After roughly a decade of helping countless plumbing businesses, we’ve learned that one of the most reliable ways of generating plumbing leads is appearing in online searches when your potential customers need plumbing services.
When a pipe springs a leak in a home or a commercial building, for example, and homeowners or building managers search Google for “plumber near me,” does your company appear high up in the results? Does the name of your business come up when potential customers ask their social media network for a reliable plumber recommendation? Do neighbors on Nextdoor or other plumber referral services recommend you?
According to this Local Consumer Review Survey, 90 percent of consumers used the internet to find a local business in the past year, with 33 percent searching online every day.
We built ServiceTitan’s management and marketing software with features specifically designed to help plumbing companies show up in these situations.
Our plumbing business software helps you optimize your website’s SEO (search engine optimization), so your company shows up when potential customers in your local area search for plumbing companies using Google. It also gives you tools to manage your Google reviews, automate your marketing campaigns, and lower your cost-per-lead with targeted email marketing.
We’ve assembled the list below of the best plumbing marketing tips to generate leads.
» Want to grow your plumbing business? Click here to get a demo.
Get the most out of your plumbing marketing dollars by knowing where to invest them online — from optimizing your website SEO and managing your Google reviews to automating your marketing campaigns.
To consistently get more plumbing leads, we suggest the following lead generation strategies:
If you want to learn more about how ServiceTitan can help your plumbing business generate leads, you can schedule a call with a product expert for a free demo.
1. Show Up in Google Searches for Plumbing Contractors
One of the most powerful ways to generate more plumbing leads is to show up on Google when potential customers search for your services. There are two main ways to do this:
Using paid online advertising.
Optimizing your online plumbing content by using popular keywords throughout.
Use Paid Online Ads
Traditional plumbing marketing ideas, such as advertising through direct mail, newspapers, radio, TV, and billboards, tend to take a backseat in most current plumbing marketing strategies. Nowadays, online pay-per-click (PPC) ads, or paid Google local service ads drive revenue much more effectively.
Focus on Google when it comes to online advertising for contractors, says ServiceTitan user Tommy Mello — owner of A1 Garage Door Services — a $30 million-plus home services business with over 200 employees across nine states.
Mello advises spending at least half of your marketing dollars on plumbing SEO, PPC digital ads, Google My Business, Google Local Services, and getting more positive customer reviews.
Today’s consumers find 70 percent of all services online through Google searches, he says, so “just understand Google is God when it comes to home service.”
ServiceTitan integrates with Google Local Services Ads to allow any customer, residential or commercial, to directly schedule online appointments with your company, and provides plumbing business owners with ROI metrics on every Google Ad campaign.
Show up in Organic Google Searches
Another strategy is to appear in the organic (free) search results of Google. These are the listings that appear below the paid ads when customers search for a specific set of keywords.
This approach is known as search engine optimization (SEO), and companies that get it right show up exactly when potential customers search for a new water tank, emergency help to fix a leak, or any of the hundreds of reasons that homeowners or commercial property managers might immediately need a plumbing professional.
To increase your chances of appearing near the top of Google’s organic search results when customers search for plumbing related keywords, you need to include top-ranked keywords in all the content displayed on your website, social media posts, newsletters, business directories, digital advertising, and every piece of your online marketing content.
To attract local customers in your service area and keep plumbing leads coming in, you can also include your city or neighborhood as keywords. For instance, “Clogged toilet in Houston.”
When a customer searches for “leak repair” or “plumber near me” online, Google’s algorithm finds the most relevant results by topic and geographical location, and shows them to the searcher. Since these “organic” (non-ad) results are based on relevance, location, authority, and other factors, strong SEO gives smaller plumbing businesses the opportunity to appear alongside larger companies in Google’s organic search results.
On the advertising side, Google reserves a few of the top results as paid ad results. You get listed here by paying for Google Ads.
Google Ads can take a long time to learn and master, so to help plumbing businesses, ServiceTitan integrates with Google Local Services to let you easily advertise your plumbing services on Google and receive plumbing leads directly from potential customers when they click on your Google ad.
For example, when a homeowner searches for “Plumber Miami”, your Local Services Ad, created using ServiceTitan, appears at the top of Google’s search results. The Google Ad they click on leads them directly to an automated scheduling page, which immediately allows them to book an appointment with your business, without having to look around your website for a form, or a phone number.
Note: Make sure your company operates from a physical building (headquarters, satellite office, etc.) in the specific area where you’re advertising your services, not just using a P.O. Box address. Otherwise, Google may penalize your company and remove your name from their local plumber list.
» Learn more about SEO with this complete beginner’s guide.
