In a sea full of advertising agencies, marketing YouTubers, and entrepreneurs trying to sell you their course, it’s hard to filter the good from the bad. From TikTok ads to email marketing, what is truly the best marketing strategy to get more electrician job leads?
This article outlines all of the most popular marketing methods/platforms and I give each one a score based on 4 key principles:
1. Ease of Use (is it beginner-friendly?)
2. Price Investment (is it budget-friendly?)
3. Likelihood of Achievement (what does the data say? Are the odds against you?)
4. Time Investment (how much time daily do you need to spend to see results?)
Let’s begin with Google.
Google Ads
With Google being the most popular website in the world and over 4.9 billion users globally, it is no surprise that its ad platform is extremely popular. But who should use it? You might be surprised, but I would not recommend Google ads for every single person.
How easy is it to run Google ads for an electric business?
If you’re just starting and have no experience running ads to get electrician leads, Google may be a bit too competitive for you.
The way it works is you have to rank for keywords and either outbid or outperform your competitors.Say for example you run an electric business called “Joe’s Electric” and your local competitor is “Bob’s Electric”. Your potential lead will search “ electricians near me”.
Google will scan both your ads and Bob’s ads to see who has the most accurate search phrase in their campaign, as well as who is willing to pay the most for a specific phrase. Now imagine hundreds of other electricians all trying to rank for the same few phrases. You have to be somewhat experienced, hire someone who is, or be creative.
How much do Google ads for electrician leads cost?
This heavily depends on your location and how well your ad targeting is. Unfortunately, Google has some of the highest ad costs. Expect to spend between $100 to $10,000 depending on your budget.
The good thing is that you get charged per click, meaning if you’re getting clicks but no calls, all you need to do is fix your landing page. Google is still one of the best ways for you to get electrician leads, but instead of paid ads, you may want to try an organic method.
You can check out our organic SEO guide for electricians to learn more!
How long do Google ads take to work for an electric business?
This heavily depends on the skill level of the media buyer. A highly skilled one can make it work within a couple of months, while for most people, this process may take 4+ months to start seeing a return on investment.
Google’s algorithm needs time to optimize your campaign. Before launching, you’ll want to find the right keywords you want to test. Knowing the difference between positive keywords and negative keywords is also important.
Once the campaign is launched, you’ll have to track metrics and make changes in accordance with the data. Due to all of these factors, Google is a slow burn but one well worth it if done properly.
How good are Google ads for generating electrician leads?
The great thing about Google ads is the buyer intent. Unlike other platforms, when people Google a service they want to check out, they already have the intention in mind. Compared to places like Facebook or TikTok where the ads pop up without the user’s consent, Google only charges you for the click you get.
There are also over 1.2 million small businesses that use Google ads to promote themselves.
So who should consider running Google ads?
If you have the budget to pay for calls and don’t want to spend months testing before seeing results, I recommend outsourcing to a pay per call agency that specializes in Google ads such as ResultCalls.
Agencies like these will make sure your hard-earned cash is put to good work since they are experts in their field and you will usually start getting electric calls within weeks.
If you do outsource, make sure to pick an agency with tons of reviews and testimonials. If you have the time to learn a new skill and want to get good at marketing for your electric business, Google ads may also be a great option.
So keeping all of these factors in mind, here is the score I give Google ads:
1/4 Stars
If done correctly, Google can be your most powerful tool. Unfortunately, it requires an advanced level of marketing comprehension to make it work by yourself and many electric business owners don’t have the resources to go through that learning curve.
Let’s take a look at Google’s cousin, Facebook.
Facebook Ads
With over 3 billion users, Facebook is the most popular social media app on the planet. But is it right for your business?
How good is Facebook at generating electrician leads?
Facebook differs from Google in one way: Buyer intent. When someone wants to search for something on Google, they have to actively open a tab and type a sentence.
With Facebook, you have full control over who you want to show your ad to (if you know what you’re doing of course). When someone is scrolling through the app and your ad pops up, the potential lead only has two responses:
1. Keep scrolling. This happens usually because your ad was not targeted toward the right person. It may be an issue with the creative, the back-end targeting, or a variety of other factors.
2. They show interest by engaging and clicking the ad to see if you can solve their problem.
This is where Facebook holds all its power. With the right ad, you can reach a much broader pocket of people than you can with Google, and Facebook also allows for more visuals. This does come with drawbacks.
