Hey, I’m Nolen Walker, the creator of Plumbing Webmasters – a digital marketing agency specifically for plumbing professionals. One question I’m frequently asked is how to get free plumbing leads.
The hard truth is that free plumbing leads don’t exist. However, I know from first-hand experience that marketers will try to sell you the concept of “free” leads to get you inside a sales funnel.
Let me give you an example:
If you search Google for free plumbing leads, nothing relevant comes up. Instead, the search engine shows you a list of articles about how to get more plumbing leads using various paid methods.
The websites that publish these articles are trying to earn your trust by providing you with answers to common questions. The problem is that their answers are vague and don’t truly help your plumbing company satisfy its ultimate intent – to get more customers for the lowest cost possible.
Expert Answer from Nolen Walker
The closest thing to “free” plumbing leads comes from organic clicks on Google.
My agency, Plumbing Webmasters, could easily deliver you a list of marketing techniques that generate plumbing leads, but none of them are free. That’s why I’m focusing this article on the most affordable methods and ones my clients have used to consistently produce high-quality leads for the past decade.
Most Affordable Way To Get Leads for Plumbers
The most inexpensive way to get plumbing leads is to attract organic website visitors from Google searches.
To achieve this, your overhead depends on whether you already have a website, how old it is, and whether it ranks for any keywords.
Affordable Plumbing Website Leads
The goal is to spend the least amount of money to get the highest number of prospects. Unfortunately, contractors often fall into the trap of going for a free website or an incredibly cheap one at the cost of lead acquisition.
As a result, some websites, like those below, never get traffic:
- Subdomains: A plumber.weebly, or plumber.wix site, it won’t rank on Google.
- Google Sites: The website that comes with your Google Business Profile won’t rank for any keywords.
- Auto-Generated Site: An auto-generated site from your scheduling software or another platform won’t rank for anything.
Consumers want to buy from a plumbing business that demonstrates credibility, authority, and trust. The best way to achieve this is through a branded mobile website that showcases your unique value proposition.
Plumbing Website Requirements for Leads
Each website presents low-cost or free options, but none of them can achieve your most important goal. So what’s the next step?
Spend the least amount of money you can to meet the base-level requirements of a plumbing lead generation website.
These are the baseline requirements:
- Top-Level Domain: Must be a .com or .net (prefrably.com)
- Hosting Plan: You need a hosting plan to launch your website.
- Content: You need some content on your site to rank for anything.
- SEO: You need some basic on-page and technical SEO to get indexed.
Cost of an Affordable Plumbing Leads Websites
You’re probably thinking, how much is this going to cost me? If you purchase a website for the first time, you can get a free domain name included with your hosting plan. For instance, BlueHost offers a free domain name (for the first year) with a hosting plan as cheap as $1.99 per month.
Domain Name + Hosting Total Cost: As low as $35.88 for the first year.
You can find content and SEO services for as low as $99 per month, though we advise against it. Typically, the content is awful, and the on-page SEO is even worse. Most of the time, these providers are glorified hosting services. To get legit content and SEO, you are looking at $750.
Content + SEO Total Cost: $750 monthly (for life).
In other words, you can get everything you need for about $785.88 per month. Furthermore, considering that the average plumbing service costs between $45 and $200, you will need 10-20 leads to break even.
Using the services described above, you can easily secure 10-20 monthly leads, but you want to make a significant profit. The good news is that the lifetime value is more potent than the initial payment. These customers probably come back multiple times, thus increasing their lifetime value.
Other Ways To Get Plumbing Leads
A website with organic SEO is the best way to get affordable leads. However, if you are desperate, you can try other methods. I don’t recommend relying on these tactics, but they might work occasionally.
Cold Calling
Americans get billions of spam calls monthly, making telemarketing increasingly challenging to utilize as a legitimate business. However, a cold call may result in a free lead for truly desperate plumbers.
Try calling neighborhoods needing emergency plumbing due to some kind of weather event, similar to how a roofer would go after areas hit by a hail storm.
