Marketing is non-negotiable. The only question is how to market an appliance repair business. You’re in luck—we have just the right answers for you.

Read on and learn the importance of advertising and how to market your appliance repair business. This article covers everything, from traditional and digital marketing to practical tips for starting your marketing campaign.

Here goes.

Why You Need to Advertise Your Appliance Repair Company

The idea of marketing is as old as commerce itself. And in today’s fast-paced business world, marketing is more important than ever. Marketing shines a light on your appliance repair company and reveals it to potential customers. You might have the best services or technicians in town, but no one will know unless you market your business.

No business is too new, too old, or too successful to market its offerings. Here are five reasons why marketing matters to your company:

Spreads Brand Awareness

Your brand represents how customers perceive your business. On the surface, branding comprises your company’s name, logo, slogan, and mission. But on a deeper level, your brand is your business’s identity, which is firmly tied to the quality of its services.

The idea of branding is to set your business apart from competitors. It helps your shop or service stand out among the over 50,000 appliance repair companies currently registered in the US.

More importantly, it fosters brand association. Through brand awareness, customers can quickly affiliate your business with the value, experiences, or solutions it delivers. In other words, marketing blends your unique selling points (USPs) with your company’s identity.

Your USPs might include:

• Superior appliance repair services
• Electronic manufacturers’ certifications
• Quick turnaround
• Competitive prices
• Convenient repair shop location
• House calls

FROM ONE OF OUR PARTNERS: How to Create a Positive Brand Reputation

Generates Leads

Every home owns at least a handful of electrical appliances, from air conditioners and washing machines to refrigerators. These appliances sometimes require professional servicing and repairs.

Naturally, as an appliance repair business owner, your target customers comprise local homeowners, tenants, and building managers looking to service or repair their appliances. But how do you reach them?

Marketing provides a means to speak directly to potential customers. Engaging people genuinely interested in your appliance repair services generates leads. Appliance repair leads could be calls, emails, messages, or shop visits from people inquiring about your services. These leads eventually convert into sales.

In short, marketing maximizes your chances of scoring appliance repair jobs.

RELATED ARTICLE: 6 Tips to Get More Appliance Repair Leads

Helps You Understand Your Customers

Marketing efforts generate a lot of customer data. You can use that data to draw valuable insights into the target market.

For instance, preliminary market research may reveal where to find potential appliance repair customers and how to grab their attention. Plus, as you run various marketing strategies, you’ll continuously learn more about your customers. You’ll quickly pick up on customer preferences, dislikes, and spending habits when it comes to appliance repair.

Understanding your customers gives you an idea of what works for your marketing campaign or service delivery model. It also fosters more intimate customer relationships. Meaningful and lasting customer relationships encourage repeat business and referrals. That’s exactly what you need to grow your clientele organically.

Builds a Reputation for Your Appliance Repair Business

Proper marketing helps you establish and protect a positive image for your business. It begins with deciding the values you want associated with your appliance repair company. Staying true to those values builds upon your company’s reputation as a reliable, honest, and diligent appliance repair service.

Additionally, marketing can portray your business as part of the local community. For instance, participating in local events, giving back to the community, or partnering with local businesses (all part of marketing) is powerful PR and exposure for your company.

Improves Decision-Making

As we mentioned earlier, marketing data is a source of valuable insights. Such insights might be useful for informing important business decisions for your appliance repair company.

For instance, anticipating customer expectations enables you to fine-tune your price points, service delivery, and business model to better align with market dynamics.

In the modern age, data is a key ingredient in growing a business. But that doesn’t necessarily mean running a sophisticated data analytics system. Simply engaging with customers gives you actionable clues about what your customers want and where the market is headed.

Traditional Advertising vs. Digital Marketing

“Marketing” is a broad term with numerous categories and subcategories. But when marketing a localized appliance repair company, you have two general marketing approaches worth considering. One is traditional advertising, and the other is digital marketing.

What are the differences between the two methods? And is one better for your business than the other?

Traditional Marketing

Traditional or offline marketing refers to any form of advertising done using “old media.” These are TV and radio commercials, billboards, pamphlets, newspaper ads, telemarketing calls, and snail mail.

It’s an old-fashioned type of advertising that’s literally been around for millennia. Nevertheless, traditional marketing is a proven method that’s still relevant even today.

