If you have ever found yourself asking “how do I get water damage restoration leads?”, this guide will tell you everything there is to know about marketing your water damage restoration business.
This ultimate guide will outline how to grow your water damage restoration business using these steps:
1. Dial in Google My Business
2. Keyword Optimize Your Website
3. Run A Google Review Campaign
4. Create A Clean Website
5. Create A Strong Social Media Presence
6. Connect With Plumbers
7. Build A Strong Client Referral Program
8. Running Paid Ads
9. Action Steps
Let’s dive straight into the first step…
1. Dial In Your GMB: How To Get In Google 3-Pack
Google My Business is a way for local businesses like plumbing or water damage restoration to be seen by people in need of help. When a person Google searches for the service they need, in this case, water damage restoration, they come to a page like this:
What do you notice about these top searches?
They all have:
1. 5 Star Reviews
2. Websites
3. Directions
4. Phone Numbers Listed
These are the fundamentals to potentially being listed in the 3 pack on Google. Why is this crucial to growing your water damage business?
Well, according to Semrush, the top search has a 22.4% click-through-rate, meaning for every 1,000 people that search a term, over 200 will click your business.
As you can see, there is a massive difference in the first position and the third or fourth. We will go over more strategies to boost your position even higher in the following steps.
Setting up your Google My Business should not take more than a day, Google makes it very easy. Just plug in the 4 key ingredients mentioned above, and you have set yourself up for success using the next 7 tips.
Simply listing your business on Google will not be enough to generate more water damage leads.
It’s a great foundation but you’ll have to know how to drive traffic now.
2. Keyword Optimize Your Website
All water damage restoration business owners know that SEO is important. But how do you actually achieve a high-rank in Google using SEO principles to get water damage leads?
We must understand user search intent. Keywords or phrases are search terms that a potential lead looks up in Google. The more accurate Google deems your business website to be for the searcher, the higher you will rank.
The main idea is to have keywords on your website that match the search of the potential lead.
To do this, you must place yourself in the shoes of the person searching, so that Google may see your business as relevant to their needs. Think about what someone may search for in order to find a water damage restoration business that can help them.
Maybe it’s phrases like “best water damage company” or “emergency mold removal near me”.
Really try to get into the heads of your potential customer and include these search terms in the main headlines or body text of your website.
Blogs like these are a great way to boost SEO. If you do it right, Google will know that you can help the searcher solve their problem.
How To Find Winning Keywords
Out of all the tools and tactics out there used for finding high-ranking keywords, there is one that is my favorite. It’s called Google Suggestions. Using Google, open a blank tab.
Make sure your history is cleared, so that the suggested searches are trending ones, and not based on what Google knows about you. It should look like this:
Next, you’ll need to do some role play. Imagine you are your average client. Oh no! You just discovered mold in your shower! Now what?
You open Google and type in a search query. It’ll most likely start with “ found mold in…” And then you stop typing. You’ll see Google’s suggestions. It will look like this:
Guess what? These suggestions are what people search for the most! Backed by Google’s algorithm.
Now all you need to do is add these phrases into your website text, write informational blogs around these topics, and watch your website rank high whenever someone searches for these phrases. The best part? It’s free!
Tools/softwares should be used to double-check how well a keyword is performing, not the tactic you rely on to give you ideas. Some of these helpful keyword research tools are:
Using this strategy, you can type any phrase that a potential client may search for. Get creative!
The higher it is on the suggestions, the more in demand that phrase is. Use those on your website.
So that’s keyword optimization in a nutshell, but what about the other core principles of SEO like Google reviews?
3. How To Run A Google Review Campaign That Gets Exclusive Water Damage Leads
It’s no secret that Google reviews are one of the most important pieces to our digital marketing puzzle, fundamental to getting more water damage jobs. According to BrightLocal, 81% of consumers use Google to evaluate a local business.
Did you know that you can get a flood of Google reviews within the next 48 hours for free? Here’s how to get more Google reviews for your water damage restoration business:
1. Organize a list of past client contact information (the bigger the list the better)
2. Craft an offer for past clients that incentivizes them to leave a Google review
3. Reach out with the offer, using email and SMS
4. Watch the reviews pour in
It’s that simple! Now the key is to give away something in return for a Google review. This can be a giveaway of a single prize for the best review or many little prizes for each person who leaves a review. Make it like a game.
Here is a document that outlines how to get more Google reviews for your small business with battle-tested scripts and a template flow: How to get 50–100 new Google Reviews in 5 days for your small business
Now reviews are great, but what happens when a lead is interested in your water damage business and decides to click on your website? This is where a clean website comes into play, another crucial piece for getting more water damage jobs.
