Recommended marketing approach for a small plumbing and heating firm

[Nick@Daydot]

Hi all - the firm in question is well established and ticking over. The website is dreadful and is being re-worked. SEO has been ineffective and not done well. They've been paying for some time for Google ads with little end result. Their Facebook company page is a mess and needs sorting out (or removing). They do have a Google business profile. There are local competitors who are more effective at search engine strategies as well as the big players like British Gas. They cover a limited geographical area in Berkshire. Much of their business is from their existing client base.

What approach/channels would you recommend?

 

[Shopclicks]

For a competitive marketplace, this might be a good avenue to look at. These listings generally appear at the top of SERPs. The term 'plumber' is searched 49,000 times a month across the UK. The term 'heating plumber' is searched 27,000 times per month.

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How are their Google reviews?

 

[Nick@Daydot]

How are their Google reviews?

Yeah they're looking at the Google guarantee. Review score is 4.8 but only 6 reviews. Very high score on Checkatrade too.

The main source of revenue at the moment is new boilers.

 

[Mark T Jones]

local community pages (Facebook, Nextdoor etc)

Local pubs,

 

[fisicx]

Focus on your GBP and start collecting reviews.

Don’t spend money on the website until you know what you want to achieve. What you should be doing is writing about the work you do. Post daily about every job with pictures, locations and descriptions of what you did. This will do more for your ranking than any rework.

 

[Nick@Daydot]

Local pubs,

That's a lot of pubs. Radius is about 15 miles. Couldn't afford the beer.

Focus on your GBP and start collecting reviews.

Don’t spend money on the website until you know what you want to achieve. What you should be doing is writing about the work you do. Post daily about every job with pictures, locations and descriptions of what you did. This will do more for your ranking than any rework.

The website is already in progress. The existing one is user-hostile and unlikely to capture leads from people who do end up there. The new one is just a few simple pages with a page for each main service and a couple of forms, that can be built on.
Daily posting won't be possible with the resources available but interesting idea to do it sometimes.

 

[fisicx]

The website is already in progress. The existing one is user-hostile and unlikely to capture leads from people who do end up there. The new one is just a few simple pages with a page for each main service and a couple of forms, that can be built on.

A waste of time. If you want to rank and get leads you need breadth and depth. Each service needs its own page and a phone number and email is better than a form.

Daily posting won't be possible with the resources available but interesting idea to do it sometimes.

This is more important than anything. It gets you ranking for a wide range of keywords across loads of locations. Why isn’t it possible? Take pictures on your phone and 10 minutes to write up each evening. A local plumber I’ve helped has seen a leap in enquiries.

 

[Mark T Jones]

That's a lot of pubs. Radius is about 15 miles. Couldn't afford the beer.

We know our plumber through the local pub - he gets loads of business from it.

He also goes to one of the 'trades' pubs nearby - where (amongst other things) they swap knowledge and contacts.

 

[UKSBD]

Hi all - the firm in question is well established and ticking over. The website is dreadful and is being re-worked. SEO has been ineffective and not done well. They've been paying for some time for Google ads with little end result. Their Facebook company page is a mess and needs sorting out (or removing). They do have a Google business profile. There are local competitors who are more effective at search engine strategies as well as the big players like British Gas. They cover a limited geographical area in Berkshire. Much of their business is from their existing client base.

What approach/channels would you recommend?

How much is a phone call enquiry worth to them?

 

[Nick@Daydot]

A waste of time. If you want to rank and get leads you need breadth and depth.

Noted thanks

Each service needs its own page and a phone number and email is better than a form.

Yes, each service is getting its own page. Are you saying that phone and email will get more responses than a form? All are available.

This is more important than anything. It gets you ranking for a wide range of keywords across loads of locations. Why isn’t it possible? Take pictures on your phone and 10 minutes to write up each evening. A local plumber I’ve helped has seen a leap in enquiries.

Ok, I'll see what's possible.

How much is a phone call enquiry worth to them?

I don't know, why?

 

[cjd]

This should be the clue

"Much of their business is from their existing client base."

Everybody asks for recommendations for a good local plumber, builder, gardener, garage etc etc etc. Word of mouth is the best advertising you can get and it's free.

