Making sure that you generate qualified pool construction leads can be tough. Website, social media, referrals, email marketing, and the number of lead generation strategies just keep increasing by the day. As a result, companies don’t know where to focus.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that hard to generate leads. It is a matter of planning how you will handle things and designing the actions, not just jumping into the pool that marketing is today.
The previous mentions about the website and so on can give you a great starting point as they are, indeed, the most crucial ones for lead gen. However, make sure you’re doing them properly by organizing each strategy and taking the time for them again.
Here, we will help you go over the most optimal steps and which lead generation strategies you should be working with. By the end, you should be able to boost your company’s sales pipeline and have leads in every part of your funnel.
Work in Brand Building for Pool Contractors
Your brand is the voice, image, and messaging of your company. These ingredients must be combined to ensure you are reaching the right people at the right time.
It is a great place to start reviewing your marketing strategy because of its foundational nature. Look at your messaging, taglines, logos. Consider trucks, team uniforms, and case studies.
These visual components must be eye-catching, cutting-edge, and consistent across all touchpoints.
Your brand strategy is what will guide everything you do from now on. Now is the time for an audit of everything, from your service offerings to your staff. You need to understand why you aren’t confident in the value of your business to the market.
A great marketing campaign that resonates deeply with consumers can take you far. But if the foundation is weak, it will only be a matter of time before the house falls apart.
It’s important to ensure that your product-market fit is confirmed and that you are confident in the product you offer.
As it relates to a local pool design/build, the brand boils down to these key points. First, the logo. Is it luxurious and high quality? Is it clean and fresh? Is it able to stand out against your new competitors?
If the answer to these questions isn’t a strong “yes,” it may be time to make some changes. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to redo everything. A few strategically planned changes can make a logo modern.
The local brand is also about messaging. What is your message to consumers who visit you? Are you consistent in your messaging, and are they aligned with what you truly feel about the company? Are you able to communicate with the consumer what it would be like if you were there?
The impact of brand copywriting on potential customers’ perceptions can be huge. This boils down to digging deeper into what you already know: What do your target consumers value most? And what do they love about the products you offer?
These are the points that must be addressed in your brand messaging. What would your brand messaging look like if it were to summarize what you have that your competitors don’t?
That’s messaging. It can be combined with your logo to create a solid foundation for your brand. Add your uniforms, project portfolio presentation, and equipment wraps to your brand.
Create Your Pool Company Website
Your pool company website is the cornerstone of any marketing strategy. This website serves two purposes: It is informational. It also works to highlight your company’s services and provides a way for leads to be generated from potential customers who might want to do business with you.
There are many options and functions to work within your website. The ones you use will all depend on the functionality you require for yours.
Websites that tell are different from websites that sell. An Ecommerce website is one example of a website that sells. They allow customers to shop online and to pay using their credit cards.
But does this apply to a local company that is more about selling services and making sure people are satisfied with them? You bet!
Essentially, it is the same since you’re trying to make people know what you offer and choose you among all the online and offline options. So, although it isn’t a product, the logic follows the same path.
That being said, how can you make a marketing website for your pool company?
There are many options to create a successful website. However, WordPress is the most popular and trusted platform since it allows you to create a professional-looking website quickly. The problem with it? That kind of requires some knowledge in design and handling the entire setting.
Although there are many themes for pool companies, not many of them will work without the right optimization and design to adjust to your needs.
This is why we often recommend relying on basic yet vital platforms like Snapp or Wix. They tend to be properly optimized; you don’t need to work too much for the design and get great results for short and long-term use.
Take Your Time with Search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO is an excellent method for lead generation. This is the process of increasing your website’s rank in organic search results and helping yourself to get more qualified leads.
Although paid options are efficient, SEO has proven to be over 50% more effective and efficient. Considering that 98% of online experiences begin with a search engine, you really need to be out there.
You want to make sure that people can search for your website if they’re looking for a company offering pools like yours.
SEO has two major parts that you should focus on:
- Keyword optimization.
It is probably one of the most important aspects of SEO since it is crucial to ensuring that your website appears in search results. So that you can attract qualified leads, it is important to choose the right words you will aim for.