4. Create A Clean Website To Book More Water Damage Jobs
The best websites are the ones that have the least amount of “stuff”. Think about big brands like Nike and Apple. If you go on their websites right now, the first thing you’ll see is a big headline with tons of empty space around.
You’ll also notice easy-to-understand buttons on their websites that take you to different pages.
You can use the same psychology these multi-billion dollar brands use when designing your website. So how should you design your water damage website? You’ll want to include some key elements:
1. Clear call-to-action button with your business phone number
2. Clear headline stating what you do, keep it short, simple, and to the point
3. List of services you offer, the less the better
Additional pages you may include:
The goal is to make it as easy as possible for the lead to contact you, without feeling confused or lost on your home page. Using the keywords strategy I showed you above, make the headline and smaller text include the key phrases you researched to boost SEO.
If you want to include images, make sure they are not too large, as this can mess with website loading speeds. This is how you piece your digital marketing puzzle together, to get you more water damage leads.
Now for the next piece, we need to start building traffic to the clean website you just made.
5. Create A Strong Social Media Presence
With the average person spending 145 minutes per day on social media (or about 2.5 hours), it’s a no-brainer for a local business to launch a content strategy. Building a social media presence is a long-term play. It requires 2 key elements: consistency and providing value.
So how do you execute a strong social media strategy that generates more water-damage leads?
Pick One Platform
These are the main platforms you can choose from to market your water damage restoration business. If you’re unsure of which one to pick, study your competitors. Go on each platform and look at what the other water damage restoration businesses are doing.
You’ll want to look for signs of life. If you notice you can’t find much, skip that platform and move on to the next. My personal recommendation would be TikTok or Youtube.
This is because the best way to make lots of money with any business is building a personal brand, something your leads will trust. The best way to do that is through video content, which is a longer process but will pay large dividends in the long term.
But what will you actually post?
Content Creation
The best way to book more water damage jobs using social media is through providing valuable content. What makes a piece of content valuable?
It has to cover 3 things:
1. Answer a question someone has, aka provide knowledge
2. Has to be delivered in an easy-to-understand way
3. Entertaining
As an expert in water damage restoration, you have the answers that most people may not have. This is what you make your content around. Document a day in the life, respond to questions people leave in the comments, create tutorials, etc.
Start by uploading a couple of times a week and see how long it takes to record and edit the videos. You may not see instant success, but if you stick with it for long enough, you’ll end up building a lead generation machine that is a cheat code to grow your water damage business.
If you feel stuck, read the article I wrote on Content Marketing For Electricians, which is a similar industry to water damage restoration and can provide some guidance on where to start.
Here are some ideas to help with the brainstorm process:
Topics
Lists
Steps
Stories
Reward
There are multiple industries parallel to water damage restoration that can be a great source of leads. It’s time to start networking.
6. Connect With Plumbers: How To Network To Get Water Damage Leads
Connecting with like-minded business owners is not much different from doing cold outreach to find leads. Plumbers in particular can be an amazing source of jobs when you follow this strategy.
This is because plumbers go hand in hand with water damage restoration companies.
Many people that may have water damage will call a plumber first and people that have a plumbing problem may call you first.
This creates an amazing opportunity to connect with local plumbing business owners and negotiate a referral deal that gets both of you more deals. Here’s how to connect with plumbers to get more water-damage leads:
Be Professional
Consider having a website with reviews, business cards, a company name, a logo, as well as a branded van. The more established you can make yourself seem, the better your chances of securing a good deal with another plumbing company. Plumbers will be more reluctant to work with you if it seems like you don’t know what you’re doing.
Craft Your Offer
In the same way you offer your services to your customers, you must create an incentive for plumbers to refer you to jobs. Whether this be $100 cash for every referral or a deal where you refer them to clients, the point is to create a chain of reciprocation. So whenever a plumber has a lead that needs water damage restoration, they automatically think of you and are inclined to refer the lead.
This is where building a strong brand is important and crafting an amazing offer they can’t say no to. Check out this free resource that outlines how to build a strong offer: Offer Creation
But where do you find the actual plumbers you want to connect with?
Find Plumbers On These Websites
Go to The Plumbing Zone which is a forum for plumbers and see if anyone needs a referral partner. Also, join Facebook plumbing groups and look for the same thing, promoting your offer and introducing yourself.
Visit these Reddit communities to find even more plumbers!
