If you own a plumbing business or are thinking of starting one, an important element to consider is your brand.
According to entrepreneur.com:
Simply put, your brand is your promise to your customer. It tells them what they can expect from your products and services, and it differentiates your offering from your competitors’. Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.
Are you the innovative maverick in your industry? Or the experienced, reliable one? Is your product the high-cost, high-quality option, or the low-cost, high-value option? You can’t be both, and you can’t be all things to all people. Who you are should be based to some extent on who your target customers want and need you to be.
When people think about the word “branding” they often think about the company’s logo, which serves as a reminder of the brand. The logo and its colors need to be integrated across all marketing channels including online and offline advertisements, promotional materials, social media profiles, and the company website. It needs to be consistent. If the primary colors of the logo are yellow and green but the primary color scheme of the website is mostly shades of purple, it doesn’t make much sense does it? This will cause brand confusion. It’s not just printed or online materials that should convey the brand. Think about what your plumbers wear to each job and what their equipment trucks or vans look like. It should be immediately recognizable which plumbing company is doing the work.
The logo itself is an important component of branding, but you need to determine what seeing that logo and color scheme will mean to your target audience. What qualities do you want them to associate with your company? You’ll need to develop a brand strategy.
Developing a brand strategy essentially means that you need to decide what you want your plumbing company to be known for and how it will stand apart from other plumbing companies in the local area. It’s important to be realistic and understand what your company is capable of. This will require an analysis of your strengths and weaknesses. In addition, you’ll want to spend some time scoping out the competition. What is their brand promise? What can you deliver that they can’t? How will you do it? A company needs to deliver on the brand promises that it makes. While it would be nice to promise everything under the sun, a one or two-person plumbing operation obviously can’t make the same promises that a larger company with more resources might be able to make. But that doesn’t mean that, as a small company, there aren’t ways to stand out.
It takes time to build a strong brand within a local community and requires an investment in marketing. When determining a brand strategy, you will need to decide where to market, how to market, and who to market to. Investing in promoting your brand is worthwhile because a strong brand equals increased sales. The best branding strategies are integrated across numerous channels, both offline and online. The reinforcement of that brand over time is a way to not only become recognizable, but also to gain trust among your target audience.
When prospective customers know your brand and understand what you have to offer, they will be more comfortable hiring you as opposed to the plumbing company that they know nothing about. Branding is a way to get your target audience to remember you and think of you first when they need to hire a plumber!
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