Plumber Marketing Starts With the Jobs You Want, Not the Channels

Most plumber marketing advice starts with channels. Post on Facebook, wrap the van, run some ads, mail postcards. That's the last step. Before any channel can work, you have to decide which jobs you want more of, and then prove in public that you do them well.

A homeowner with a slow drain and a homeowner pricing a tankless water heater are different customers. They type different words, they worry about different things, and they're worth very different amounts to you. Marketing aimed at one blurry customer called “someone who needs a plumber” ends up talking to neither of them.

So I'd work in a fixed order. Jobs first, then a page for each job, then the reviews and photos that back it up. The channels that send people to those pages come last.

Step one: pick the jobs you want more of

Start with two lists. On the first go the jobs that make your company the most money per crew hour, that your crews like doing, and that you have the tools and the license for. On the second go the jobs you'd happily hand to someone else. You need both, because marketing that brings in more of the second list fills the schedule and empties the bank account.

A few questions help sort them out.

• What's the gross profit per job, and per hour on site? Not the invoice total. A big ticket with a long install can earn less per hour than a quick repair.
• Does the job lead to the next one? Install someone's water heater and your name sits in their basement for years.
• Can you do it next week? If you can't staff a job, do not advertise it.
• Do you have the equipment and the license? Hydro jetting needs a jetter. Gas line work needs whatever your state requires. If you've got both, say so loudly (not every shop does).

Round numbers, invented for the example. A drain clearing takes an hour and leaves $150 of gross profit. A tankless installation takes an eight-hour day and leaves $1,200. Per hour on site they come out the same, $150 each. Now say you're willing to spend a quarter of the gross profit to win a job. That's $37.50 for the drain call and $300 for the tankless install. The second job can carry eight times the marketing cost, so that's the one your marketing should be built to find.

What homeowners search for, job by job

Google's Keyword Planner gives these figures for a dozen plumbing services in the US, as average monthly searches. They come rounded into bands, so two services showing the same number are close, not identical.

For scale, “plumber near me” runs at 823,000 a month on the same measure, and every plumber in town is fighting over it. The searches above are smaller. Each one also tells you what the person wants, which the generic search never does.

A few readings of the table. They're my interpretation, not something Google states.

• People search for the repair, not the replacement. “Sewer line repair near me” is about twenty times the size of “sewer line replacement”. Some of those searchers need a replacement and do not know it yet. Write your sewer page for the person who typed repair and may hear replace.
• Three installation searches tie at 40,500. Standard water heaters, tankless units and softeners are planned purchases, and the homeowner usually compares a few companies first. On jobs like these, a page with photos and named reviews earns its keep.
• Small numbers can still be big jobs. 590 people a month search “repipe house cost”. Tiny next to the drain searches, sure. But each of them is sizing up one of the largest jobs a plumber does, and one honest page that answers the question beats a stack of generic blog posts about dripping faucets.
• Specialist searches are a signal. “Hydro jetting near me” (5,400) and “leak detection near me” (14,800) come from people who already know what they need. If you own the equipment, you can be the obvious answer for these without much of a fight.

Step two: one page per service people search for

Take your list from step one and hold it against the table. Every job that shows up on both gets its own page on your website. Not a line buried in a bullet list on a Services page. A page, with its own address, that a search ad, a profile link or a postcard can point to.

Each page answers the questions that customer has, roughly in the order they have them.

1. 1The job, named the way people search for it. “Water heater installation”, not “hot water solutions”. If you work in one town or area, put it in the heading.
2. 2What it costs, or how you price it. If you can't give a range, explain what moves the price and whether there's a call-out fee. Someone who types “cost” is asking you straight out, and the page that answers is often the page they call from.
3. 3How the job goes. Who comes, how long it takes, whether the water's off, what you haul away, what the warranty covers.
4. 4Proof. A few reviews that mention this job, and photos of this job done by your own crew.
5. 5One phone number, visible without scrolling, that a person answers.

It is less writing than it sounds. You already explain each of these jobs on the phone every week, so write down what you say, the way you say it, and most of the page is done.

The pages pay off again later, in every channel. A search ad for water heater installation can send the click to the water heater page instead of the home page. Your Google Business Profile can list the same services. A postcard about tankless upgrades can print that page's address.