These are also great opportunities to ask questions and see what plumbers want. This kind of research/outreach can help tweak the offer you made above and increase your chances of landing a referral partner. Ok, these are great but they are all online. How do you find local plumbers to work with?
Cold Emails
You can buy a list of leads from platforms like Apollo.io and filter them by location (simply target the city you are in to reach local plumbers).
Before you launch your email campaign, you need to make sure your emails don’t end up in spam. To check deliverability, use this tool. If for whatever reason your emails go to spam, consider buying a burner domain (around $6 per month) for the sole purpose of sending emails. You can do that with Squarespace.
Use Instantly.ai to launch an automated cold email campaign using this script:
Subject line: invite for (first name)
Hey (first name),
This is (your name) with (your company name).
I checked out (their company name) on Google and it looks like business is booming!
I run a water damage restoration company in (your city name) and wanted to see if you’d like to partner up and (insert your incentivized offer here).
If you’re open to that idea, just reply with “Yes” to this email or give me a quick call.
Thanks,
(your signature with email, phone number, and physical business address)
P.S. I have a few clients that may need a plumber at the moment
Follow up with them over the course of a couple of weeks, simply asking if they saw your first email. Next up is one of my favorite methods.
Using the content creation ideas above, mixed with the offer you created, start posting content on LinkedIn. Start connecting with plumbers and beginning chats about the struggles of running a handyman business and anything else that comes to mind, but make sure it sounds natural.
Be interested in them and hear what they are struggling with. Build a genuine connection. Promote your referral offer and give away value for free (see what makes something valuable in step 5).
The next way you can connect with plumbers to get more water damage leads is a grueling process but one of the quickest ways to see results.
Cold Calls
Use Google search or find the phone numbers of plumbing business owners from the list you bought for the cold emails. Simply dial each one, introduce yourself, and pitch your offer. Be down to earth and don’t sound salesy.
Remember you want a partnership that actually helps both you and your partner. I can’t give you a script for this as you’ll have to adjust your answers, pitch, and tone of voice depending on what the guy on the other end of the line says.
Once again the goal is consistency, expect to be rejected a lot. If you have tough skin, this can be a great way to find a plumber that refers you to more water-damage jobs.
So now that you know how to build a referral network with plumbers, let’s talk about how to do this with your clients. Wouldn’t it be great if your clients made you money?
7. How To Build A Strong Client Referral Program
This is a strategy that will make your clients refer you leads. It is similar to the previous step, with one obvious difference. The offer you must create must be tailored towards your clients, not other business owners.
So how do you build a water damage referral program?
1. Create an offer for your clients
2. Advertise your offer:
The great thing about creating offers in any pillar of your business is that the principles remain the same. This means that you will need to provide some form of value to the client that refers their friend.
Remember, value is created when pain is alleviated.
If you can save someone time or money, they will reimburse you for that. In this case, we don’t need to overcomplicate it. You can give away a gift card, a cash prize, or a discount for the next time you do a job for them.
There is one nuance that needs to be mentioned here. The best way to ensure that a client refers a friend is by going above and beyond when completing a job. Make them feel special and they’ll refer you to everyone, without an offer.
Now if we add a cherry on top such as a gift card from their favorite coffee shop, it almost guarantees a referral. Consider creating a gift card from your company. Determine how much you want this card to be worth, except it can only be used by a client to book a job with you.
Now, add an expiration date and tell your client “Here is a free gift card worth $X amount. If you give it to a friend within “x” amount of time, they can use it.” Ask them “Who do you know that would be interested in getting a free gift card worth $X?”.
Since you’re doing this in person, try to get the phone number of their buddy right then and there.An offer like this positions your gift card as immensely valuable since in the head of the client, you are giving away free money essentially. You also build urgency since there is an expiration date.
Although the job you do will be discounted, it’s better than no jobs. You can also charge for the gift card, depending on how slim your profit margins are. Now that you have some idea of what to offer, what are some ways you can advertise it?
Advertising Your Referral Program
To advertise the offer you just made you can do a handful of activities. For starters, simply add a “Referral Program” page on your website. This page will contain all the contents of your offer and how a client can be a part of it. Make it easy for them to refer a friend and get the gift card or cash prize.
You can also start an SMS and/or email campaign to a list of past clients telling them about your offer. To do this, see Step 3 above, which follows the same principles.
Last but not least, you can simply advertise your offer in person, after the job is completed. Remember, the best way to guarantee referrals for your water damage restoration business is to make your clients feel special by giving an outstanding service.
