A successful water softening business will require you to implement marketing strategies to generate water softening leads consistently. These leads will create year-round sales opportunities in order to grow your company’s revenue, and that will help keep the business alive and thriving.
However, marketing strategies that remind prospects to call you when their cooling system stops working or breaks down will help keep your business at the top since they are considering you before anyone else.
Water softening dealers are responsible for purifying water for human consumption and other purposes, and we are confident you are aware of this since you’re trying to get leads, not looking for a class about the industry.
However, the lead generation process involves the crucial aspect of offering tops services that include removing contaminants like bacteria, chemicals, and pollutants and providing suitable products for residential customers or businesses for various disinfection, chlorination, and filtration techniques.
This will help your company be the first option for most individuals and ensure you’re delivering high-quality solutions that will already rank you quite high among prospects.
You must be keen on developing a solid marketing program for water softeners to reach targeted communities cost-effectively and increase sales.
You can use many promotional tactics to promote your water softening equipment and supplies. Considering the number available today, we have found that some of them work better for your type of business compared to others.
The core competencies are not enough to make a water softening business successful in the industry. Thus, we’re confident you will find those techniques and methods for generating leads more than simply useful in the short and long run.
Social Media & Email Marketing as Key Elements
You have been working in the water treatment industry for some time, and you know the industry and its products and services. Even if you haven’t, you should be well-informed and knowledgeable by now, considering you chose this industry.
When you are at this point, it is time to understand how important social media is for you and how it can generate quality leads when you follow the right parameters.
Your sales team can help you create a strategy to represent your brand on social networks. You will then work with the team on determining which channels are best for your company and what messaging is appropriate for each.
Twitter and LinkedIn are among the most important social media platforms for your industry. A strong presence in these areas can be a huge advantage for young talent.
While Facebook and other social media profiles can be helpful, our industry experience has taught us that LinkedIn is the best.
The team will help you build your audience. Next, you will create content that can go on your website or be shared on social media. You will then run paid campaigns after identifying your business’s most effective platforms and posts and get sales qualified leads
You will have to monitor both paid and non-paid data analytics to see which content leads to sales, engagement, and clicks.
A vast experience in the water softening industry will teach you the best content and platforms to share it on. These elements can make a difference in the growth and development of your business.
You must keep in mind that all social media platforms are driven by advertising. LinkedIn started offering paid ads as early as 2005. Facebook launched ads in 2007. Twitter added ads to its platform in 2010, and Instagram introduced ads on the platform in 2013.
This means that although free alternatives are more than viable, it is necessary to work on the paid options when you’re able to afford them.
That being said, what about email marketing?
Fifteen years ago, the recipient opened an email, and you could visualize an entire message with promotions, discounts, and sometimes, spam.
The chances of opening all emails you receive today are much lower since people aren’t that invested in checking their inboxes for any email they receive but rather very specific ones.
The open rates of such emails have decreased significantly over the past ten years, but in 2022, the average available rate was twenty-two percent.
Email marketing to consumers is an option depending on your market. Email campaigns, especially as a part of a larger strategy, can help keep you improve lead quality and be top-of-mind for consumers.
Besides, email remains one of the main sources and channels to connect with leads and close deals and nurture them to bring more opportunities in the future. Therefore, you want to focus on having a good newsletter, so prospects receive your messages when they sign up for it.
A Bit Deeper into How You Can Utilize Social Media
Social media is quite a vast strategy among the ones we will be mentioning, and since we want the best for you and your business, we figured it would be better to cover it just a bit more.
When you’re working with platforms that require constant content, you will need to think a lot about what topics you will cover and how you will structure your content.
On the other hand, you need to learn the details about each social media platform since not all of them work in the same way. In other words, what works for LinkedIn might not work for Facebook, for example.
Thus, you want to remember these details:
- LinkedIn Profile for Bond Water.
Reaching your existing audience is possible by posting unpaid content. You can post engaging educational content, new products, or company updates.
You have two options; you can either build your followers and audience organically or upload your contacts to social media sites and send targeted messages. Connecting with prospects, customers, employees, vendors, and other social media users is key to building a social presence and generating leads.
There are extraordinary engagements on LinkedIn when posts are shared on both the company profile and the profiles of employees and senior managers.
To build your audience, you need to have a plan. Reach out to clients and ask them to follow you as well.
