When it comes to marketing, adaptability is key. Over the short term, you need to react fast when time is short, stress is high, and deadlines are approaching. Over the long term, you need to adapt to changing customer behaviors, industry trends, and market conditions to keep your business alive.
If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that you can’t just stick with your tried-and-true marketing strategy and hope for the best. Experts predict that evolving technologies and customer behaviors will transform the digital landscape in 2023, with new marketing trends to follow. As you plan for the new year, you need to shift your strategy to grow your plumbing business and gain an edge over the competition.
So, what new digital marketing trends can you expect in 2023? From omnichannel to chatbots, here’s how to update your plumber marketing strategy to stay on top of the game.
Omnichannel isn’t anything new, but it’s going to change the marketing landscape in 2023. Why? It’s simple: Your customers are using media differently. They’re searching for articles, playing gaming apps, and scrolling through social media, but that’s not all. They’re also using these channels to research products, interact with brands, and make purchasing decisions.
What does that mean for your business? Well, if you have good visibility on some channels, you’re bound to capture some leads. Once you grab their attention, it’s time to start qualifying your leads to differentiate who will convert into buyers and repeat customers.
That’s where omnichannel can ignite your plumber marketing strategy. When you limit customer interactions to a single channel, you’ll miss out on mountains of valuable information. After all, there’s nothing worse than someone who thanks your customer service team via email, but then turns around and leaves a negative Facebook review.
With omnichannel marketing, you can track interactions across every channel without missing a beat. In turn, you can seamlessly tie those interactions together into one cohesive story. Then, you can tap into data to optimize your strategy and drive customers further down the sales funnel.
When you consistently provide value to customers across different channels, you’ll show them exactly why you’re the best plumber for the job. Just remember: Being present on multiple channels doesn’t mean you’re doing omnichannel.
What’s the secret recipe for a successful plumbing business? You’ll need two ingredients: low costs and high efficiency.
We know—those ingredients can be pretty hard to find, but outsourcing is a great first step to fuel your business. Whether you’re running multiple locations or just starting out, outsourcing can help you get more done. After all, nobody wants to be held back by opportunities because they don’t have enough resources in-house.
You’re busy managing your contractors, keeping your customers satisfied, and working in the field. If you don’t have enough time to spend hours behind your desk on PPC campaigns and Instagram posts, a reliable agency can take the marketing tasks off your plate so you can focus on what really matters: running your business.
Our clients tell us that outsourcing makes the difference between little progress over the first year to making big moves in the local plumbing industry. Even if you’re working with a limited budget, outsourcing is the tool you need to make the most of your hard-earned marketing dollars. That’s why WyattWorks, a family-run plumbing business in Northeast Ohio, worked with Company 119 to strengthen their branding and showcase their team with high-quality videos. The expertise, technology, and capabilities that a digital marketing agency brought—along with a skilled video production team—made all the difference for their marketing efforts.
Our advice? Instead of spreading yourself too thin with multiple agencies, choose a full-service marketing agency for all of your marketing needs. You need a consistent tone of voice, brand identity, and visual content to build trust with potential customers, and you’re only going to get that with a single agency.
Even if you’re sacrificing blood, sweat, and tears to keep customers happy, they’re still going to want your attention after you head home from the office. Guess what? You don’t have to sacrifice your sanity to answer the emergency call at 3 AM. When you don’t feel like working overtime, chatbots can save the day.
As technology improves with natural language processing and AI, chatbots will become more popular in 2023. They’re the fastest-growing brand communication channel, and for good reason: Customers get faster responses from online than any other channel.
According to Juniper Networks, chatbots will start taking away revenue from other marketing channels, with sales from chatbots growing annually. At the same time, businesses will see increases in savings thanks to the automation of customer interactions and support processes.
You already know that fast response times matter, especially when homeowners are dealing with burst pipes or broken water lines. That’s where your chatbots can be your hardest-working employees. They work for you 24/7/365 to answer your customers’ questions, point them in the right direction, and keep them satisfied.
Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t have to be either/or. You can use chatbots where they make sense (think: answering FAQs on your website). Then, you can integrate human interaction wherever it makes sense. For example, if a local homeowner wants to learn more about your plumbing services, you can send them over to your sales team for more personal interaction.
Plus, you don’t have to rely on Facebook Messenger bots for easy access to chatbots. Instead, you can add chatbots directly to your plumbing website so your leads can access information when they need it most. You can even use hyperlinks to trigger conversations from any social media platform.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, native advertising grew as an important tool for contractors. Today, as customers continue to reject traditional advertising, more companies are allocating more of their budgets to non-disruptive ad campaigns.
Native advertising exploded back in 2020, and it’s only going to keep growing. According to an advertising report by AdYouLike, the global native market will be worth $400 billion by 2025—a whopping 372 percent jump from 2020.
It’s easy to see why native advertising is so popular. Native ads fit seamlessly into the user experience, blending into the form and function of surrounding content. And when you consider that 25 percent of internet users rely on ad blockers to avoid intrusive ads, it’s hard to ignore the power of native advertising.
In 2023, you need to stay on top of native advertising to grow your plumbing business. The good news? It’s not as intimidating as it sounds. Once you’ve identified your campaign goals and target audience, you’ll need to choose the right publishers. Depending on your strategy, you might work with traditional, new-media publishers, or a mix of both.
To find the right match, check out their reach (the size of the audience that could view your content) and relevance (whether the site’s content and demographics match your target audience). In addition, there’s filtering available for publishers’ websites that determines where you’ll display your native ads. You can target publishers by location, device, and more.
Last but not least, you’ll need to put yourself in your audience’s shoes. What do you want to see when you’re scrolling? After you’ve identified some relevant content, you can start brainstorming digital ad creatives to make prospects stop scrolling.
You already know that your customers want everything. Not only that, but they want it all as fast as possible. As more plumbers look for strategies to boost response times, real-time messaging has become an amazing opportunity to reach customers quickly while collecting valuable data.
The more these messaging platforms mature, the more you can use customer data to your advantage. Over the next year, these platforms will turn into data hubs that store everything you need to know about your customers. All you have to do is sit back and keep your customers engaged with personalized interactions. Sounds pretty great, right?
There’s even better news: Only seven percent of marketers (yes, you read that right) use real-time data to implement real-time marketing activities. Once you start using real-time data to tailor your plumber marketing strategy, you’ll drive more leads down the sales funnel with hyper-contextual messaging—all while leaving your competitors in the dust.
Of course, personalized marketing isn’t easy. You need to know exactly where customers are in their customer journey. Plus, you need to consolidate data into a centralized database (AKA your customer relationship management system) so you can track them throughout the process.
That said, personalization should definitely play a role in your marketing strategy. It means more customer engagement, more conversions, and less time, money, and resources drained on irrelevant marketing. Real-time data can help you carve the path forward by engaging specific segments and tailoring one-on-one messaging to specific individuals.
As the new year approaches, there’s no better time to rethink your marketing strategy. There’s no cookie-cutter approach to plumber marketing—you need to start brainstorming your plan now to avoid falling behind.
Ready to upgrade your marketing strategy? Want to drive real results in 2023? We’re here to help. Reach out to our team to transform your plumbing business with data-driven marketing solutions.