Be early, do your job quickly without sacrificing quality, throw in an extra bonus, or do anything that will make the client remember you (in a positive light of course). Well, it looks like we covered everything except for one last way to get more water damage leads.
Saving the best for last, you can run paid ads.
8. Paid Advertising: How To Get Water Damage Restoration Ads
Running paid ads can be a game changer for any local business looking to grow their call volume. With so much information and controversy around paid ads, where should you start?
Let’s start at the top, with a quick breakdown of each platform.
Facebook/Instagram (Meta)
The holy grail of paid advertising, Facebook or Meta (if you’re including Instagram) is a great platform for local businesses with a budget of between $500 — $5,000 per month to start getting leads.
The reason I bunch Facebook and Instagram together is because they are both under one company called Meta. When setting up a Facebook campaign, there will be an option to run the same ads on Instagram at the same time.
The price of your ads will depend on the location you are in as well as how good your targeting is. While their interface is not the most beginner-friendly, there is a plethora of YouTube tutorials outlining how to run Facebook ads for local businesses.
Here are some great videos for you to learn from:
This is an option you’ll want to consider if you’re new to running ads and want a solid starting point.
TikTok
A much newer platform, TikTok has one of the best algorithms out of any social media.
This means that you won’t have to do as much targeting on the back end when setting up your campaign, but you’ll have to test many more creatives (specifically videos) to get leads.
TikToks ad costs are said to be lower according to Lebesgue.io, but this once again heavily depends on niche, location, and creative performance. The easier the algorithm can identify who you want the video shown to, the lower your ad costs should be.
This means creating videos with great hooks, shouting out your audience, having a strong offer, and a clear CTA. TikTok has a much more user-friendly interface, so consider this as an option if you’re ready to make some fun and creative videos to generate water damage leads.
This option is for the advanced business owner. Done correctly, Google can completely replace every advertising channel in your business. According to Demandsage, 63% of consumers would click a Google ad over any other type of paid advertisement.
This makes Google a potent weapon for blowing past your competitors and generating massive amounts of water damage leads. To properly conduct a successful Google Ads campaign, you’ll need to understand:
Google also has the second highest ad cost, only beaten by LinkedIn. If the sound of having to study these topics and spend large sums of money intimidates you, don’t worry, there is a solution.
Pay-Per-Call For Water Damage
If you’d like to skip the learning curve for Google ads and see success without the risk of burning capital, I recommend pay-per-call advertising.
This strategy uses Google ads to get you phone calls, except you outsource the work to a well-established and trustworthy agency.
The best part about this method is that you only pay per call.
With platforms like Facebook or TikTok, the algorithm spends your money trying to find people interested by placing your ad in front of them. With Google ads, specifically pay-per-call, you are only charged when a lead calls your phone.
The buying intent is much higher since a lead is actively looking for a solution where a Facebook ad, for example, interrupts their scrolling session. The only work required from you is picking a good agency to partner with and picking up the phone when leads call.
ResultCalls has a proven track record of generating over 250,000 calls for 2,000+ local service-based businesses with pay-per-call advertising.
After you’ve selected which platform you want to advertise on, it’s time to design the ads.
The Anatomy of a Great Ad
The question most people have trouble answering. How do you make a good ad? An ad that makes you lots of money needs to have 3 key elements:
1. Strong Offer
2. Scroll-stopping creative
3. Clear and simple CTA
Let’s break each element down.
Strong Offer
I hope you’re seeing a pattern with the offers. You need it for referrals, you need it for emails, and you definitely need it for the ads you run. Here is the value equation from Alex Hormozi’s $100M Offers book that summarizes strong offers perfectly:
As you can see, we need to increase the dream outcome and the perceived likelihood of achievement. We need to decrease the time it takes to deliver the solution as well as decrease the effort and sacrifice the client puts in.
So how should this be done for a water damage restoration business? Well for starters, you can add a time-sensitive guarantee.
If you don’t arrive within a certain time period, you give them something in return for being late. Or you can increase the perceived likelihood of achievement by running testimonial ads.
Try to get a past client who was very happy with your work to record a video praising your company. That’s an ad right there. Get creative and play around with the different aspects of the formula above. Decrease the time it takes for you to get mold off someone’s shower, make it guaranteed, and you won’t have an issue getting water damage leads ever again.
Scroll Stopping Creatives
Humans are emotional creatures. You only need to evoke any one of the following emotions for someone to stop scrolling and pay attention to your ad:
etc.
To evoke any of these emotions you’ll need a visual stimulus, an auditory stimulus, or both. Both are better.