Traditional marketing is old but not out. And here are some stats and figures to prove it:

• Marketers are beginning to return to traditional advertising to get better results. (Harvard Business Review)
• In 2021, the US spent $196 billion on offline media advertising, 14 billion more than in 2020. (Statista)
• Nearly half of US adults trust print, TV, and radio ads. (Insider Intelligence)
• Despite poor TV ad viewership, 60% of respondents in a survey said they had purchased a product after seeing its advert on TV. (TV Tech)
• 80% of consumers act on direct mail advertising. (Cash4Toners)

The Pros and Cons of Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing clearly has a place in your appliance repair business. Here are the pros and cons of running traditional marketing campaigns:

The Pros

• Traditional marketing breaks through the digital clutter.
• Consumers trust old media adverts.
• There are many potential customers you can only reach via old media, particularly the older folk.
• Pamphlets, billboards, and local broadcast ads are ideal for marketing within your service area.
• Most traditional marketing methods are relatively straightforward.

The Cons

• The results of traditional marketing are difficult or impossible to measure.
• There’s a lot of red tape surrounding television, radio, newspaper, and billboard ads.
• Most traditional ads are a one-take affair; if the audience misses it, it’s gone.
• Targeting specific audiences with offline ads can be difficult.
• You have little to no control over traditional advertising mediums.
• Traditional ads can be expensive.

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing refers to advertising through online channels such as websites, social media, apps, and streaming platforms. Unlike traditional advertising, digital marketing is relatively new. The first-ever online ad was posted in 1994.

Today, digital advertising is ubiquitous in business. It’s a powerful means for any business to reach and engage its target audience. Here’s a look at digital advertising by the numbers:

• In 2022, the digital advertising expenditure in the United States was $244 billion and could reach $395 billion by 2027. (Statista)
• About 85% of the US population uses the internet every day. (Zippia)
• On average, companies spend 53.8% of their marketing budgets on digital advertising. (The CMO Survey)
• 347 billion marketing emails are sent around the world daily. (Zippia)
• 76% of US adults shop online using smartphones, while 69% use desktop or laptop computers. (Pew Research Center)

The Pros and Cons of Digital Marketing

What are the advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing?

The Pros

• Both organic and paid digital advertising are relatively affordable.
• Digital media has a global reach but can be optimized for local audiences.
• Digital channels allow for personalized marketing.
• You can target your digital marketing campaigns to very specific audiences.
• The results of digital marketing are easy to track and measure.

The Cons

• Online marketing is highly competitive.
• Marketing on digital platforms requires technical skills.
• Competitors can use your online marketing channels against you.
• Online marketing may raise security and privacy concerns.
• Some digital marketing methods are slow and time-consuming.
• The older demographic is less likely to engage with online ads.

Traditional advertising and digital marketing are both excellent appliance repair marketing approaches. Each style brings unique strengths that complement each other. So, it’s not a question of which is better. Instead, run traditional and digital campaigns simultaneously and get the best of both worlds.

There’s more to marketing than choosing between new and old media. It takes careful planning and technical know-how to pull off a successful marketing campaign.

Luckily, you can get professional help in marketing your appliance repair company. Reputable marketing agencies Market Hardware and Socius Marketing are on hand to develop a winning strategy for you.

8 Tips for Marketing an Appliance Repair Business

Marketing works, and it’s pretty easy too. But you must make all the right choices to reap the rewards of successful marketing strategies. Let’s discuss what it takes to market an appliance repair business:

Know Your Appliance Repair Marketing Audience

First, you want to direct your marketing efforts toward the right people. That’s your target audience. Learn as much as you can about your target audience.

Start by creating a persona of your ideal appliance repair customer based on your business model.

If your business deals with home appliances, the bulk of your target audience is households, homeowners, and tenants. For commercial appliance repairs, you’ll likely be targeting restaurants, office buildings, schools, hospitals, etc.

Set Realistic Marketing Goals

What do you hope to achieve from your marketing efforts? Perhaps you want to boost foot traffic to your repair shop, get more job calls, or outdo your competition.

It’s important to establish clear and achievable objectives right from the start. That way, you can design a goal-oriented marketing strategy.

Consider Multichannel Marketing

Do not rely on just one appliance repair marketing channel. Cast a wider net by incorporating multiple strategies in your campaign. A combination of emailing, TV ads, search engine marketing, and print ads is perfect for your appliance repair company.