Users use specific keywords when they search for information. This allows them to find the best results. You want to discover which keywords these are and start working on them to guarantee the best results during your efforts and any aspect of SEO in the future.
After you have chosen your keywords, it’s time to optimize your pages. You should use a keyword to rank each page and ensure they aren’t competing against each other, but neither you’re missing a keyword that could be vital.
Google crawls your website looking for keywords to understand your page’s context.
Keywords can be placed in many places. These places include the body, meta description, and header.
When you are integrating keywords, make sure you don’t use them often. This can lead to keyword spamming, which can negatively impact your ranking. Use them only where they are natural.
You can bring more sales-qualified leads to your pages by integrating the right ones but just the exact and enough amount.
Other SEO strategies we can include here involve:
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- Your images should have title tags, meta tags, and alt tags that relate to the subject matter for which you are trying to be found.
- Create authority backlinks that link to great content off-site.
- Make graphics, videos, and infographics that relate to your writing content. Upload your videos on YouTube and link to the page or article you have created.
- Backlinks are created to pages and posts that you create. This creates link juice which Google uses in ranking web pages.
- Use SEO audit tools such as Majestic, ahrefs, and MOZ to determine your traffic, backlinks, and domain authority.
- Link building.
SEO is all about link building. A backlink is when a website links to your content from its own page. This action alone can drive lots of traffic as long as you work with do-follow links and avoid nofollow ones. You will get to understand this a bit better while diving into SEO.
Backlinks can be a valuable tool for your swimming pool company as they build trust and authority. Google will be more likely to trust information that is linked to from a trusted site than if it doesn’t.
As a result, it will increase your site’s rank to make it easier for more people to find your useful information.
Content creation is one of the best ways to get backlinks. You can invite industry experts to review your content. If they are impressed, they might use it on their site.
Advertising via Pay-per-click (PPC)
PPC advertising can be a great way of obtaining more qualified leads. PPC is paid advertising. These ads appear at the top search results and are tagged by the word “ad.”
This method operates on keywords, just like SEO, and they trigger your ad to appear in the search results, so you want to make sure you are choosing the best keywords for your campaign. This will help you get more high-quality leads and make your money be worth it.
After you have chosen your keywords, you can bid for your place. You will have a maximum bid which will be the top amount you will spend for each click on your advertisement.
This amount can be adjusted at any time but keep in mind that your maximum bid and quality rating will determine your placement.
PPC is a great choice for pool companies because it allows you to reach more qualified leads who will convert. PPC visitors are 20% more likely to convert than organic visitors. This means you’re attracting pool service leads who are interested in hiring your services.
One of the best things about PPC is that you have full control over your PPC campaign. Your campaign can be run whenever you like, how it looks and for how long is up to you. You can limit the amount you spend on PPC campaigns and set a budget that you will stick to.
PPC has the unique advantage of only paying when someone clicks on your advertisement. This allows you to spend your money on leads that are most likely to convert.
Focus on Your Content Marketing
Content Marketing is an excellent way to get new leads for your pool company. Your content should be at the top of any search results when people are searching online for information on swimming pools.
Blogs, videos, and infographics are all examples of content. This content serves to give your audience useful information.
Write about topics relevant to your industry that are interesting to your readers. These are the topics your audience seeks, so you need to provide them with the required information. This is a great way for you to attract leads to your website.
You can create many types of content. You just need to make sure that all of them are useful and informative for your audience and potential clients.
It is possible to write about pool maintenance, how to clean your pool properly, and which chemicals are best. Even when you’re focused on construction, giving tips for other needs is valid.
People don’t know a lot about pools overall, and they continue to search for information for this same reason. Thus, they are more likely to choose your business if they have access to useful information about pools.
Content marketing allows you to reach new leads that you might not otherwise have. People who are looking for information will be attracted to it. They will visit your website and other content after they have viewed your content.
Make Strong Calls to Action (CTAs) for Your Site
Most marketing websites fail to produce enough leads because they do not include strong calls to action throughout their website. On every page of your marketing website, you should allow people to see multiple buttons that can be clicked to request a quote or contact someone.
The website should clearly outline the contact information needed to reach a representative. The bold call to action is located in the upper right corner and remains visible at all times, or in several specific parts of the pages to get the desired result,
A strong call to action such as “get in touch” or “contact me for a quote” directs users to take the desired action. Instead of a single link on your menu navigation that states “contact.”