Cold Emailing
An additional benefit to a robust online presence is the opportunity to accumulate email subscribers. As potential customers sign up on your website, you can send them newsletters, discounts, and coupons to encourage engagement with your plumbing business.
For truly desperate plumbers, you can cold-email someone who hasn’t signed up with your website. However, you can’t use an email marketing platform since it would violate CAN-SPAM guidelines. You will have to email these people individually and hope that someone responds.
Influencer Marketing
The last insane way to get leads is to beg one of your social media friends to promote your business on their channel. Perhaps your family knows someone with a prominent Instagram or YouTube following.
If they promote your plumbing service, it can spark an increase in branded searches and maybe even result in one or two leads for your business.
How to Get Free Exclusive Plumbing Leads
Companies promising your plumbing business x amount of leads per month fail to provide context on quality and conversion rates.
Exclusive plumbing leads are the best kind of prospects for your plumbing business because they convert at a much higher rate.
A lead becomes exclusive when the prospect finds your plumbing business on your company website or Google Business Profile instead of through a lead service.
The best way to get free exclusive leads is through SEO.
If you rank for plumbing services in your location, like sump pump repair denver, you will generate free exclusive traffic.
The same is true if you focus on a specific consumer base, like a commercial plumbing business that ranks for commercial plumbing repair denver.
Rank for Local Plumbing Services
You can drive exclusive prospects to your website by ranking for service-based keywords in your area. Of course, to achieve this, you will have to invest in SEO and content writing, at the very least.
Remember that it is possible to perform SEO yourself, although it will take up some of your time.
Establish a Plumbing Company Brand
Are you a plumbing contractor or a plumbing company?
When you establish your service as a brand, consumers gravitate towards your business naturally.
As a result, they will always view your services through a company lens. Instead of relying on HomeAdvisor, they will trust your logo.
Showcase Your Plumbing Jobs
Building trust requires showing proof of your work, especially in cities where you lack authority.
For example, if you have a good reputation in Dallas but also want to service homeowners in Plano, you must show proof of your work for Plano jobs.
You can use photos and heat maps to show your local work.
How Can a Small Plumbing Business Produce More Leads?
This post helps small plumbing contractors get affordable quality leads using digital marketing strategies like search engine optimization.
Unfortunately, not every group of plumbing contractors has reached the peak of their earning potential.
However, a plumbing professional of any level can get quality plumbing leads if they invest in their brand.
Target Potential Customers
Small companies can generate plumbing leads by targeting potential customers. First, however, they must ensure their consumers are in buying mode.
So, where do your prospects spend most of their time? The answer usually lies on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.
However, you are unlikely to get quality leads from these platforms without paying for advertising.
Most business pages generate little to zero interest on social media because users are browsing primarily for entertainment purposes.
You must become visible on Google search results if you want to target new plumbing customers.
Paid Online Advertising
Paid online advertising is another option for newer plumbers. However, paid ads (like Facebook Ads) cost money upfront.
The benefit is that they work faster than SEO and can still build your brand. Unlike buying leads from 3rd-party companies, paid advertising lets you quickly get exclusive prospects.
Of course, paid ads are the direct opposite of free leads since they cost guaranteed money every time you generate a new customer.
As a result, more unknown contractors may find paid advertising an unappealing option.
Final Thoughts on Getting Free Plumbing Leads
As the long-time owner of Plumbing Webmasters, I sometimes have to tell other business owners the hard truth about “free” lead generation.
Free plumbing leads only exist in theory because plumbing companies can acquire them without spending money on advertising or paying a 3rd party lead seller.
However, even with organic leads, some monetary investment is required.
Although my answers might disappoint some plumbing contractors, most quickly realize that there is a path to success for their business. I have seen thousands of companies succeed with my methods.
While generating completely free plumbing leads is not realistic, lowering your cost per lead through the techniques discussed in this post is both wise and profitable.