If you only want to reach people who have a higher chance of converting or if you run a niche business, it might be best to stick with Google.
Facebook allows for more creativity. You can make educational content and use them as lead magnets (a way to collect emails/phone numbers of exclusive electrician leads) or you can make a simple image ad.
How long does it take for Facebook ads for electricians to work?
Unlike Google, you can start seeing results with Facebook ads within a few weeks. It’s not a matter of time, it’s a question of spend. Algorithms optimize based on how much “wiggle room” they have to push your ads to people.
This means the more you spend, the quicker Facebook’s algorithm will find the right target audience.
How much do Facebook ads for electricians cost?
Since you are running ads to a group of people with lower buying intent, Facebook has much lower costs. For a lead generation campaign, your cost-per-click will be $1.92 on average.
Factoring all of this, here is the rating for Facebook Ads:
2.5 Stars.
Facebook being a more beginner-friendly platform gets a star for ease of use and since you’re targeting a broader range of people, the cost will be lower. So I gave it a star for the price investment.
However, you will still need to put in lots of time to figure out what works and what doesn’t to generate electrician leads. The likelihood of achievement depends on how good you are with the psychology of marketing.
So now that we’ve reviewed Google and Facebook, let’s take a look at something that isn’t talked about all too often.
Email Marketing
If the past two methods are not your cup of tea, this method will help you generate more exclusive electrician leads. Emphasis on exclusive. This is due to the nature of emails.
Let me break it down for you.
How easy is generating electrician leads with emails?
To run a successful email marketing campaign, you have to have a list of emails. Pretty self-explanatory. The great thing about this is that you can tap into your old database of past customers, and remind them of your electric business. Since they are your past customers, they are both exclusive and organic.
You’ll find that repurposing and “recycling” old clients is an extremely cheap method to get a surge of leads. Different objectives will call for different emails but to generate leads, a simple “Hey remember me” message will work wonders if you have a big enough list.
If you’re stuck on what to write, check out our free email templates here specifically made to get electrician leads.
How much does email marketing cost for electricians?
This depends on if you have a list of leads ready to go. If you do, a simple burner domain for your emails will cost around $8 per year. The software you will use to automate sending will be anywhere between $30 — $50 per month.
Now what if you don’t have a big database of past electrician leads? Well, email marketing can come as a “cherry on top” of sorts to add to your paid ads.
For example, if we use Facebook Ads to generate leads, we can collect emails, phone numbers, and names using a lead form. This gives you all the materials you need for a successful email or SMS campaign.
Use their names to personalize the message and reach out asking if they needed help with their electricity at home.
How long does email marketing take for an electrical business?
You’ll want to warm up your burner domain for about 2–3 weeks. After this is done, you should start sending out emails to your list of electrician leads.
A healthy sequence is one email every two days until you send five emails. The first email is the core offer, while the other four are follow-ups.
Throughout one to two weeks, your email campaign should be done. As soon as you get more leads, funnel them into your sequence and start it again.
How effective is email marketing for generating electrician leads?
You’ll be happy to know that 80% of small businesses claim that email marketing is an extremely powerful tool for customer retention and 59% of consumers say emails influence their purchase decision!
Here is a diagram showing how many times a day people check their email:
As we can see, 39% of people check their email 3–5 times a day, with 27% of people checking between 10–20 times a day! The minority group of 3.5% of people not checking their email every day. That means over 95% of people check their email at least once per day!
Factoring all of this in, here is the score I gave email marketing:
3 and a half stars.
Although email marketing is a powerful tool for generating electrician leads, the effectiveness greatly depends on how big your list is, how skilled you are at copywriting, and how well you can organize your campaign.
Now let’s take a look at a more modern advertising method.
TikTok Ads
Compared to Google and Facebook, TikTok is an extremely young platform. However, their algorithm is arguably the best there is.
How good are TikTok ads for generating electrician leads?
Every platform has an algorithm that essentially tracks the behaviors of every single user. What time they are most active, what they like to watch, what they don’t like to watch, how long they view a video, etc.
The algorithm knows every user extremely well. For example, if you scroll through TikTok and only engage with cat videos, the algorithm will catch on to that and only feed you cat videos. If your taste changes to dog videos, your feed will change to that.
