The 2 Simple Things Any Plumber Can Do To Dominate Their Local Market
It might seem a little overly simple to claim that all a plumber needs in order to dominate their local market is to just get 2 things right.
However, my opinion isn't based on theory or guesswork, it's based on first hand experience, and 13 years of trying literally every marketing strategy that I could think of to get new customers and grow my business. When you boil it down to the fundamentals, getting these 2 things right will put you miles ahead of your local competition.
1 - A website. But not just any website. You need a website that CONVERTS.
It's not hard to get a website these days. The software available makes it extremely easy for anyone to get competent using a few basic online tools, and call themselves a web designer. Swing a length of 15mm copper around and chances are you'll hit a web designer, they're ten a penny.
However, while it's not difficult to find someone to build you a website, finding someone to build you a website that actually SELLS, is much more difficult.
The whole point of your website, is that the potential customers who land on it are convinced into taking the next step in your sales process, which as a plumber, would usually be for them to request a quote, either by picking up the phone, or filling out a form. In web design speak, this is known as 'converting' them.
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In December 2016 I took 148 phone calls from new customers. They all came from my own marketing, not a single penny spent on lead generation websites...
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A website that doesn't convert isn't doing what it's there to do, so you need to keep track of this.
As counterintuative as it sounds to us as trades who are always looking for the next job, there are lots of web designers out there building websites who give no thought to conversion whatsoever.
For whatever reason they just don't put 'getting customers' high on the list of priorities of the websites that they build, and they don't consider it part of their job.
Many of these web designers have chosen trades as their 'niche', and market themselves as specialising in trade websites, when actually, they have no speciality in anything. It's just a marketing gimmick.
In reality, they don't know anything about our industry, the customer base, or how to sell plumbing services to the general public.
CONVERSION should always be the number one objective of your website.
2 - Marketing that drives people TO your website.
Once you have a website that's set up to convert visitors into enquiries, you will then need some form of marketing to send people to that website.
'Build it and they will come', doesn't apply to websites, or for that matter, your business in general. You have to let people know that you, and your website, exist. You have to let them know what you can do for them, and why they should pick you above any and all available options to them, INCLUDING, doing nothing.
That's real marketing, and that's real web design.
The marketing can be anything online or offline, but the most important thing is that it's targeted at your ideal customer.
For example, if you do general domestic work or boilers, you might want to target affluent homeowners.
If you specialise in Gas Certificates, you would be looking to target hands off portfolio landlords and management agents.
If, as one of my businesses did, you specialise in garden lighting & installations, then your target market would include affluent to very affluent customers with large gardens.
Other markets to target would be garden designers and high end landscapers to form collaborations.
The important part, is that you're consciously targeting your ideal client so that you have an idea of what marketing would work best. A local leafleting campaign would work great when targeting general domestic work, but wouldn't be cost effective if you were targeting landlords.
A Google Ads campaign would work well for emergency boiler breakdowns, but wouldn't have the search volume for a niche industry, such as my garden lighting business, mentioned previously.
The marketing that would work best for you is determined by who you are targeting.
A website that converts, along with effective marketing driving potential customers to that website.
That's it.
Fundamentally, if you get those 2 things right, then pretty much any plumber will get all the customers they ever need.
In my experience, it seems to just be the case, that most plumbers, most trades, even most businesses, will never optimise their websites, never even scratch the surface of proper marketing, and spend so long messing about and tinkering, that they never get their front foot on the ladder.
They end up resorting to relying on lead generations sites, builders, letting agents, word of mouth, and are constantly in peak and trough, reacting to what happens, instead of being proactive. I've discussed marketing with countless other trades, back when I was on the tools, as I still do today, told people what works and what doesn't work, and while many are interested, practically no-one ever takes any action on it.
Because of that, it's really not difficult to dominate your local area by doing these 2 simple things consistently.
If you're not sure how, and would like to have a chat, book your Marketing Strategy Session with me. →
Any Questions? Get in touch at contact@plumbersbusinessbuilder.com. Every email is read, and we always respond within 24 hours (Mon - Fri)
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