All pool businesses need to have a marketing plan. The basic step of creating a website is often not enough of a plan to promote your business and drive customers to you online. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach, though. Whether you are a retailer, installer, service provider, or a combination of these services, your pool business is unique and deserves a marketing plan to reflect what differentiates you from the rest. This type of comprehensive marketing and promotion plan helps you gain recognition, build your brand, and lead customers to you.
How To Promote Your Pool Business
Many small business marketing methods can help you promote your pool business efficiently and effectively. To build solid leads to help your business grow, consider the following ways of marketing your pool and spa business.
But First: Know Your Audience
The first step before moving forward is to define your target audience, the people who are most likely to need your services. Define your target audience based on demographics and needs, as well as what you know about your current clients. Are you looking to service high-end pool owners? Perhaps you work better with smaller homeowners looking for above-ground pools.
No matter what your business model is, define who your ideal customer is, including their pain points, budget, needs, and preferred communication channels. Keeping your ideal customer at the center of your marketing plans helps develop the strategy and collateral you need to connect with them.
Build an Optimized Website
To promote your business, you need a search engine optimized website. Many of today’s consumers go online to search for a pool company or service provider and click on the links on that first page of Google search results. You can work with an SEO provider to build your website to meet these goals, but simply ensuring your company’s complete address, phone number, and service area are on your website goes a long way toward getting those “pool service near me” hits in your area.
For more advanced search engine optimization, you can use content marketing strategies, like a blog, thorough product and service offering pages, or an FAQ page. Good, helpful content builds the website’s search engine ranking while also providing your customers with the quality information they need to decide to buy from you.
You also want to incorporate social media into this process. Be sure you have a website that has links to your social media accounts — and link back to your website from your social media profiles. Social media is powerful in the pool industry. Yet, you have to create content and publish it consistently to do it well. Share your blog articles and reshare customer success stories (sometimes called user-generated content), but don’t be afraid to share content from other sources if it’s relevant to your audience! You also need to be sure you are always reaching out to your customers through engagement opportunities.
Referral Marketing
In the pool business, referrals are critical. People want to talk to and work with pool companies that someone they trust recommends because they are proof of a good relationship with that business. Word of mouth is helpful, but you can extend this. For example, encourage your current clients to recommend you to others. If they do, perhaps you’ll offer a discount. You can create a plan that works for you, such as asking your current happy clients to review your company on Google and Yelp.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Another helpful tool for building your pool business is using PPC, a way that you can pay for ads for your business to appear on search engine results pages, social media pages, and other areas. These ads are priced “per click,” and you only pay when someone clicks on them and ends up at your website.
The key here is that these services position your ad in front of people who are already looking for pool service, a pool installer, or someone to repair their existing pool. Through the different tools in these ad platforms, you can create very targeted ads for people who need the services you offer.
Email Marketing
When it comes to making the most out of your customer relationships, email marketing is a core component of the process. You can use it to help you sell what you have to offer, whether to sell pool supplies to your clients throughout the summer months or to get them to sign up for pool maintenance.
Send emails that are targeted to the current season, and be sure they know what you can do for them throughout the season. The goal is to use email marketing to get a phone call or a request for service and help keep your business fresh in their mind.
Connect Locally
Lastly, be a part of your community. Be sure people know what you have to offer and that your company exists by being an active participant in community events and sponsorships. You can also simply connect with companies that can complement your own, such as landscaping providers or cement companies.
When you do this and have a robust training program that can help your agents close sales more often, you can be confident your business will get the results it needs with consistent leads. Contact Mid America Sales Group to learn more about how we can help you achieve your business marketing goals.
