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5 Tips to Get More Commercial Leads for your Plumbing Business

April 12, 2023 | Read: 9 minutes

Getting commercial leads for your plumbing business can be a huge win, as these accounts can be extremely lucrative.

That’s especially if you consider that one commercial client might have several different properties for you to manage…  


But while commercial customers are the gold standard for many companies, it can be difficult to know the best way to find and secure these types of plumbing leads!

There’s a lot of competition, and because commercial clients will normally stay with one company for years, plumbers have to work fast to win contracts. 

So, how exactly do you get a step ahead of the competition?

It all starts with consulting the experts, which is why we’ve invited John Dubay, Managing Partner at Leads at Scale to offer us his expertise.

John’s been helping B2B companies generate well-qualified leads at scale, ready to be closed via outsourced sales support for years now. He’s got the inside knowledge to turn your lead gathering ideas into a winning strategy. 

So, without further ado, we’ll let John present five proven methods plumbers can use to fill their pipeline with commercial leads.


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1. Focus on Getting Positive Online Reviews

Online reviews are one of the first places a customer will look to learn about your business. In fact, studies have shown that 84% of people trust online reviews as much as they’d trust a recommendation from a friend. 

In the plumbing industry, this is extremely important! Plumbing is a specialized skill, which means the majority of customers and vendors who seek out plumbers don’t understand the ins and outs of the job. They need to know that the company they’ve chosen to work with has their best interest in mind at all times. 

If someone from a commercial organization is appointed to find a plumbing company, they are putting their reputation on the line in making a recommendation. They need to be assured that they are making the best possible choice. Online reviews help build that trust by showing what values your company holds and how you respond to negative situations. 

Online reviews also help bolster your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which we’ll dive into next.

2. One of the Best Ways to get Plumbing Leads is by Optimizing your Local SEO

An overwhelming majority of all online experiences begin with a search engine.

This gives search engines (like Google, Yahoo, and Bing) a lot of power when it comes to which companies and organizations customers find and choose to work with. In order to use that power to your advantage, you need to invest in or create an SEO strategy.

SEO is the practice of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page by making it easier to find through search engines. In layman’s terms, it means making adjustments to your website content and web pages, so search engine bots can better crawl and index your site.

One of the most important aspects of SEO for plumbing companies is focusing on building local SEO. This strategy helps your business become more visible in local search results on Google.

For example, if your plumbing company only operates in Orange County, California – showing up in search results for plumbers in North Carolina is not very helpful. Instead, you want to focus specifically on showing up for search results for customers looking for plumbers in Orange County. 

How?

There are a few ways to improve your ranking in local search:

  • First (and most importantly) create and fully optimize your Google My Business listing  
  • Get positive reviews for Google My Business and other review websites (see point #1)
  • When you create content for your website or blog, use keyword phrases that include your business’s location (Example: “Emergency Plumbers Chicago”)
  • Make sure your location and information are accurately listed on your website and social media channels (you’d be surprised how many are incorrect).

SEO is a pretty complex content marketing strategy with a lot of layers.

You can make great progress just by following the suggestions listed above, but if you want to dive deeper, check out this SEO guide from HubSpot

3. Design a Conversion-Driving Website to Get Plumbing Leads Online

Your website can make or break your company’s ability to capture great commercial plumbing leads online. Your website is the first impression of your business to commercial vendors. And unfortunately, if you don’t immediately capture their attention and gain their trust, you could lose the lead just as quickly as it entered your website. 

Similar to SEO, there is quite a bit of research you can do to educate yourself on best practices for creating a conversion-capturing website. But here are just a few quick tips to get you started:

  • Keep your design simple and attractive to the eye
  • Use easy to read fonts and colors
  • Use effective headlines and calls-to-action in your website text
  • Create a simple navigation menu
  • Keep an eye on your page load speeds and how you can make them faster
  • Optimize your entire website for mobile
  • Display content that builds trust (like testimonials, reviews, etc.) on your web pages
  • Keep your conversion forms short and sweet (collect only the most vital details upfront)

Again, there’s a lot you can do here, but these points are a great place to start! 

If you’re looking for more tips, be sure to check out this post on how to increase your website lead conversion. We’ll deep dive even further into how to optimize your website and discuss the best ways to get plumbing leads to convert online!

4. Gain Trust and Nurture Leads with Content Marketing

As we mentioned above, garnering trust with commercial customers is vital due to the fact that they’re not only trusting you with their plumbing—but also their reputation. Sometimes, trust takes a while to build and that’s where content, email marketing, and other customer communication methods (social media) come in handy.

Say a lead visits your website but doesn’t yet convert to setting a meeting with you or your sales team. If you can capture their information in some other way, you’ll be able to continue nurturing that lead—hopefully all the way to a conversion. 

Using content marketing and email marketing is a great way to achieve this. Here’s an example:

Say you write a blog about the top things a company should look for when hiring a plumber for their commercial project. At the end of the blog, you should have a call to action for readers to subscribe to your blog for more content similar to that post. Now, you know two things about this lead:

  1. They’re interested in hiring a commercial plumber
  2. Their email address

You can then start an email campaign to this lead explaining why your company offers the best plumbers for the job, and how they can take the next steps. 

This type of marketing requires a lot of consistency and ongoing effort, but the payoff can be substantial. If you don’t currently have a plumbing blog, or feel like yours could use a revamp, we’ve put together a guide for you here. It has expert tips on how to create quality content that stands out from the competition. 

5.  Engage a Plumbing Lead Generation Service

If your company wants more commercial customers – but simply doesn’t have the time or bandwidth to dedicate to generating them, consider bringing in a B2B plumbing lead generation service that can help. 

These companies can perform services like cold calling, B2B appointment setting, and lead qualification to reach thousands of more prospects than you may have been able to reach without their assistance. Check out the best dedicated Plumbing Software you’ll ever find!


Tracking the Results of your Plumbing Lead Generation Efforts Using KPIs

Putting all of this together to get more plumbing leads is a great way to start generating more revenue – but it could all go to waste if you’re not probably tracking and adapting your plan based on the results. 

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are one of the most effective tools to help determine if your metrics are where they need to be. Setting up KPIs for your teams based on lead generation or success rates will give them a common goal to work towards. 

Setting up KPIs will help your plumbers quantify their goals and strive to meet them. Rewarding them for hitting or exceeding their KPIs can foster friendly competition across your organization, all while allowing you to generate more plumbing leads and grow your business. 

If you’d like to learn more about KPIs and how to properly utilize them, continue on to this blog which goes into more detail. 


How to Get More Commercial Plumbing Leads

Personalization can be an excellent tool to help you create a more personal relationship with the leads you manage to win with these five tips.

Offering quality service is best practice, but offering it at the right time, to the right person can increase your chances of converting them into a paying customer significantly.

The infographic counts down 12 easy-to-implement ideas that will change the way you personalize customer experience. But if you’re looking for ways to win more contracts, you’ll want to download our free guide, too!

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I'm here to bring you next-level strategies to the field service industry. When I'm not working on the best tips to grow your business, I'm on the lookout for sci-fi novels and cookie recipes.

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