2. Redesign and Optimize Your Plumbing Website
Many of the potential customers who find your plumbing business on Google, Nextdoor, Yelp, etc. will end up on your website, so it needs to look professional, be easy to navigate, and fully optimized with the most popular keywords for organic Google searches.
A poorly designed website that isn’t well-maintained can quickly turn off potential customers and damage your business’s reputation. So, it’s essential to invest in a plumbing business website that looks highly professional and easy to navigate. You also need to make sure to use relevant keywords so that your business is included in top search results when people search for plumbing service providers online.
Another reason to invest in a good web presence is that a mobile-friendly website with a responsive design ranks higher in Google searches. Customers searching online for a local plumbing company probably need one right now and are often searching on their smartphone.
Make sure potential customers find you first. Quickly convert them into a valuable plumbing lead by:
Optimizing your website. Make it appealing with a clean, user-friendly design that’s focused on SEO keywords.
Allowing customers to easily contact you. Display your phone number and other contact information at the top of your website and make sure calls are answered 24/7.
Personalizing your message.Tell your company’s story or showcase your plumbers’ work using behind-the-scenes videos.
Highlighting online reviews or customer testimonials. Get satisfied customers to spread the word about your excellent plumbing service.
Writing a blog or starting a plumbing podcast. Become an online resource about plumbing for both customers and professional plumbers.
Engaging customers with Calls to Action (CTA). Use special offers, discounts, and other incentives to drive website traffic and increase plumbing service leads.
Read this article for more plumbing website tips.
3. Invest in Targeted Email Marketing
Another effective way to get plumbing leads is by using email marketing.
Sending regular emails to your customer list promoting your services and reminding them of regular services they should consider (e.g., plumbing system maintenance) keep you top of mind. So when the customer needs plumbing services, you’re the first company they remember.
Targeted email marketing tends to cost less per plumbing lead than traditional plumbing advertising and keeps your brand top-of-mind for customers, according to Megan Bedford of Mugyver Consulting, which works exclusively with ServiceTitan customers.
According to Bedford, email marketing is one of the most effective marketing channels, generating up to $40 for every $1 invested.
ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro helps plumbing businesses run email marketing campaigns easily and effectively, targeting existing customers based on a specific customer type or profile.
You can send a mass email to customers who have yet to respond to plumbing estimates reminding them that they received an estimate from you and giving them a specific phone number to call back. This reminder is likely to get at least some of those previous leads to reply and transform them into paying customers.
Another example would be emailing all past customers for whom you’ve installed a plumbing system to remind them that it’s time for it to be serviced or to undergo maintenance work. Identifying customers with these specific needs and targeting email marketing campaigns to the customers who are most likely to respond, increases the effectiveness of your campaigns.
ServiceTitan also provides a range of features to track the return on investment for each email or other marketing campaign:
Our software can automatically deliver a sequence of emails, or a drip campaign, to your chosen past customers to follow up with them and get you new plumbing leads through highly targeted marketing messages.
To get started quickly, select one of the pre-filled templates available in the ServiceTitan library, add your logo, and adapt the default text to the needs of your specific marketing campaign. These email templates have been professionally designed and save you the time and expense of finding and hiring designers to build you new marketing emails.
If you would like to learn more, we shared new features released inMarketing Pro and discussed the best email marketing practices in a webinar. The conclusions included:
Don’t flood your entire list of contacts with the same information. Send smaller groups of targeted emails to specific customer profiles, such as a “We Miss You!” campaign to homeowners who have not had appointments for a specific amount of time.
Provide educational content about plumbing safety with links to your blog or YouTube channel videos.You can send a sequence of messages, but only send follow-up emails to those customers who didn’t open the first message.
Regularly remove inactive and unengaged email contacts from your database. Marketing Pro includes an Automated Opt-In Feature to do this for you.
Don’t use spam triggers in subject lines! Avoid using the word “free” or exclamation points in your subject lines typically leads to customers deleting emails without even reading them.
Click here to watch the ServiceTitan Marketing Pro webinar.
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How a MarketingPro Email Campaign Brought One Small Plumbing Business an Additional $4,000 in a Single Week
Previous customers were reminded ofJupiter-Tequesta Air Conditioning, Plumbing & Electric, when the small HVAC and plumbing company sent email marketing usingServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro.
The plumbing and HVAC contractor’s, “We Miss You!” email marketing sequence led to an influx of HVAC and plumbing leads.
“We thought if we get 10 calls out of this, then awesome. We weren’t expecting anything crazy,” says the Jupiter-Tequesta’s Process & Procedure Manager, Bill Highsmith. “After one week, the revenue on that one email brought in about $4,000.”
