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Here at the Gorilla Weekly, we try to produce plumbing content in a way that interests both actual plumbers and DIY home owners. This week, however, is going to be tailored specifically to plumbers who run their own local plumbing company. You may remember an article we published months back about keys to building a successful plumbing company, where we highlighted a few essential ingredients to stand out from local competition. In this article, I would like to use Mr. Rooter as an example and point out what things they have done right to build a trusted plumbing brand.
Unique Social Media Presence
The thing that initially inspired me to write this article was Mr. Rooter's unique social media presence. What you will notice is that Mr. Rooter takes a local approach to social media marketing, especially in the realm of Twitter. While they have one master account that represents the entire company, they also have Twitter accounts that represent regions of the U.S. where the company services. They actively have happy customers tweeting at the regional accounts and saying what a good job they did, which in turn gives them content to retweet. Not only does this practice keep their twitter pages active, but it also gives potential customers a trust boost when considering what kind of job Mr. Rooter will accomplish. Creating and marketing a local social media presence is essential in the plumbing service industry, and Mr. Rooter has done a great job of doing just that.
A Relevant Blog
Another important element of Mr. Rooter's success is a relevant blog. Not only is a blog essential for link building and gaining trust with search engines, it also can be extremely informative to your customers. Correction: a relevant blog can be extremely informative to customers. People want to read what is relevant; not necessarily something you are trying to sell them. User experience is a huge part of web marketing, and making your blog relevant to your customers needs above trying to sell them something will greatly increase user experience. Take for example what Mr. Rooter publishes on their blog: new industry regulations, DIY plumbing tips, and plumbing current events. While their blog could pump out loads of content about why you should choose Mr. Rooter, they instead publish what their demographic wants to read.
Great Website Landing Page
User interface, particularly on the landing page of a website, is huge in determining whether potential customers will stay on your site or continue their search elsewhere. This is yet another area Mr. Rooter has excelled in. Below is a picture of the landing page, accompanied by letters near key elements of a landing page. Below the picture is a referenced explanation of things that they did right. For this example, we will only be highlighting aspects of the landing page above the fold.
A) One essential part of a landing page that stands out on their site is contact information. They place their phone number in the top right, big enough to see, in addition to highlighting that they offer 24/7 emergency service.
B) In the middle of the page, they depict their brand as a friendly and professional plumbing service. The friendly plumber picture helps to portray this idea in addition to their three key selling points in the middle. Not only does this mid section describe their brand, it also gets straight to the point and gives you the option to schedule an appointment.
C) Locality is key when dealing with any national chain of business. Before you even scroll the page down, you get the option to key in your zip code and see if their service is available to you. I really like what they did with implementing this.
D) Lastly, the above the fold landing page spells out what their service offers. Simply put, they offer plumbing repair services for home and business. Describing what you sell or what you service is above the fold is key in web design.
For those less familiar with web design lingo, the term "fold" frequently referred to above is talking about the area of the website that the user sees before scrolling down the page any. While Mr. Rooter did a lot of things right above the fold, they also did a good job below it as well. They focused on establishing trust below the fold, highlighting why you can trust their brand as well as including customer quotes from social media.
A Friendly Disclaimer
I just wanted to throw a friendly disclaimer out that we have no special connection with Mr. Rooter that inclined the writing of this article. I got the idea for doing this from their social media presence, and then the idea evolved from there.