Step three: reviews that name the job

A row of five-star reviews that say “great service, very professional” proves you're pleasant. It doesn't prove you can find a slab leak. Someone reading reviews before a big job wants to find a person like them, with the same problem, who was happy afterward.

You can't write reviews for customers, and you shouldn't try. What you can do is make it easy for them to say what was done.

• Ask at the end of the job, in person, while the new water heater is still warm. Send the link the same day.
• Name the job in the request. “If you've got a minute to review today's sewer line repair, this link takes you straight there.” That reminds the customer what to write about without telling them what to say.
• Start with customers from your target jobs. A handful of reviews about tankless installations does more for the tankless page than a long run of reviews about clogged sinks.
• Reply to every review, and name the job in your reply too. People read the replies.
• Put the reviews that name a job on that job's page, so the proof sits right next to the claim.

Do not pay for reviews or trade a discount for them. A review is only worth something to the next homeowner because the last one gave it freely.

Step four: photos of the actual job

Anyone can spot a stock photo of a smiling plumber in a spotless uniform, and it tells the visitor nothing. A phone photo of the corroded old water heater next to the new one, with your truck in the driveway, tells them you were in a house like theirs last week.

• Take a before and an after on every target job. Make it part of the job, like cleaning up.
• Shoot the work, not the people. The trench, the new cleanout, the jetter on the line, the camera screen showing roots in the pipe.
• Name each photo for what it shows and where, then put it on the matching service page and on your Google Business Profile.
• Ask before you photograph inside someone's home, and keep house numbers and faces out of the frame.

Sewer camera footage gets its own mention. For a homeowner weighing a replacement, a short clip of roots filling the line is about the most convincing thing you can show them, and with the owner's permission it belongs on the sewer page.

Step five: then the channels

Only now do you get to where the money goes, and with the pages in place it's a much easier call. Every channel gets the same assignment. Send the right person to the right page, or straight to the phone.

• Search ads. One ad group per service, each sending the click to its own page. The Google Ads for plumbers guide covers the build, including the negative keywords that keep do-it-yourselfers and parts shoppers out.
• Google Business Profile. List the same services you have pages for, post the job photos, and keep the hours true.
• Local Services Ads. Where they're available, pick the job types that match your target list and leave the rest out.
• Vans and print. A van with “sewer repair and hydro jetting” on the side markets a job, not just a company name.

Which of these pays back depends on the weather and the job, and that's a separate question. Our comparison of plumbing advertising channels runs each one against the seasons. Read it once the pages exist.

Plumbing marketing ideas that follow from the jobs

Once you know which jobs you want, most good ideas get obvious and most bad ones get easy to turn down. A few that fit this approach:

• A cost page for each big job. Repipes, sewer replacement, slab leaks, tankless upgrades. Explain what moves the price, because homeowners research these jobs long before they call anyone.
• A follow-up on every large estimate. Big plumbing jobs often get decided after the plumber leaves. A call a few days later from whoever gave the estimate, with the photos attached, goes to a customer who already asked for you.
• Referrals from the trades that see the job first. Home inspectors flag old supply lines and failing sewers. Remodelers open walls and find galvanized pipe. Tell them which jobs you want and make it easy to send one your way.
• A sewer scope for home buyers. A small job that introduces you to a new homeowner who'll need a plumber, often soon.
• One profile post per finished target job, with a photo and the town. It keeps the profile current and shows off the work you want more of.
• Take the jobs you don't want off everything. Pulling them from the site, the profile and the ads counts as marketing too. It stops the calls you'd turn down anyway.

How to market a plumbing business in ninety days

1. 1Week one, the list. Write down the jobs you want and the jobs you don't. Check it against the search table above and against what your crews can staff.
2. 2The rest of month one, the pages. One page per target job, in list order, each with a price explanation, the process and a phone number.
3. 3From the first week on, reviews and photos on every target job. Make both a step in closing out the job, not something the office remembers on Fridays.
4. 4Month two, one channel pointed at the pages. Usually search ads or your Google Business Profile, since both reach people who are already searching for the job by name.
5. 5Month three, count. For each target job, how many calls came in, how many booked and what they cost. Keep the channel that books the jobs you want. Drop the one that books the jobs you were trying to avoid.

Once the calls start coming, a different set of problems takes over. Who answers, how fast, what happens after hours. Our guide to plumbing leads and the calls that turn into jobs picks it up from there.