Most marketers (73%) use multichannel marketing—and you should too.

Focus on the Message

Every marketing campaign needs a strong message. This is the information relayed through your marketing channels to evoke action from the audience.

The message should be part of your appliance repair company’s USP. Ask yourself what part of your appliance services matters most to the audience.

Keep It Local

An appliance repair company is a local business. You probably operate within a specific town or neighborhood. So, it makes sense to focus all your marketing efforts on your service area.

Both traditional and digital advertising have localization capabilities.

Measure Your Appliance Repair Marketing Success

Be sure to measure the results of your marketing efforts to gauge their success. This is especially important when running multiple strategies simultaneously.

Analyze marketing outcomes against the set objectives. Doing so enables you to calculate marketing ROI and identify high-performance strategies.

Marketing Your Appliance Repair Business Is a Continuous Process

Philip Kotler, the Father of Modern Marketing, once said, “Marketing takes a day to learn. Unfortunately, it takes a lifetime to master.”

Marketing is not a one-off thing. You can’t just put up a billboard or build an appliance repair website and call it a day. You must continuously tweak your marketing strategies as you learn new tricks to cope with business dynamics.

Use All the Help You Can Get

Marketing campaigns, even for small local businesses, have many moving parts. But you don’t have to go at it alone. Bring all hands on deck.

Get all your employees and stakeholders to pull together toward a common marketing goal. Also, consider getting expert help from professional marketers.

10 Things You Can Do to Get Started Today

Let’s get real. It’s time to put your marketing strategy into action. Here are 10 appliance repair marketing ideas to get you started right now:

1. Build Your Appliance Repair Website

An appliance repair website is an essential resource for establishing an online presence. It’s also a great source of leads.

A static website with just a handful of branded pages is all you need. Just make sure every page features your company’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) and calls visitors to action.

You can also throw in a blog page, location map, and testimonials to enrich the site for search engine optimization (SEO).

FROM ONE OF OUR PARTNERS: 5 Ways to Attract More Customers Through Your Company’s Website

2. Claim Your Google Business Profile

Fill out your Google Business Profile. It’s a free online directory that lists your business with Google. Once listed, your company will get a Google Map pin. More importantly, you may appear in Google searches for appliance services in your area.

FROM ONE OF OUR PARTNERS: 2021 Guide to Optimizing Your Google My Business Profile

3. Get Social

Social media is a marketing powerhouse for local businesses. Sign your business up on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Nextdoor, and LinkedIn.

The US has 302.35 million social media users; that’s about 90% of the country’s population. With such a vast audience, social networking is a great way to reach and engage potential appliance repair customers.

4. Drum Up Word-of-Mouth Advertising

Word-of-mouth marketing is the most trusted advertising channel. A recent survey found that 89% of consumers trust purchase recommendations from people they know.

This type of marketing lets your customers do the marketing for you. So, ensure you go above and beyond with customer service.

5. Grow Your Online Reviews

Online reviews are the digital equivalent of word-of-mouth recommendations. Start growing your appliance repair company’s reputation by encouraging customers to leave reviews on Google, your website, and social media.

It also helps to respond to both good and bad reviews.

6. Leverage Your Client List

Create a detailed contact list of past customers and new prospects. Then send personalized promotional emails or direct mails to each contact.

Doing this is great for converting leads and drawing repeat business.

7. Supplement Organic Marketing with Pay-per-Click Ads

Double down on your online presence with pay-per-click (PPC) ads. It’s difficult for most sites to rank at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). PPC ads promote your website to the top of SERPs for local appliance service queries.

With PPC, you pay the advertiser a small fee for every click. Better yet, you can buy Local Services Ads (LSAs) and instead pay for every lead.

FROM ONE OF OUR PARTNERS: Everything You Need to Know About Local Services Ads

8. Go On the Air

Speaking of paid adverts, why not buy some ad time on your local TV and radio stations?

A 30-second TV or radio commercial can really boost brand awareness and recognition. Half a minute is enough time to say what your appliance repair business does, its location, and how to reach it.

9. Build Your Local Presence

Increase your brand’s presence in your service area. Do so by buying ad space in local newspapers, billboards, and magazines.

Also, use commercial signage wherever possible. Get your name on storefronts, company vehicles, local public buses, roadsides, park benches, etc.

10. Get Expert Advice

Launching and running a marketing campaign can be too demanding to tackle alone. Besides, there’s always the risk of making expensive blunders.

