Growing a plumbing business among so much competition can be a very daunting task. For small businesses in this industry, it’s crucial to use the right marketing channels to advertise your plumbing service. However, there are other important aspects to consider if you are looking to grow your small business. This includes finding your niche, having a business plan, and using online marketing and social media to spread awareness about your business. Wondering how to grow a plumbing business and stay ahead of your competition? Here are 5 tips plumbing businesses can utilize to help achieve business growth:
1. Carve Out Your Target Audience
While there are several services that plumbing businesses offer including pipe repairs and drain cleaning, there’s a lot of tough competition. This is why you need to find a niche for yourself. Find out the plumbing services that are rarely offered by other plumbing companies in your area and them specialize in that as a way to stand out. For instance, you could venture into the installation of water tanks or sanitary equipment. Or your business may serve only hospitals or residential buildings. Whatever it is, ensure you choose a market and service that you are an expert in.
2. Set Business Goals
Most business models fail due to unrealistic goals. It’s therefore essential for plumbing companies to have specific and quantifiable goals in order to succeed. You need to answer questions like – what do you need to grow your plumbing business? Are you aiming to increase profits or the number of clients? How do you want to achieve this goal?
- Narrow down your goals and objectives in order to achieve success in the long term.
- Use the SMART business model. Your goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound
- Write down your goals and objectives to keep track of them
3. Have an Action Plan
Create actionable steps to follow to achieve your goals and ultimately grow your business. Think about the actions required by answering important questions like:
- Do you need a new marketing strategy or do you need to review your existing one?
- Can you employ an online marketing service to grow your plumbing business?
- What resources and time will this project require?
- Should you delegate some aspects of your work to other employees?
- How long would it take to achieve each goal?
4. Develop a Way to Measure Your Success
Look at your action plans and create metrics to measure your progress.
- Track your business progress with KPIs (key performance indicators)
- Check the results of your action plans on a regular basis – set a time frame that works for you (i.e weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.)
You may need to make adjustments to some of your strategies to ensure you’re hitting your business goals.
5. Understand Your Customer’s Journey
Go beyond traditional marketing and use online marketing to understand your customers’ journey. Create click funnels on your plumbing website to understand the path your potential customers take to request your service. Here is a breakdown of how a click funnel works for your customers:
- Awareness about a need for your service: For example, your potential customer detects a leaking pipe.
- Consideration: The customer does online research on leaking pipes and finds content on the subject matter.
- Purchase: The customer decides to dial the number of one of the plumbing companies that came up in the search results. Successfully books appointment and the service is rendered.
- Post-purchase experience: The customer writes about the great service on social media. The customer is also prompted by the plumber to leave a review on the plumbing website or Google.
- Loyalty circle: From time-to-time the customer receives an email newsletter from the plumbing company on how to solve plumbing needs. The customer then becomes a loyal client and books an appointment whenever another plumbing service is needed.
To generate leads and get repeat business, you need to engage with your customers at every stage of their purchase journey. To do that effectively you need a comprehensive online marketing strategy. You need to understand the different marketing platforms that are best for the different stages of the customer’s journey.
Here are some of the best marketing channels to grow your plumbing business:
- Online Business Directory: List your plumbing business on local directories so that your potential customers can find you easily. Try Google my Business, Yelp, etc.
- Your Plumbing Website: Create valuable and engaging content via your website’s blog section to help you rank well in search results. A responsive and optimized website will also give you an advantage.
- Search engine marketing: Promote your plumbing website on search engines through paid ads to increase visibility.
- Social media marketing: Apart from building organic followers with your social media accounts create ads on relevant social networks as well.
- Video marketing: Create short and engaging video content and post on your social media pages. It’s much easier than it sounds, you can use tools like Animoto or Keynote.
- Email marketing: Send emails to your customers and target audience regularly. This can enable them to remember your business anytime they require plumbing services.
- Customer service: Go above and beyond to offer great service at all times. This marketing strategy can help you get referrals through word of mouth.
Now that you know the fundamentals needed to grow your plumbing business, find out your company’s unique selling point and market your service to your target audience.
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