Pool service marketing needs to include an aggressive online approach if you want to increase your customer base and reach more local pool owners. There are several effective strategies that you can implement that will help you stay ahead of your competition while positioning your pool service company in front of qualified customers at the correct time.
Marketing a pool service effectively requires a custom approach tailored to your location and its pool season. For example, pool owners in Florida require year-round maintenance, upkeep, and cleaning, while pool owners in New York have different needs.
Colder regions will typically have a set service and maintenance period along with an additional pool opening and pool closing timeline that isn’t typically needed in year-round warm climates. How, when, and what you market is going to depend on your region, and the specific pool services your business offers.
While strategies will differ slightly, there are some pool service marketing tips that are universal and will help your business succeed regardless of where you are located. We have mapped out five simple online marketing strategies for pool service businesses that will help you generate high-quality local leads, all actively looking for a pool service business to hire.
The biggest opportunity you have to generate new pool service customers is before your pool season officially kicks off. This will vary for each region, and even markets where pools remain open year-round still have a “busy” season.
Running social media campaigns – both paid and organic – three to four weeks before pool season is a good way to drive leads that can be quickly converted into new customers. During the season there isn’t a large demand since many customers are in the middle of a service agreement and the thought of switching pool service companies mid-season isn’t common.
Gearing all of your social media campaigns towards new service clients before the season and then shifting to more repair and specialty services is a solid approach to help attract the most customers at all times.
How aggressive your new customer acquisition campaigns need to be will depend on how much new business you can take on during the week. A smaller operation is going to need to balance acquisition volume with employee capabilities – there is only so much daylight to handle all of the service and maintenance customers. The great part of social media marketing is the ability to scale and pull back efforts according to your availability.
2. Build a Text Message List (and Email)
Email marketing has always been a great way to stay in touch with your pool service customers and while it remains highly effective, text messaging now has an even higher open and response rate than email.
There are many different SMS marketing platforms available that help you collect, segment, and deploy SMS marketing messages. Text messaging has become the preferred way to communicate for many, and text message campaigns have a nearly 100 percent open rate.
This is unobtainable elsewhere – anytime your entire marketing list is seeing your message it will drive revenue as long as the offer is compelling. This is best used to upsell your current pool service customers, adding an additional revenue stream.
The expense – time, labor, travel, etc. – of each service call already exists, so if you can drive extra revenue by upselling additional services during these appointments it can be wildly profitable.
Some example upsell services:
- Installation of fiber optic lights
- Pool speaker installation
- On-demand pool floats, toys, and games
3. Optimize Your Google My Business Profile for Local SEO
There are always going to be times where local consumers need a pool service company. They may experience a filter malfunction, a liner tear, or their regular pool service had to cancel. Whatever the reason may be, they are likely to turn to Google when looking for a solution to their dilemma.
Keywords like “pool repair company in [location]” or “[location] pool service company” will bring up the local Google Maps section and if you want your business to be found at the top you will need to have a Google My Business listing optimized for local SEO.
Ranking your pool service on Google requires first claiming your business listing and verifying it if you haven’t already. Then, complete your GMB profile information thoroughly, including hours of operation, all of your contact options, images of your business – both location and on-the-job photos, and a description of the services your offer and the areas you provide your pool service.
Writing your description in a way that satisfies Google’s local search algorithm and helps you obtain top rankings for a wide range of search queries is an art form – with only 750 characters it requires a deep understanding of how pool service local SEO works, which is just one benefit of working with an agency that specialties in online marketing for pool companies.
Obtaining reviews on your GMB profiles greatly benefits your pool company SEO, and we will jump into how to collect reviews from the majority of your customers next.
4. Offers a Discount or Incentive for Google Reviews
If you pay attention to the Maps results on Google you will notice that the top listings always have a lot of reviews and high average ratings. This isn’t a coincidence. Google’s local search algorithm favors local businesses that have an optimized page, a strong website, and an impressive number of solid reviews. Also, the time since the last review was left is taken into consideration.
If your pool company is constantly attracting fresh reviews that are 5-star, it’s a strong signal that your business is doing well and providing high-quality service that is being rewarded with the flood of reviews hitting your listing.
You want to get as many customers to leave a review but you don’t want to be annoying, so what is the best approach? Offering a reward – essentially a bribe – is an easy way to quickly get what you want while also rewarding your customer for taking the three minutes to leave a pool service Google review.
Test different offers and see what works best. It can be something as simple as “10% off your next pool cleaning service” or something along the lines of, “We appreciate our loyal customers that take the time to leave a review on our Google profile, so please let us know if you do so we can reward you with a little thank you!”
The reward can be something as simple as a $5 Starbucks gift card that covers their next coffee. It’s a small price to pay for the added authority, trust, and boost in the search results that reviews provide your Google My Business profile.
5. Run Google Call-Only Pay-Per-Click Ads Targeting Emergency Keywords
Pool service PPC ads are a great way to generate warm leads that are looking for an immediate service call to fix an emergency. This could be a blown filter motor, a tear or puncture in the pool’s liner or shell, or some other emergency that requires fast attention.
When a consumer searches on Google for any emergency keyword they are looking for help right away. This is the perfect situation to align with a Google call-only PPC campaign. These ads are mobile-only and each “click” results in a phone call to the device you set up within the campaign.
Since you control the keywords and the bidding you can focus on only those emergency keywords, and if you bid aggressively enough you can increase the number of leads you take in while on call.
These types of emergency pool service calls tend to be the higher profit calls also when you factor in parts and labor. Pay-per-click ads are scalable due to the data available – you know what each call costs, what percentage of calls you convert into service appointments, how much each of those booked appointments costs, and what your average profit per call ends up being.
A pool company PPC campaign that delivers a large ROI can be scaled until more inbound volume cannot be handled.
Final Thoughts
Creating a truly effective online marketing strategy for a pool service company requires a little bit of everything. From SEO for that initial organic discovery by local consumers to remarketing on social media and using Google Ads to drive service calls and email marketing to generate repeat business – it’s all relevant.
The tips outlined above are a great starting point to improve your online marketing, but it’s not as simple as it might appear. You need the right ad copy in your pay-per-click ads, you need to target and optimize for the correct keywords in your search engine optimization strategy, and you need to design compelling content for your social media marketing campaigns.
If you are interested in learning more about the pool service marketing options we offer please contact us to discuss the options available. Our agency works exclusively with pool service companies throughout the U.S., helping them generate new business and acquire new customers that allow for healthy growth and expansion.