Consult professional marketers to help you make the right marketing choices for your appliance repair business.

The post Marketing Your Appliance Repair Business: 10 Ideas that Work appeared first on Service Fusion.

But successful companies don’t just rest on their quality service and reputation alone. They use plumbing advertising and marketing strategies to:

• get the word out about their services.
• attract new customers.
• strengthen relationships with existing clients.

You might have grand plans to dial up your marketing and increase profits at some point. But you’re a business owner with a company to run. Finding time to research marketing ideas and figure out what platforms to use to advertise your business isn’t easy.

The good news? You don’t have to spend hours learning how to advertise your plumbing business. We’ve put together a complete list of plumber marketing and advertising ideas that will help you create more profit.

We’ll cover the best platforms to advertise on, marketing ideas to drive growth, and actionable steps you can take today to get started.

Why Is Marketing Important for Your Plumbing Business?

Once you have a steady flow of customers lining up for your plumbing services, your revenues will go up. So how can you build this ideal pipeline? You’ll need to use both plumber marketing ideas and advertising.

Marketing refers to everything you do to connect customers with your plumbing company’s services. Marketing:

• builds brand awareness.
• generates leads. 
• engages customers.
• maintains your reputation.
• compels potential customers at every stage of the buyer’s journey to interact with your business rather than competitors.

Advertising is one part of that overall marketing process. While it’s just a slice of the marketing pie, it’s a significant slice.

Digital ads can increase brand awareness by 80%. This will keep your brand top of mind when the water heater stops working or the faucet starts to leak. Pay-per-click (PPC) ads can also double the number of website visitors that organic search brings in.

The bottom line is plumbing ads can help you reach your marketing goals quickly. This enables you to build traction with your target audience and boost profits in the short term.

But you need to keep that momentum going. This is where a complete marketing strategy comes in. Such a strategy turns brand awareness and website traffic into leads and paying customers.

Research shows that content marketing is three times as effective as advertising at generating leads. At the same time, it costs 62% less. You also need marketing to nurture leads and build long-term customer relationships.

Ultimately, with a strong digital marketing strategy and efficient use of advertising ideas, your plumbing business will experience a sustainable increase in engagement and sales. This is what you need to make your profits soar.

What Is the Best Platform to Advertise a Plumbing Business?

Before pouring money into ads, you must decide which platforms will give you the most bang for your buck. If you buy ads everywhere you can think of, you could blow through your marketing budget without generating a high return on your investment.

Even worse, if you advertise on platforms your target audience isn’t exposed to, you could be throwing your ad spend down the toilet.

When choosing where to advertise, consider how to get the most visibility for your plumbing company. Also, where can you reach people likely interested in using your services?

Here are some of the most effective plumbing advertising platforms you can use:

Social Media

Today, around 72% of the public uses social media. Sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other social media platforms are good options for getting your ads in front of your potential customers’ eyes.

Even better, social media platforms let businesses run targeted ad campaigns. You can put social ads in front of specific audiences, making your ads more effective. Facebook, for example, enables you to target location, age, gender, education level, and relationship status.

You can also post engaging video ads to promote your plumbing company on social media sites like YouTube. Check out these funny plumbing ads by A+ Plumbing and Roto-Rooter for some inspiration. They’re creative and memorable, which can be just what you need to connect with your target audience.

RELATED ARTICLE: Social Media Marketing for Plumbers

Google

Another can’t-miss platform for digital advertising is Google. Google has two types of ads for local businesses: Local Service Ads and Search ads.

As a local business owner, you’ll definitely want to consider Google’s Local Service Ads. These ads appear above organic search results. This puts your brand front and center when potential customers look online for plumbing services in your area. Web searchers will see your Google rating, service hours, city, and a link to your website. You pay per lead for Local Service Ads on Google.

Google Search ads are another option. In this case, your ad appears at the top of the search results for the keywords you’re targeting. Search ads are pay-per-click (PPC) ads, which means you pay when someone clicks on the ad.

Direct Mailers

It is the digital age, but that doesn’t mean all your advertising needs to be online. People still do resonate with physical mediums like direct mailers.

With this type of ad, you mail an advertisement to everyone in a target location. This can be expensive, so you want to use this plumbing advertising idea at the right time.

