell you whatever it is that they do, whether it's the best solution for you or not.

There is a huge trust issue that plumbers and other trades have to overcome with customers, which is why the lead generation sites do so well. It's not just a case of getting reviews, customers want businesses with reviews that they can trust as authentic.

Rightly or wrongly, offline marketing creates the perception of a more credible plumbing business in the eyes of many customers, certainly if you're creative with your strategy and design, and certainly with the customers that I found to be most profitable for my business (middle class to affluent, 40's and older).

It's the same effect as having a sign written van or workwear. It may not mean anything in reality, but to the customer, it makes a difference. It signals that you're a 'proper' business and not a fly by night.

With marketing such as leaflets, postcards and direct mail, you can also market to them 'in a bubble', where they are focused only on you, and your competitors get no attention.

80% of marketing success for plumbers comes down to 2 things;

• a) get your website optimised for conversion,
• and b) get all your offline marketing working at full capacity.

Then, and only then, should you start focusing attention elsewhere.

Want to know how to do this in your plumbing business? Book in your Marketing Strategy Session with me. →

Or get your copy of the Plumber's 'Customers On Tap' Blueprint to discover the local marketing system that grew my local, domestic plumbing & electrical business to 5 figures a month. →

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