Every business experiences a rough patch where they feel like they are not growing. Maybe it has been a while since you landed a new client.
Maybe you haven’t been able to focus on new business enough with your day-to-day craziness.
Looking for a way to jumpstart your business again?
We are here to help! Below are 4 basic steps that can make a BIG impact on gaining more plumbing leads and clients:
This post will cover how you can:
- Generate more plumbing leads with referrals and reviews
- Utilize a company blog to keep potential customers interested
- Gain clients using flyers and door hangers
- Discover how NextDoor can help you gain more customers
1.Focus On Plumbing Referrals and Reviews
Reviews and referrals are two relatively easy ways to grow new business. They are critical because nearly all potential customers are looking at your online presence as the first step before purchasing your product or service.
Reviews
Every business strives for 5 star reviews. So, it’s very important to do everything in your power to make sure you spend the time and effort to ask for reviews and respond to reviews: positive and even more importantly, negative.
Stat: 93% of consumers say online reviews have an impact on their purchase decision
Here are several of the most popular online review sites and some information on each one.
- Google: Make sure you have claimed your business’ physical address on your Google Business page. Customers can leave a review from a browser or on a business’ Google Maps page.
- Facebook: No longer called reviews with the five star scale, they are now called recommendations and customers can leave a yes/no if they recommend a business along with pictures and why they do or don’t recommend.
- Yelp: Yelp has been around for more than 17 years, so it has a lot of experience in the reviews game. With more than 240 million reviews, home services account for about 18% of these reviews.
- Angi (formerly Angie’s List): A top site for home services reviews.
- NextDoor: Allows members to post recommendations and businesses to set up a page or post ads
- LinkedIn and Glassdoor: These websites allow employees to leave reviews on working at your business. While not used for sales, it’s still a good idea to check for any recent employee reviews about your company!
Most people have a smartphone. And 87% of them have at least one of the following on their phone: Google, Facebook and Yelp. That’s why it’s important to encourage happy customers to leave reviews for potential customers to find.
Referrals
A solid referral program can stir up new business and rewards both the referrer and referee.
For instance, you can offer an incentive of a no-charge plumbing inspection or 20% off of a service call for both the existing customer that refers the new customer as well as the new customer.
Once you have your referral program finalized, it’s time to promote it. Tell your customers about it while on site and add the offer to your marketing materials.
A key to keeping track of these referrals is to have solid field service software that can make tracking and implementing referral programs easy.
2. Start or Refresh Your Company Blog
It’s imperative that your company website has a blog.
Why? There are many reasons. Simply put – well-written blogs drive searchers to your website. They may not turn into sales right away, but they will certainly increase your chances down the road.
A recent study by Forbes found that companies with blogs build trust with readers. When potential customers trust your content, they are more likely to trust your business with a sale.
Producing regular blogs can also help your company become an authority in the plumbing field. This also will help raise awareness of your company and show up more often in Google searches.
If your plumbing site has a blog, it will have 125% more traffic than a site that does not. Here’s why:
Active Websites get 125% more traffic
Strive for an active website with new content posted every week. Every time you post a blog, you increase your visibility on the web leading to more clicks to your site.
Plus, Google will notice you and will be more likely to show your blog or webpage to people searching for plumbing-related terms.
What does this mean? More traffic on your site can drive more leads and referrals.
Activity also creates a reason for prospects to visit your site again and again, so make sure to create continuous, quality content.
Keywords
Blogs with relevant keywords will also increase traffic to your website. If you include keywords that prospects are typing in their search bar, Google and other search engines are more likely to share your content in search results.
Make sure that your blogs are packed with plumbing-related keywords that potential customers will use when searching. Words and phrases like:
- Broken toilet
- How to fix a toilet
- Clogged sink
You get the idea. Need more inspiration? Think of issues or questions your customers frequently bring to you. If you are repeatedly asked a certain question, people are also probably searching for answers on Google.
Don’t be afraid to work keywords into your blog as you are writing the draft. Authoring software such as WordPress even uses plug-ins to gauge your keyword use and SEO (search engine optimization) to rank higher on a search engine results page.
Here are a few free resources used to find keywords your potential customers may be using:
Call-To-Action
Make sure to add a call-to-action button on every blog post. It can keep people engaged with your site by going to other pages as well as staying on your site longer when contacting you. This also shows search engines your site is engaging.
Make sure your call to action will help generate leads. Here are two examples:
- A bonus piece of content such as an e-book or whitepaper in exchange for the reader’s contact information. These contacts can turn into a lead generating machine for your sales team.
- Instructions for how to contact you or your plumbing team to learn more. A phone number, email address, or online form are all good options!
Social Media
When you post a blog, it’s a great opportunity to also share the blog to your social media accounts.
Promoting your blog from Facebook, Instagram or Twitter increases your chances of clicks and visitors to your site.
Be sure to check out our plumber marketing guide to learn more about social media!
3. Gain More Clients with Flyers and Door Hangers
While out on service calls, you and your team should keep an eye out for new customers. Use a current customer’s street to your advantage! Don’t forget to have flyers and door hangers on hand as you meet potential customers.
Here are a few tips for picking up some new clients:
- Five-Arounds: Not familiar with this strategy? After you complete your current service call, hit up the five surrounding houses: the neighbors on both sides and the three across the street. Leave a door hanger or flyer at each address.
- Leave-Behinds: Make sure to leave something with your customer, even if it’s just a magnetic business card. Everyone likes something free, so you can leave anything with your branding and contact information: pens, chip clips, a water bottle or other trinket.
- Don’t hesitate to introduce yourself and leave your card with anybody you meet.
4. Knock on NextDoor for Local Leads
NextDoor is a website community where neighbors go to get help and give help. This is a great marketing tool to increase local “word of mouth” leads.
NextDoor boasts sign ups of almost one in three U.S. households and more than 55 million neighbors have made business recommendations. You definitely want a piece of this plumbing pie!
Business accounts are free to set up. Local businesses can advertise by buying a Neighborhood Sponsorship, Local Deal, or posting to a nearby neighborhood news feed twice per month for free.
You can also use paid ads to promote your business. Set up your business page here.
For more tips on landing more leads and clients, check out Increase Plumbing Sales in 9 Easy Steps.
See how FieldEdge can streamline your referral program and boost positive chatter about your brand. Book your FREE personalized demo today!
You’re Armed with The Strategies to Increase Plumbing Leads And Gain More Clients
We ran through a series of steps that will mobilize you to be a growing business, adding plumbing leads and ultimately clients.
Use what you learned in this post to:
- Generate more plumbing leads with referrals and reviews
- Start developing a blog to increase web traffic
- Gain more clients with flyers and door hangers
- Utilize NextDoor to promote your business and help gain more customers
Now you’re ready to get out there and get more clients!