For example, you may want to reach potential customers in a neighborhood you’re expanding to. Or you want to appeal to people who’ve recently moved to the area. You can send out a special promotional mailer with a discount for your services. This can be a great way to get the phone ringing.

Local Papers

While newspaper readership has been on the decline since the mid-2000s, there are still worthwhile advertising opportunities if you go local. Local newspapers, city papers, and neighborhood papers are great places to post ads about your plumbing services.

Local TV

If you have the budget, you can pay for television time on your local television stations. You’ll have to invest in the video itself—it can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 to create a professional-looking 30-second commercial. You’ll also pay for airtime. Local TV commercials cost about $5 to $10 per 1,000 views.

While expensive, airtime can help to build awareness about your plumbing company. And if you’re operating in a competitive location, this type of big-impact advertising can give your business an edge.

RELATED ARTICLE: How to Effectively Manage Your Plumbing Company

The Best Platforms for New, Growing, and Established Plumbing Companies

All of these advertising platforms have pros and cons. Some are highly targeted but may not leave a big impression on your audience. Others are out of reach for companies without a large ad budget.

• For a new plumbing company, go for the more affordable advertising platforms like Google ads and social media advertising. There, you can build momentum without a large budget. But you’ll still build brand awareness and generate leads.
• If you’re a growing company with regular business, go for the options to help drive more sales. Send out direct mailers and ensure your business is easy to find online with Google ads.
• You can take a more aggressive approach if you are a larger company with a high budget. This approach will help maintain your market share and bring in new customers. Consider a combination of digital advertising or social media ads, as well as local print or TV ads. If you invest in a TV commercial, you can pay for airtime on local stations and YouTube to get the most out of your investment.

Overall, be sure to track the results of your ad campaign. Compare the money spent with the increase in business to determine the return on your investment (ROI).

You also want to analyze your results to make smart decisions about how to spend your marketing dollars in the future. If something works, use it. If something doesn’t, don’t waste your time. There are plenty of other advertising and marketing ideas you can use to grow your business.

10 Plumbing Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Business

Now you have a good idea of what your options are for advertising. Let’s look at what else you can do to promote your plumbing services, attract new customers, nurture existing customers, and grow your business. Here are 10 marketing ideas any plumbing business owner can implement.

1. Create a Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile, formerly known as Google My Business, is a powerful marketing tool for local businesses. And it’s free.

To get started, head over to Google’s page to set up a profile. You can complete the basics in a few minutes. After your profile is set up, Google will list your business in Google Search and Maps as a local plumbing company.

This means that when someone searches on Google for plumbing repair, installation, or other services in your city or town, your company will appear on Google’s list of Businesses. You’ll see these below the local services ads and above organic results.

When people click on your Business Profile, they can see your address, service updates, reviews, hours of operation, and more. Additionally, you can link to your website so people can click on your plumbing website and make an appointment.

There’s even a call button on the profile that mobile users can use to contact your business on the spot. Now that’s efficient marketing.

98% of consumers use the internet to find information about local businesses. So it’s definitely worth taking the time to set up your Business Profile.

2. Optimize Your Website for Search Results

Search engine optimization (SEO) makes it easier for people searching for help with a leaky faucet, frozen pipes, or a broken water heater to find your website. In fact, without SEO, your website might be buried in the search results pages. And this makes it almost impossible for people to find your site organically.

So, how does SEO work?

There are actually hundreds of ranking factors you can address to optimize your site. Factors like how quickly your website loads to a good user experience make your website more relevant and useful to web searchers. By extension, this increases your company’s chances of ranking higher in search results.

To get started with search engine optimization, include keywords in your website content. Use the search terms people might use to search for your services in the text and headings in a natural way.

There’s certainly more to search engine optimization than keywords. But it’s an excellent place to start to help your website rank.

3. Use Local SEO

You can use local SEO to increase local search traffic. Include local terms in your content to help your pages show up in local search results. For example, localize your headings on your home page and service pages like this: “Plumbing Repair in [Your Town].”

Another local marketing idea is to create location pages. If you operate in multiple cities or counties, create a unique plumbing services page for all of the locations you service. That will make finding your business online even easier for people using specific local search terms.

4. Strengthen Customer Relationships with Email Marketing

Email marketing has one of the highest returns on investment. The average expected ROI is $40 for every $1 spent!

As part of your digital marketing strategy, this channel can help you connect with your existing customers and nurture leads. And with email automation tools, you won’t have to spend a lot of time managing your email campaigns.