How well an algorithm works is measured by how accurate it is at feeding you what you want to see. The TikTok algorithm does this to a scary level of precision. But this is good news for small businesses, especially for getting electrician leads.
Even running a broad targeting ad campaign on TikTok with no filters will get you leads. Your creatives have to be on point though and this can be difficult to achieve without burning cash.
Like most platforms it will require testing, failing, and trying again. You will always want to create videos for TikTok ads.
To check out how to do this best, read our blog about content marketing for electricians.
How much do TikTok ads cost?
Unfortunately, it takes time to make good video ads and the price is a bit higher than Facebook’s, with an average of $10 per 1,000 views.
How long does it take for TikTok ads to work for an electric business?
Fast. Much faster than Facebook ads. With an extremely intuitive algorithm, you can launch an ad and see results within days.
This does have the drawback of being extremely volatile, meaning creatives fatigue quicker. You’ll want to test even more on TikTok and expect to be at your computer for longer periods, always monitoring your metrics and bumping budgets.
So it seems like being viral and getting tons of leads is as easy as ever with TikTok but what does that data say and what should you focus on?
How to run great TikTok ads for your electric business
Your ads have to appeal to an audience that needs help with their electricity, so mention a pain point you notice in your customers within the first three seconds of the video.
After that, offer a solution and include a CTA (call-to-action) that makes people want to click the ad and find out more.
There has to be lots of movement in your video, sound effects, and visual stimulation combined with a great offer to convert a viewer into an electric lead. To make incredible offers, check out our free offer resource here.
According to SocialPilot, in 2022, TikTok’s revenue from advertising saw an increase of 200% year over year, reaching a total of $11.04 billion. Also, 29% of TikTok users open the app every day and on average, businesses use 15% of their marketing budget on TikTok.
Here is a graph from Adobe that encapsulates how awesome TikTok can be for small businesses:
As you can see, video tutorials work very well. If you are an electrician, there is no better way to get electrician leads than to provide valuable tutorial videos on electricity solutions.
The score I give TikTok based on all the aforementioned factors is:
TikTok ads is a much more beginner-friendly platform and with its extremely precise algorithm and the data we went over, the likelihood of achievement is high. For these reasons, I give it 2/4 stars.
Conclusion
We went over all of the top platforms that you can advertise on to get more electrician leads for your business. Google ads, Facebook ads, Gmail marketing, and TikTok ads.
These platforms work for different reasons and different objectives.If you want a quick way to get an influx of leads from past clients, consider email marketing. If you have lots of video content and can edit clips, perhaps consider TikTok ads.
Google is great for more experienced business owners with a more niche service and a higher budget. Facebook can be used for the common business owner, with their low ad costs and great targeting options.
If you don’t have the time or budget to try these platforms, consider outsourcing the work to a marketing agency that specializes in lead generation. ResultCalls has generated over 250,000 leads using a pay-per-call strategy meaning you only pay for the calls you get. This means no more worrying about burning cash or deciding between platforms.
If you run a small business and want to get exclusive electrician leads, sign up for free today!
Action Steps
1. Go through each ad platform description and write down the pros and cons. How much budget are you willing to spend? How long are you willing to try this platform? These are just some questions you should consider.
2. Make a decision and go all in on the platform of your choice. Remember, they all work and you just have to be consistent with the effort you put in.
3. Do your research outside of this article and see how you can optimize your advertising results.
Q. How do I grow my electrical contracting business?
A. To grow your electrical contracting business, you have to pick one of the 4 core platforms to advertise on:
Go all in on one of these platforms and advertise! Post free content and run paid ads.
Q. What is the best marketing platform?
A. The best marketing platforms depend on your advertising goals. Facebook ads for example require start-up capital and can take some skill to make work. Email marketing requires a list of existing leads but is much cheaper than Facebook ads.
Q. Are Facebook ads better than Google ads?
A. The key difference between Facebook ads and Google ads is customer intent. Since Facebook ads are in-feed, you are interrupting the “scroll session” of the potential lead. Google on the other hand has higher CPCs but higher buyer intent since people go out of their way to search for something.
Hello everyone! My name is Alex and I write these blogs to help educate small business owners on different ways to grow their business. My goal is to make lead generation as easy as possible for you. After reading these blogs, I hope you leave with some actionable steps that will get you closer to growing your business :)