I'm amazed how few trades people give you a card. If I ran a plumbing business I'd leave every customer I did work for with a handful of cards. One for the fridge magnet and the others to give to friends who ask for a recommendation.

But it starts with doing a great job, being clean, friendly, turning up on time, being straight, having fair prices and no surprises. Have a van with your name and contact details.

Most plumbers I know don't need to advertise or have clever websites with expensive SEO, they grow by recommendation.

If you do need to advertise, don't forget the old fashioned stuff because it's cheap, local and works - parish magazines, leaflet drops.

Check-a-trade works.

 

[fisicx]

@Nick@Daydot you can’t just fire and forget with local services. They need constant looking after.

Building up a set of project pages doesn’t take long. You then categorise and display on the homepage as ‘recent jobs’. Google will pick this up quickly. Combine with your GBP and link to the reviews. Once all set up it’s easy to maintain. The service pages are secondary and not that important. But they do need to be properly structured.

Which is why you need to do some planning before getting a new site built.

But as already suggested, word of mouth can keep you very busy.

Nextdoor is a good source of leads. And is your van wrapped?

 

[ignitemedia]

Do some FB lead gen campaigns targeting only your area.

 

[UKSBD]

I don't know, why?

If you don't know how much a lead is worth to them how can you possibly create a marketing plan?

Example

Local carpet cleaner gets a lead that converts, gets a carpet cleaning job that he makes £200 on

Local landscaping contractor gets a lead that converts, gets a landscaping job that he makes £20,000 on

Local carpet cleaner may be happy to pay £5 for that lead, landscaper may be happy to pay £100 for that lead.

You need to know what a plumber installing boilers is happy to pay for the lead, as that is what you base everything on

 

[Nick@Daydot]

If you don't know how much a lead is worth to them how can you possibly create a marketing plan?

To be clear, I said I didn't know, I didn't say they didn't know. I expect they do.

 

[fisicx]

To be clear, I said I didn't know, I didn't say they didn't know. I expect they do.

What’s your role here? Are you just helping them with marketing?

 

[Nick@Daydot]

What’s your role here? Are you just helping them with marketing?

It's a bit complicated but they are a client and we're figuring out how best we can help.

 

[fisicx]

It’s a multi pronged approach. Start with business cards and fridge magnets to hand to clients. Get the van wrapped. Hang out on nextdoor. Work on the GBP especially testimonials. Start talking to people. Other trades can help.

Lastly get the website sorted. You need those project pages with pictures, description of the job, locations and categorisation.

A proper marketing plan will organise how best to promote the business.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Whilst I'm not a fan, trades can do pretty well from business networking groups.

So well in fact that some don't welcome them, because they fill their order book and leave

 

[fantheflames]

Same as others here, I ask other people for recommendations for plumbers, electricians, etc. I don't actually Google them! Develop relationships with real estate agents, homeowner associations, landlords, Airbnb hosts, hotels, etc who need maintenance/repairs.

I also think creating instructional video content on website and other channels would be great as well. Look for what people want to fix at home by online searches and see what content you can build. Case studies will also be important for your website, so make sure you've got plenty of content available.

Standing out against all the local competition you have.... if you're willing to get that content out there, try a platform like TikTok. It's great for connecting with specific areas and has the best engagement rate out of the social channels. People want short videos.

 

[Nick@Daydot]

It’s a multi pronged approach. Start with business cards and fridge magnets to hand to clients. Get the van wrapped. Hang out on nextdoor. Work on the GBP especially testimonials. Start talking to people. Other trades can help.

The vans are done. Other ideas will be adopted.

Develop relationships with real estate agents, homeowner associations, landlords, Airbnb hosts, hotels, etc who need maintenance/repairs.

They do have some of that.

 

[ethical PR]

It's a bit complicated but they are a client and we're figuring out how best we can help.

As you're a web person not a marketing /PR person you're not likely to have the skills/knowledge to help. I'm afraid.

Why not put them in touch with a local freelance marketing /PR person who has experience of promoting trades to help them .

They need to start by identifying who they see as their target market and what makes them different /better than their competitors.