The key to email marketing is to not be overly promotional. You should offer helpful content mixed with promotional offers. This will keep people interested without making your customers feel like you’re spamming them.

For example, you might offer a discount on their next plumbing service if a website visitor signs up for your email list. Then, you can send out useful email content, such as tips for preventing frozen pipes in the winter and signs you might need to replace your pipes.

Sprinkle offers for free service calls, clogged drain specials, repair discounts, or discounts for referrals into the mix.

At the end of the day, you want to make your email content worthwhile to keep your open rates up and generate more sales. Email is a powerful way to improve retention rates for your plumbing customers.

5. Build Trust on Your Website

When people land on your website to learn about your services, what makes them choose to schedule an appointment with your business rather than a competitor?

There are a lot of factors, such as accessibility—is it easy for web visitors to call you or schedule an appointment online? How professional your website design is makes a difference too—94% of users will leave a website because of poor design.

But the biggest mover is trust. Research by Gartner found that 81% of customers refuse to do business with a brand they don’t trust. People want to know that your business genuinely cares about the services you provide and is dependable.

How can you validate that on your website? There are a few simple pieces of information you can add to your website that signal to customers your business is trustworthy:

• Reviews from past clients who are happy with your services
• Before and after pictures of services
• Pictures of your team
• Professional certifications
• Years of experience
• Service guarantees

By simply adding a few trust elements to your website, you can increase your website conversions—that is, the number of people who visit your website that go on to contact you or book an appointment.

6. Retarget Website Visitors to Increase Sales

When people visit your website but don’t take any action, all is not lost. You can bring them back with retargeting ads.

Retargeting campaigns display ads to internet users who visited your website in the past. Retargeting is a way to gently remind them your business exists. Hopefully, this motivates them to reach out and contact your business if they still need plumbing services.

The good news is retargeting is highly effective. On average, a retargeting campaign is 10 times more impactful than regular display ads.

7. Set Up a Facebook Business Page to Connect with Local Customers

There are more than 240 million Facebook users in America. By 2027, that number is expected to reach over 250 million. As a local business, you should have a Facebook Business Page as part of your social media marketing strategy to connect with Facebook users.

With a Business Page, you can share pictures, real-time updates about your business, and promotions. It’s also another place to list essential info a potential customer would need to know, such as your address, phone number, and service hours.

Overall, you can think of a Facebook Page for your plumbing company as an additional storefront and a way to communicate directly with your local customers.

8. Develop a Customer Referral Program

Businesses with referral programs report 71% higher conversion rates. That’s because people trust recommendations from their peers and colleagues far more than advertisements.

Take advantage of this and create a referral program to help promote your plumbing company. It can be something simple, such as 20% off any repair or installation service if you refer a friend or family member.

This can be enough of a nudge to motivate your existing customers to help you get the word out about your high-quality plumbing services.

9. Provide Helpful Blog Posts, Videos, and Other Content on Your Website

One of the challenges plumbing companies have is standing out in a crowded market. Unless you’re the only plumber in the area, you’re going to have to convince your target market to call you when their pipes burst, or they need a plumber to help with a bathroom or kitchen renovation.

Content marketing is one way you can stand head and shoulders above your competitors. With content, you’re giving your audience helpful information. This can include:

• how-to articles.
• instructional videos.
• DIY plumbing tips.

This content, in turn, helps to establish your business as an authority in your area and keeps your brand top of mind.

It can also help with SEO. When you post relevant, useful, and engaging content on your website, you’re signaling to search engines that your site is a good source of information. In turn, this can boost your rankings.

Using blog posts and other content can also help your business rank for more keywords. This will increase your web traffic and help your business generate more leads.

10. Ask for Reviews

One of the easiest ways to help your plumbing business grow and increase profits is to simply ask for reviews.

How many times has your business come in and saved the day for one of your customers, whether it was a clogged toilet or frozen pipes? Or maybe you have a lot of happy clients with flawlessly functioning kitchen and bathroom plumbing.

Either way, there are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of people who would have been happy to write an online review for your business if you asked them to.

Ask for a review after service, either at the end of a service call or with a follow-up email or text message. Everyone won’t act, but imagine if just 10% of your customers took the time to review your business. You could generate a considerable number of reviews online, increase your trust factor, and bring in even more business.