Many types of content can be created on websites and shared via social media. The list may comprise:
- Recent installations photos.
- Video of recent installation projects.
- Relevant information about you and your employees.
Social media marketing is a seamless way to market water treatment companies. You can also boost search engine optimization by linking your social media posts.
- Instagram and visuals.
We all know this platform is more about pictures, videos, reels, and every piece of visual content it offers. Therefore, you want to be creative with the content you create.
Often, people consider Instagram to be the hardest social media to deal with since they need to keep up with all the politics and policies of the platform.
It isn’t strange for some water softening companies to get banned because they offer “a forbidden service,” which isn’t true, and that’s just Instagram messing with them.
You can rely on all formats for other platforms like Facebook, while Twitter is more about text and connecting with retwists and threads from other users.
Create Persuasive Messages
It is crucial to create messages that encourage people to hire you to carry out water softening for them. Your brochure or website could mention that the compressor can be repaired to save the environment rather than adding more equipment to the dump.
Mention that you offer quick turnaround, on-site repairs, or pick-up services for contractors. Any benefit or feature that can put you above your competitors should be mentioned.
To persuade people, use creative ways to show them the benefits of having an older model fixed rather than buying a new compressor.
Your marketing message depends on whether your water softening is for industrial or domestic use as well, so work on this before you start spreading it. It will help highlight your system’s effectiveness in purifying water for a specific consumption or goal.
Your message should have facts and figures that show how your system meets established standards for safe drinking water.
It should emphasize the reliability of your product for domestic and industrial use. This includes maintaining a balance between acidity, alkalinity, and dissolved oxygen to prevent corrosion.
Automated Email Sequences & Remarketing
Online leads are known for being “hard to get.”
After contacting for the umpteenth consecutive time, sales teams feel queasy and have a hard time trying to keep up with the prospects or feel annoyed by how much work is put into this.
Fortunately, automation is here to save the day.
It is a tangible way of staying in close contact with prospects at different stages of your marketing funnel by structuring other email campaigns—refer back to our previous strategy but continue here.
You can also run retargeting ads on Facebook and Google to reach people who have visited your website but not contacted you.
Retargeting, also known as remarketing or simply displaying ads to persons who have visited your website on other websites on the internet, is key to closing deals that felt lost.
You can create a custom audience from high-quality leads who have not responded and remarket via Facebook, Google, or Email.
You can also create a custom audience from people who have had their water tested and received pricing.
Current Customer Marketing Programs
You can consider these as “low-hanging fruits” because they are potential customers who already know about you. But for this to work out, we will need to continue our mention about email marketing and how you can build your email list in specific.
We all know that clients who have purchased before from you are more likely to buy again. Hence, why you need to build your list and ensure you can keep in touch with them without invading their most personal channels and platforms.
But with this in mind, what can you use this list for? These are three ways to use your existing customer base to increase revenue:
- Cross-market softeners to RO-only products.
- Cross-market as compared to those using only.
- Market upgrades for equipment older than seven years are available (we love the “seven-year itch” campaign).
Your marketing team can track leads and sales to the source. We know it is hard to pinpoint lead generation and conversion in a world where consumers are bombarded with so many messages daily, but this will make it much easier, and you only need to set a limit.
All marketing campaigns should include unique call tracking numbers, and if this isn’t part of what you do in the business, your sales team can handle it, plus creating a sales generation strategy that adapts to this lead process.
You can track calls directly from the source and record and transcribe calls.
Test Everything!
Without failure, there is no success. Testing your lead generation strategies can help you eliminate preconceived ideas and open up new possibilities for yourself and our business.
You will begin to discover what the market wants by testing various Google ads, value propositions, and contact forms.
Your team also knows that it is not enough to test variables consecutively; you need to scientifically split-test your ideas so data wins over egos.
This is straight from the dashboard of a client. Core performance metrics have increased year-over-year, as you will see. Your strategic approach to testing and the dedication of clients to delivering on their promises to customers are two reasons this has happened.
Online Channels
A dedicated website can be a powerful marketing tool or more like an actual necessity in today’s world.
After all, it allows you to describe your services and your process in detail. A blog can improve your communication with clients and the public and help you generate leads as well.
It will increase your visibility in search engines and help you get more consumer referrals.
The idea of having a website today is similar to owning your physical store. In this case, your website is your digital property where most of your leads will land and fill a form to get in touch.