Now, if you want to maximize this lead generation strategy and help to boost your sales pipeline, we recommend following this advice:
- Clear and concise CTA’s provide the best results.
Calls to action should be placed in the sidebar, header, footer, and interstitially in important content sections—a call-to-action, which is often overlooked but essential to any pool marketing website.
Not all web developers can be marketing strategists. They often forget that the primary goal of any website is to generate leads. Strong CTA’s will make sure that your website is functional, informative, and easy to use.
- Make sure you are specific.
In every CTA you place, ensure that you are being specific about what your CTA stands for. It’s not always effective to offer a generic call to action such as “get a quote” alone.
Sometimes, you need to be more creative. You can try something new like “GET A FREE DESIGN ESTIMATE” (or “GET A FREE POOL QUOTE”) and anchor it with descriptive comfort text to encourage website visitors to click the button.
Work in Reputation Management
Companies look to engage businesses and others by sharing their experiences through reviews. For this, sites like Google, Facebook, and Yellowpages can allow you to have your reviews found in searches.
Although your pool company may have great reviews on Facebook, it might not be as popular on Google. Your aggregate review score will reflect the number of negative comments about your company.
It is essential to keep your company’s reputation on every platform where you have reviews. Reputation Management has become a vital part of pool marketing.
But how can you get positive reviews for your pool company?
- Provide a great experience to all of your customers. This part is a no-brainer.
- Get in touch with happy customers immediately to get them to share the positive experience.
- Survey customers prior to asking for a review to see how they felt regarding their customer experience.
- Filter potential customers by reviewing the blast you send or sending a text message.
- Respond to every review that you receive – both positive and negative.
Reputation management systems can help pool construction companies manage their reputations and keep up with reviews.
Social Media: Pay Ads and Posting
All of the content you see and like only, including the words, videos, and pictures, is what fuels your pool builder marketing engine. Social media is a key cylinder in this engine, and as much as some people decide to ignore it, you shouldn’t do this.
Social platforms are powerful. Facebook and Instagram are the most crucial and probably the most underestimated in the niche overall for pool builders.
The reason lies in the fact that these platforms have a huge user base, so any businessman who is looking to achieve sales goals would consider them a valuable tool. Add in the targeting capabilities of paid advertisers, and you have a core element that is among the best in the industry.
The platform does not change the approach. You’re not selling a fiberglass pool model. But the experience, the joy your outdoor living spaces bring to your customers’ lives.
Once you build your profiles or just register, you need to consider two options: Paid and organic social media, which we consider both important.
Paid social is paid advertising on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. They are pretty much like PPC, but they operate on the social media platforms you choose; usually, the previous two mentioned, and we would recommend them 100% since most people spend their time in them.
However, you can determine where your target audience is spending its time before deciding where to invest your time.
But as good as all these sounds, we need to face facts. It is very easy to get “leads.” However, driving quality leads is a different story.
As pool builders, we don’t want homeowners looking for a low-cost pool calling them and sending them emails all day. We must know our ideal customer well and want a partner to help them reach that market. This is where paid Facebook ads and Instagram ads come in.
You want to reach homeowners only in the target areas. These homeowners must be top 2% earners in their area and have specific statistics or characteristics in their lives. They also need to be interested in outdoor entertainment if you want your pool company to be out there.
What does this have to do with ads on those platforms only? That those allow you to target the specific audience above.
Moving on with organic social, it is the practice of creating posts on your business’s social media accounts.
You can add images or videos, text, and then post. This effort is free as it is completely organic. The platform algorithms are what make the content valuable.
As Facebook becomes more popular, so does the ability to reach your followers, let alone other users. This has led to a decrease in the number of people who can be reached on Facebook to less than 4%.
Similar things have been happening on Instagram and LinkedIn, but more slowly.
This does not mean that organic social content should be considered a waste of your time. Instead, it should be seen as part of a brand strategy and complemented by paid social advertising. It is an extension of your website and a great way for consumers to get a deeper look at your company’s capabilities.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Pool Construction Business
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Pool Construction Business Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Pool Construction Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.