RELATED ARTICLE: How to Get More Reviews for Your Plumbing Business

Quick Ideas to Try Right Now for Plumber Marketing

Now that you have plenty of marketing ideas to work with, you can sit down and start developing a plan for all your advertising and digital marketing. Decide on a budget, determine what techniques to use right now with the resources you have, and set your business on a path to growth.

But what if you are ready to roll your sleeves up and get things going now? Fortunately, there are a few things you can do right now to help market your plumbing business. All you need is about five to ten minutes. And you won’t have to spend a dime for any of them.

Create a Listing in Local Directories

As a local service-based business, you want your company to show up on all the main local listing services. In addition to Google, here are three worth using:

• Manage your listing on Yelp to ensure your business information is up-to-date and respond to reviews.
• Create an Angi profile to list your local services, showcase your work, and build credibility with customer reviews.
• Like Google, Bing has a business profile listing service for local businesses: Bing Places. You can claim your listing for free and then personalize it to make it informative and engaging. Once done, you will have created one more channel that will bring in new customers for your business and help you increase profits!

Respond to Online Reviews

Over half of customers expect businesses to respond to reviews. Responding to reviews shows you care about what your customers think and gives you a chance to resolve customer service issues.

And you can write a few personal messages, express your gratitude, and help to manage your online reputation in just a few minutes a week.

Spruce up Your Google Business Profile

If you’ve already set up your Google Business Profile, you can take a few minutes to make it more engaging.

Add a short FAQ (frequently asked questions) section to answer common questions potential customers might have about your business. You can also post high-quality images of your business, past work, or your employees to show off your professionalism.

Even these small steps can help in a big way. So jump in today, get the word out there about your amazing plumbing services, and watch your profits grow!

FROM ONE OF OUR PARTNERS: Plumbing Marketing Ideas: How to Get More Customers

About the Author
Jim is the Vice President of Content & Training of Service Fusion. He has over 42 years of experience in the HVAC and electrical industries, and regularly speaks at industry events nationwide.

The post Plumbing Advertising Ideas to Create More Profit appeared first on Service Fusion.

Below are 3 marketing strategies to consider dropping or re-strategize in 2020 and what strategies you should consider implementing if you aren’t already.

Consider Dropping or Re-Strategizing

1. Network & Cable TV

Paying for expensive commercials on network or cable TV can actually hurt you, according to the Times. Thanks to on-demand viewing options, viewers have the ability to now skip commercials entirely. Additionally, with more and more people choosing to stream their favorite television shows and movies, cable television is just not as popular of an advertising medium as it once was. In fact, as of December 2019, Bloomberg reports that TV advertising experienced the steepest drop since the economic recession in 2009, with worldwide drops in viewership as a hard-hitting cause.

That doesn’t mean you should avoid TV advertising or video advertising altogether. In fact, videos are still some of the best general marketing tools available to small and large businesses alike. However, the platform for these advertisements is changing. For example, YouTube offers a free video streaming platform for your company’s videos and only requires that an ad be played before viewers access your content. You can invest in pay-per-click video ads on a number of platforms as another option, and place your video ads using programmatic for the streaming TV options users are now utilizing, such as YoutubeTV or Hulu.

If you currently use network and cable TV, you certainly don’t need to stop if it’s bringing a solid return for your business. Take a look at your numbers year over year, and compare that to possible placement through streaming options to determine your next step for 2020.

2. Buying Mailing Lists

Whether you’re sending out direct mailers or email newsletters, avoid the temptation to buy someone else’s mailing list. That’s a no-no. More than ever before, people are highly attuned to spam and junk mail. They don’t open emails from people or brands they don’t know, or never requested information from, and they throw away unsolicited direct mailer advertisements before they even look at them. Want to cause distrust for consumers? Solicit them without them opting in.

Instead of focusing on unsolicited, outbound marketing strategies, go for opt-in methods. Create a landing page where your audience can choose to sign up for your email list or direct mailer. Give them incentives for signing up, like discount codes and the latest news and updates from your brand. This method doesn’t invade your customers’ privacy, and it also allows them to feel connected to your brand’s message.

3. Name Recognition Over Lifestyle Marketing

Finally, the point of most old-school marketing strategies was to get your name out there and build brand and product recognition. Your brand is still highly important, but today, knowing the name of your brand isn’t enough to make customers want to buy from you.