» Click here for more email marketing tips.
4. Carefully Manage Online Reviews to Attract More Plumbing Leads
Another way to get more plumbing leads is to manage your online reviews consistently and carefully. Most potential customers search for trusted nearby plumbing companies with awesome online reviews, and make a point of avoiding companies that have negative reviews or low average star ratings before booking an appointment.
Positive customer feedback on review platforms such as Google, Facebook, and other plumbing social media and business review sites can make the difference when customers decide which plumbing service to hire. According to a Consumer Survey, 94 percent of consumers identified positive reviews as a factor that makes them more likely to hire a specific business.
Real customers who leave positive reviews help build trust in your business. Your potential customers read an average of 10 reviews before trusting a business, and 89 percent of those people — between 35 and 54 years old — trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, according to the survey.
To help manage your online reviews, ServiceTitan includes a built-in notification tool as part of its customer experience software. This feature automatically sends survey requests after each appointment is over. Customers can easily share their opinion of the service on an online review site (Google, Yelp, etc.) while it’s still fresh in their mind.
ServiceTitan also offers a reputation management tool to automate review requests to customers. Our tool lets you send more review requests to more customers, and makes it easy to stay on top of your online reviews, reply to each one, show appreciation to customers, and get an overview of which of your plumbers or jobs relate to each review, so you can acknowledge team members doing a great job and offer training to those falling behind on customer service standards.
How ProSkill Services Uses ServiceTitan’s Automated Messaging to Collect Google Reviews
ProSkill Services, which offers HVAC, plumbing, and electrical services in Arizona, has more than 3,000 Google reviews with a 5-star rating and nearly 800 Facebook recommendations.
Co-owner Travis Ringe says there’s more to getting good reviews than simply following up on a job and asking customers for one.
“If you want to drive reviews,” Ringe says, “you have to deliver a full experience worthy of writing a review.”
You also need to make it easy for customers to leave a review, such as texting the review link directly to the customer before leaving the job site. ProSkill uses ServiceTitan’s built-in messaging tool to customize a personal message and ask customers to specifically leave a Google review.
“Google really rules the roost and I want all my reviews on Google,” Ringe says.
» Learn how to ask customers for reviews and boost your company’s online rankings.
5. Train Your Plumbers to Get More 5-Star Google Reviews
Plumbers often hesitate to ask customers for reviews. It’s a common problem for many industries, not just home services. If you clearly explain how good and bad reviews have a direct impact on your company’s success — and your plumber’s income — you can encourage your techs to request reviews on a regular basis.
Incentivize your techs to get more 5-star Google reviews with pay-for-performance bonus checks, or encourage in-house competition to win prizes for the most 5-star reviews.
ServiceTitan user Travis Ringe, of ProSkill Services, says his CSRs and home service techs go the “second mile” to deliver a review-worthy customer experience. His tips include:
Making a good first impression from the moment customers call to book an appointment to the follow-up after completing the job.
Offering online scheduling to make it easy to do business with your company.
Booking the appointment immediately and not making the customer wait.
Shortening your arrival window and using technology to allow customers to track their tech.
Determining customer satisfaction before leaving the job site to mitigate any complaints they might include in a review.
It’s also important to understand a customer’s mindset when it comes to leaving a review. They hired you to fix a plumbing leak, and they paid you for the service. Many don’t want the hassle of leaving a review unless you make it very easy and convenient.That’s what the technicians at Absolute Services try to do, says company CMO Brian Hortin. His techs use company iPads equipped with ServiceTitan software, which automatically sends an invitation to the customer to leave a review — all from the same app.
ServiceTitan’s scheduling and customer experience software lets you text customers with notifications, including: appointment reminders, alerts that the plumber is on their way, and a link to a Google review page where they can leave feedback after the job is finished. Because it’s made easy for customers to provide a review, the chances that they actually will increase.
If they feel like the plumber communicated well with them, showed up on time and did a thorough job, customers are more likely to love the service and give your plumbing business a 5-star review.
» Learn how to get more 5-star reviews with these tips.
6. Automate with a Plumbing Software and Mobile App for Better Customer Service
ServiceTitan’s plumbing mobile app, which techs can use in the field on a smartphone or tablet, streamlines operations for a more polished and professional approach.
Here’s how some popular features help generate quality plumbing leads:
When a customer calls to book a service, ServiceTitan provides the CSR with details such as call occurrence, service history, equipment used, and even special notes from techs — using ServiceTitan’s call tracking software. Greet the customer by name, and turn them into a repeat plumbing lead.