Visual stimuli come down to video creation, photo creation, or copywriting that evokes the emotion you want to play on. Auditory stimuli may be a voice-over, music, or any sound in the ad.
If you’re running image ads, your copywriting has to be great and if you’re running video ads, your editing has to be great. Check the ad library of the platform you choose, and look for inspiration based on the industry you’re in.
For example, Facebook Ad Library is a collection of every single ad that is running on the platform. All you have to do is search your keyword and look for inspiration. Usually, the longer an ad has been running, the more successful it is. Check the dates.
Here’s an example of a search:
Here are some further core principles to follow when making ad creatives:
1. The more simple and easy to understand the visual is, the better. Do not confuse people.
2. The offer should be stated in bold letters either on the creative or above it, where the copy is.
3. The hook is the most important, in the copy and in the video, to get someone to stop scrolling. The hook is the first 3 seconds of the video or the first sentence in the copy.
4. Test everything, always. Creatives fatigue over time so never stop coming up with new angles and ways to present/phrase your offer.
Making Clear and Simple CTA’s
Remember this rhyme:
Keep it simple, keep it short, get to the point.
Click here to potentially double your call volume. That’s an example of a CTA. It can be even shorter if you’ve already mentioned your offer.
Here’s how the ad should look after everything is pieced together:
So that’s paid ads in a nutshell.
Now it’s time to take some action!
9. Five Action Steps To Get More Water Damage Leads
SEO Audit
Assuming you have your website up and running and you have followed the rules outlined in step 4, you need to make sure everything is optimized correctly. To check how fast your loading speed is, use Google Page Insights. Fix anything that may be broken.
Next, open Chat-GPT. Copy and paste this template to run a keyword check on your website:
I run a water damage restoration business and want to make sure my website has the correct SEO keywords and phrases that will attract organic traffic. I need more leads, please review my website copy and give feedback on what to change, add, or remove. Tell me exactly what is wrong with the copy of my website and give clear steps to fix it, so that I may get more leads through organic Google searches. Here is my website copy for my home page:
Copy and paste headline/main offer here
Copy and paste other info on your homepage here
You’ll want to run through every page on your website using this template, simply tell the AI what page it needs to audit and copy & paste the text.
Post Five Pieces of Content This Week
Using the strategy outlined in step 5, begin building your personal brand. Pick a platform, use one of the templates/ideas provided in step 5, and post five times this week.
Don’t expect much at first, but understand that the current and future currency of advertising is attention. The local businesses that will succeed in the coming decade will be the ones that adapt to this attention economy of online advertising.
The best time to start a content strategy to get water damage leads was yesterday, the second best time is today.
Study Paid Ads
Even if you are not planning on launching paid ads to get water damage leads at the moment, it always helps to have basic marketing knowledge. Use these resources to study the in’s and out’s of paid advertising and water damage lead generation:
15 Ideas For Local Business Advertising
How To Advertise Your Local Business On Facebook
How To Create Local Service Ads
Run a Database Reactivation Campaign
Similar to a Google review campaign, this strategy takes your list of past clients and promotes a seasonal offer through email and SMS.
The steps are:
You can do the same strategy but optimized for Google reviews, as shown in step 3 of this ultimate guide for generating water damage leads. Always be in the process of building up your email list, as you can run these campaigns once every 6 months, which can help boost revenue during slow months.
After a job, ask clients for their email and phone number if possible.
Partner With a Pay-Per-Call Agency
Finding an agency that delivers high-quality, exclusive water damage leads can be tough.
There’s no reason why getting phone calls to your business has to be a frustrating, time and energy-draining activity.
So what should a business owner do if they want to skip the hassle and get straight to booking dozens of new jobs a month?
ResultCalls has a proven track record of growing the call volume of over 220 water damage restoration businesses across the country.
Click here to get started for free and join the hundreds of water damage business owners using ResultCalls today!
FAQ
Q. How do I grow my water restoration business?
A. To grow your water damage restoration business, you’ll need a few things:
Q. How much are water damage leads?
A. Water damage leads can be priced anywhere between $30 to $120 depending on your location and marketing strategies.
Q. What is the best water damage marketing?
A. The best marketing for a water damage restoration business is pay per call marketing.
Pay per call marketing for a water damage business is when a lead does a Google search, calls your business, and you are charged for each phone call.
It’s a way to speak to dozens of leads every week without the headache of SEO, paid ads, or relying on word of mouth.
ResultCalls is a pay per call agency that has generated over 250,000 phone calls for small businesses across the country. Sign up for free here.
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 :)