Some companies, large and small, lose sight of what their audience wants. When marketing and advertising to consumers, the message should always be about how you can improve the lives of your customers and provide value. The personal connection created through lifestyle marketing helps build trust for your brand and the service or product it promotes. Overall, the focus should be on the message rather than the name of your brand. Your positive message will then become associated with your brand.

The strategies above may have worked well in the past, but as the market changes, companies must follow suit in order to remain competitive. The key take-aways should be to consider what your current methods are and ensure you form a strong marketing strategy that suits your business and your consumers.

With today’s resources, business owners are now able to tailor their marketing strategy to consumers who want a customized experience, and most importantly, can find your business when they need your service.

Consider Adopting or Re-Strategizing

1. Social Media

Social media is a cost-effective tactic that allows you the opportunity to gain full market reach. Whether it’s through pure social media advertising, organic posting, boosting, or managing messages and comments to be the voice of your brand, social shouldn’t be an after-thought for service businesses.

Users are looking for a brand they can trust and connect with. You’ll be coming into their home or their place of business, after all. Post photos of your team in-action, promote any specials or internal wins, and provide value with tips and recommendations. The large majority of your followers will be current customers, your biggest base of support, so it’s extremely important to nurture them and stay present on their top-of-mind.

Users also want to be heard. More users will head to social to ask a question, raise concerns, or leave feedback than users will pick up the phone to do the same. Thus, it’s important you are present there to engage them when they need you. Not only will this provide a human touch to your brand and spread your reach, but if a potential new customer visits your social pages before reaching out for service, they’ll see an active member of the community that is responsive to customer needs.

Use social media as brand awareness, special promotions, and engaging with your customers. But don’t put all of your efforts entirely into social media, especially when your business is service based and you generate customers through an as-needed basis.

2. Google Ads

The nature of service businesses means you are more often than not need-based and demand-driven. Whether someone needs an emergency plumber or an HVAC tech, users predominantly start with one place: Google. As an example, a large majority of users will open up Google search and type in the service they need, such as ‘Emergency Plumber Dallas’ or ‘AC Repair Near me’. A solid local SEO strategy will assist with your business showing up in the results, but service businesses are frequently extremely competitive, meaning your competitors will have ads for their business that show up in the results above yours.

If you aren’t using this tactic already, put yourself in your customer’s shoes. We recommend testing a few searches yourself to see not only where in the search results you show up, but which of your competitors are buying ads in that space, possibly showing up before you. Try general terms, such as ‘Gardener Atlanta’ or ‘Electrician Phoenix’. Next, go ahead and search for your brand name. You may be surprised to find that many of your competitors use Google Ads to bid on your brand name if you’re popular. If your business isn’t showing up at all organically, or you’re pushed further down by competitor ads to the bottom of the page or the dreaded page two (few users click through to the second page of results) you may want to consider putting a portion of your marketing dollars on Google Ads to capture those users who need you now.

3. Pay-to-Play Listings

Many of us are familiar with listings and directories for products and services, and pay-to-play listings are no different. Think Houzz, Angi or HomeAdvisor. These digital marketplaces are essentially there to help homeowners find the perfect business for the home service they need.

It’s usually very personalized, down to users filling out a form that gives information for when and where they need the service, what type, and more. You can view all business directly in a listing format or have those services reach out to particular businesses for you. On HomeAdvisor, for example, the system will send out the same lead to multiple qualified business to complete that job. Reach out first, and you’ll likely have a new job on your roster. Businesses are largely conflicted about this tactic: some rely entirely on these services to book jobs and some use it only as a supplement. One thing is for sure though, hundreds of thousands of users use these services daily. You may need to pay to show up in this space, but if user’s aren’t just Googling for your services, they’re using these home service services to book.

Our list of options and recommendations are not comprehensive and not an end-all-be-all approach. Indeed, the best marketing approach depends on your available resources and your target audience. Some traditional marketing techniques may be the perfect fit for your brand and some newer techniques may fall flat, or vice-versa. How do you find the balance?

It’s important to take a close look at each technique in order to know which methods won’t work for you, or will work for you, and why. That way, you’ll have a good metric for spotting techniques and strategies that will gain you new customers and engage current customers. If you’re noticing a drop in one technique, or growth in another technique, take the time to look at your strategies cohesively to determine if changes need to made. You may be surprised by the impact.

The post 6 Marketing Strategies: Drop & Adopt in 2020 appeared first on Service Fusion.