Great plumbing service reviews often depend on timely and efficient service. By using ServiceTitan’s Dispatch Software, you can be sure to dispatch the nearest available tech with the right skills. You can also monitor the GPS location of your field techs in real time, reducing delays and missed appointments.
Provide your techs with the ServiceTitan mobile app, which offers on-site quoting and estimates, so you can give homeowners instant quotes on the work that needs to be done. This gives your customers immediate information about their specific plumbing issue and the options they can consider, increasing the likelihood of closing a sale.
Position your plumbing techs as true service experts by equipping them with a visual sales presentation tool. With high-quality product photos and detailed descriptions shown in a “good-better-best” format using ServiceTitan Pricebook Pro, it’s easier to convert plumbing leads into on-site sales.
Increase opportunities for on-site sales by setting the stage in advance. Send customers a text when your tech dispatches to let them know who's on the way and when they’re expected to arrive. It’s a good way to prepare for a more comfortable customer interaction.
» Learn more about ServiceTitan’s Pricebook Pro.
7. Connect with Plumbing Lead Generation Companies or Local Apps
To find plumbing jobs to bid on, companies can also sign up with a plumber referral or home services program, such as Google Local Services, Angi’s Leads (formerly HomeAdvisor and Angie’s List), or even Lowe’s or Home Depot. Just make sure not to spread yourself too thin and lose sight of your company’s mission to provide a great plumbing service.
Ben Stark, a trades consultant and owner of a Texas home services company, enhances his company’s online presence by staying active onNextdoor, a host for closed social groups in individual neighborhoods, and Alignable, a small business networking group that generates referrals from other nearby businesses.
8. Measure ROI: Insights into Which Marketing Efforts Are Working
Finally, one of the most important aspects of any lead generation campaign for your plumbing business is measuring the return on investment (ROI). This means knowing how much business and income you’re generating for the amount you’ve invested in a specific marketing platform (e.g. Google Ads).
If you’re not focused on exactly what is working and what is not, you can waste a lot of time and money on campaigns that are not actually generating much revenue for you. You need to ensure you can monitor how many leads and customers you are generating and where they are coming from.
To find out, you should regularly analyze your website data to identify the sources of most of your leads. By doing this you can focus your efforts on the strategies that are giving you the best results.
ServiceTitan’s software sets up telephone numbers for each campaign so you can track where each call originated, and provides real-time ROI reporting for each marketing campaign.
This lets you track the number of calls, how many jobs your customer service reps booked from them, and the sales related to each of those jobs—right in the ServiceTitan dashboard.
You can also calculate the real ROI of every plumber advertising campaign by tracking revenue from each advertising source and calculating the total cost per lead.
By measuring the marketing ROI for each campaign, ServiceTitan helps companies:
Know how much revenue each plumber marketing campaign generates.
Measure how well your staff converts leads into appointments and sales.
Invest plumber marketing dollars in the right places and in the right proportion.
Stop wasting money on ineffective ads and digital marketing platforms that don’t perform.
Whether you’re investing in SEO, Pay-Per-Click ads, social media, email marketing, or any other kind of advertising campaign, your plumbing company can track what’s working and what isn't so you can make informed decisions on the best strategy for getting more plumbing leads.
How One Heating and Plumbing Business Used ServiceTitan’s Plumbing Software to Double Revenue
Greg Mericle, owner and president of Hurlburt Heating & Plumbing, says he didn’t know anything about HVAC and plumbing services when he bought his home services company in 2014. Technology, however, was something he did understand.
His first task as the new president was to automate the business and optimize the company’s website and advertising campaigns using a better software system.
“When I got here, the company was very old school,” Mericle says. “Everything was on paper. It was a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of thing.”
Mericle set up ServiceTitan’s all-in-one software for residential home services, and in five years, he doubled the company’s revenue and the size of the team at the family-owned HVAC and plumbing company in Wisconsin.
Mericle explains that with ServiceTitan, “I can see reports for how many new customers we gain each week or how much revenue we bring in by zip code. Our technicians can see their schedule for the week and how much revenue they’ve earned in a given period. That comes in handy when trying to incentivize our guys to meet a certain goal because it always gamifies it and creates a competitive atmosphere.”
Try ServiceTitan’s free ROI calculator.
Ready to learn more about what ServiceTitan can do for your business? Contact one of our product experts to schedule a demo today.
ServiceTitan Plumbing Software
ServiceTitan is a comprehensive plumbing business software solution built specifically to help service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and achieve growth. Our award-winning, cloud-based platform is trusted by more than 100,000+ contractors across the country.