However, other online channels like your social media, as previously mentioned, email, and even your GMB profile with your phone number will generate leads by just being there.
Getting more or fewer leads is what changes based on how much effort you put into every channel. However, never doubt that each one of them is worth your time.
Word of Mouth, ROI & Signage
The industry-leading water softening, conditioning, and equipment rental companies rely on word-of-mouth marketing buzz to communicate brand values.
Many business owners believe word of mouth is out of their control. However, networking and other lead generation strategies can significantly increase the buzz about your brand.
There is a distinction between viral marketing and word-of-mouth marketing. If the latter is new to you, you may consider hiring a marketing consultant.
Fortunately, you also get the chance to learn more by researching online and relying on many of the online sources we have today.
Word-of-mouth is basically getting people to share their ideas and experiences with others that will end up recommending your company and hence, bring more leads your way.
The best part is that this usually guarantees your ROI as you don’t really need to pay people. You may offer an incentive, but it can be something as small as a 5% discount for the next service.
On the other hand, mailings and other B2C/B2B channels can provide decent ROI if they are up-to-date, accurate, and specific to your market segment.
One of the top list providers in direct mail will provide filtered and sorted mailing addresses.
Signage is an essential Business 101 concept as well. Regardless of the scope and circumstances of water softening businesses, you can use signage to communicate the company’s value to customers.
Your business signage design should consider visibility, branding elements, and other factors.
More Ads But with Google
Google is an advertising machine, so do not make any mistakes with it, starting with how many people ignore its relevance.
After all, Google Ads is responsible for eighty-five percent of Google’s revenue, and it helps businesses convert over 50% of the traffic to their websites based on keywords they are ranking for.
Over the past ten years, Google ads have seen a tremendous rise in popularity. There were one hundred and sixty billion+ Google searches per month in 2021. Google ads cost businesses an average of $2 per $1.
Pay-per-click advertising has a huge advantage: you only pay what your customers click on. You can use the power of the search engine to your advantage, regardless of how big or small your business is.
Buyer interest is high because you can target specific markets and run niche campaigns. This is a cost-effective way to reach potential customers and a low-cost marketing strategy.
The only problem is the competition from companies within the same industry. Many advertisers compete for top spots in popular markets due to easy access to Google Ads.
Locator-Based Offers
Every business requires a Google My Business Page or Profile to increase its visibility online.
We briefly mentioned them before, but if you aren’t really familiar with them, GMB is the page you get whenever you search for a specific business or general services like “water softening [CITY].”
These pages are free and enable local searchers to locate a company close to them. Research by Think With Google shows that seventy-five percent of those who search for local information are more likely than others to visit physical stores or, at least, choose those businesses that show on the results.
Google allows you to add Offers to your listing. These are usually incentives or savings to encourage people to visit your business. A small coupon and offer may be enough to convince someone to call or visit your business if they are already looking for one in their area.
You can also optimize the profile with services, posts, reviews, and almost every element of a general business.
Google’s term for your Google Business Profile allows your company to appear in Google Maps results. It also shows up when someone types your business name.
This free listing should be a priority as Google continues to improve its ability to cater its search results to the searcher’s location.
Verify ownership of your listing using your Google My Business account to help you promote your services.
Your softening business effectively promotes itself 24/7 by ranking high on Google Maps and showing up in the Local Pack.
Organic Web Traffic
Everyone wants their website to be at the top of Google. You can still increase your lead exposure via organic reach with effort and focus.
The usefulness of your website is what drives organic traffic to your site. Thus, it should answer potential customers’ questions and provide solutions to their problems.
Google will rank your site higher if more people visit it.
One of the options to make sure your website is popping off is to get backlinks to other websites with relevance in the search engines and for your business and industry.
Although you can gain organic traffic technically for free, it takes much work to grow it. It can take time, so be patient. You will see an increase in interest if you continue to create written and visual content that you can share via social media.
Remember that advertising is costly, and you need to track your return rates. While it is great to get more visibility for your brand, it might not be worthwhile if it does not add revenue to the company.
Consider your ideal customer and the media they consume. Tell potential customers that there is a need you can meet, and they will likely give you a chance. As with running a successful firm, you must be patient and open to trying new lead generation ways to promote your business.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Water Softening 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 Water Softening 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 Water Softening 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.