Marketing
Leads are not the number. Booked jobs are.
Digital marketing for contractors — Google Business Profile, reviews, ads and landing pages — run by the same system that answers your phone, and measured against what a booked job costs.
The order that works
Four levers, and most shops pull them in the wrong order.
Almost every home service business we audit is spending on the fourth before the first is finished — which is the most expensive sequence available.
01
Google Business Profile
Where nearly all urgent local intent lands, because 'plumber near me' at 6am resolves in the map and not the blue links. Categories, services, service areas, hours and photos — plus the fields most profiles leave empty that quietly cost ranking.
02
Reviews, weighted for recency
A shop with 80 reviews averaging 4.8 loses to one with 45 from the last ninety days. Recency is weighted heavily and it is the metric owners most often ignore, because the total already looks respectable.
03
Pages for what you actually do
One page per service and per area you genuinely cover, each with real detail. Done properly this captures the long tail. Done as a template with the town name swapped, the whole set gets ignored.
04
Ads, against a kill number
Paid search and Meta, built and run with a cost per booked job you set in advance. When a campaign passes it, it gets turned off rather than explained.
What most agencies miss
Demand does not arrive the same way in every trade.
A flat monthly plan spread evenly across the year underperforms in every one of these, because none of them has evenly distributed demand.
- HVACHVAC marketing that runs on the weather, not on a content calendar.Most agencies bill HVAC shops the same in April as they do in July. Demand does not work that way, and neither should the spend.
- PlumbingPlumbing marketing built around the emergency call.Almost all the profitable demand in plumbing is someone with a problem right now, searching on a phone, choosing from the map. That is a narrower target than most agencies aim at.
- ElectricalElectrician marketing for both books of work.Service calls come from the map. Project work comes from relationships and reputation. Most agencies only know how to chase the first.
- RoofingRoofing marketing that is ready before the storm, not after it.The shops that win a hail event had their profile, reviews and campaigns in place the week before. Reacting afterwards means arriving third.
- LandscapingLandscaping marketing aimed at the contract, not the cut.A one-off job is worth a few hundred dollars. A maintenance contract is worth thirty weeks. They cost about the same to acquire, and most marketing chases the wrong one.
- RestorationRestoration marketing runs on referrals first and search second.Most agencies sell restoration companies the consumer funnel and ignore the plumbers, adjusters and property managers who send the majority of the work.
Start here
The audit tells you whether you need this at all.
It grades your listing, your ranking, your reviews against the shops beating you, and what the AI assistants say when a homeowner asks who to call in your area. If it says your marketing is fine and your problem is answering the phone, it will say that.
Questions people actually ask
What does marketing for a home service business actually involve?
- Four things, in this order of impact: a complete and current Google Business Profile, a steady flow of recent reviews, landing pages for the services and areas you actually cover, and paid ads to fill the gaps while the first three compound. Anything else is usually decoration.
How is this measured?
- Against cost per booked job, not impressions, clicks or leads. A lead that never becomes a job is a cost, and reporting that stops at lead volume hides exactly the thing you need to see. Because the same system answers your phone, the booking is visible end to end.
How long before marketing shows up in the phone ringing?
- Google Business Profile work and review recency usually move local ranking within a few weeks. Landing pages and organic search take roughly a quarter to compound. Paid ads produce calls immediately but cost the most per job, which is why they are the first lever turned down once the others are working.
Do you send review request texts?
- Not yet. Automated review-request texting requires carrier registration (10DLC) that is still pending, so we do not sell it and you should be sceptical of anyone who does today. Review generation currently runs through compliant channels, and texting is added the day registration clears.
Can I buy marketing without the receptionist?
- The packages are cumulative, and that is deliberate rather than a sales tactic. Driving more calls into a phone that goes to voicemail is the most reliable way to waste a marketing budget, so the phone gets answered first and the pipeline gets filled second.
What makes this different from a general digital marketing agency?
- Two things. It is built for one industry, so the plan follows how demand actually arrives in that trade — HVAC spikes twice a year, roofing arrives with a storm, landscaping is decided in an eight-week spring window. And the phone and the marketing are one system, so a lead generated is a lead answered.