Growing an electrical company with pinpoint advertising is critical for expanding your footprint and winning customers. Everyone needs an electrician, but too many entrepreneurs fail to exploit the marketing channels available to them.
Gone are the days when you could publish an ad in the local newspaper or the community noticeboard and hope for the best. Word-of-mouth marketing is still as powerful as it’s always been, but you can’t rely on this alone.
Instead, you’ve got to get online with an electrician advertising plan that targets customers on their laptops, smartphones, and tablets. Approximately 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine, so your number one marketing strategy is to get online.
In this guide, we’ll discuss eight ways to drive traffic to your business, generate leads, and ultimately power up your electrician business. Here’s what you must know about electrician digital marketing.
1. Build a Conversion-Driven Electrician Website
Do you have a website? If not, you don’t exist. The startling fact is that even in 2024, 27% of U.S. SMEs don’t have a website.
Your website is your digital storefront, and without it, you’ve got little chance of people finding you. Most journeys begin with a Google search and then clicking on a local business website, and the same goes for the electrical industry.
Your website is where most people will find you, with 63% of consumers looking up local businesses online. If you’ve been putting it off because of cost, time, or expertise, now is the time to build a website that outlines who you are, what stands out about your business, and the services you provide.
But what makes a high-conversion website? A professional website is:
Attractive and easy on the eye.
Functional
Useful
Stable
If your website misses out on any of these things, potential clients will click away. More importantly, if your site isn’t optimized, Google won’t rank you high enough to be found in the first place. We recommend hiring a developer with a robust track record of building websites for electricians to ensure that you not only have a website but that it’s designed for high-performance electrician advertising.
Here’s what a web developer can do for your website:
Create a well-designed website that’s easy to use.
Optimize your website to work equally well on both desktop and mobile devices.
Provide a place where you can post quality content that provides value.
Showcase the essentials of your business, such as how to get in touch and where you’re located.
Enable clear calls to action across every page.
Before you start with your electrical marketing plan, build your website. Start simple and then gradually expand it later.
Comrade Digital Marketing Agency can help you with the above if you’re unsure how to go about it. Schedule a free consultation.
2. Invest in Electrician SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is optimizing your website for search engines. The better your SEO, the higher you’ll rank when someone types in a specific keyword or phrase. Remember, you’re competing with every other electrician in your area. If you can’t make the top five on Google, you have little to no chance of getting any traffic or leads. Just the top three results alone get 54.4% of all the clicks.
It takes time to see results from an SEO campaign, but it’s the number-one way of generating organic traffic. The work you do today on SEO will pay dividends for years to come as long as you follow the rules and don’t try to take shortcuts.
How does SEO work?
In a nutshell, Google relies on its search algorithms to rank websites for specific keywords and phrases. The algorithm is based on what Google thinks will provide the most value, and the search engine uses more than 200 ranking factors to do this in real-time.
Obviously, you want to be number one because this position gains most of the traffic, so SEO is ranked as one of the best electrical contractor marketing ideas. SEO is a vast subject, but there are four areas to focus on:
On-Page SEO – Optimizing your web pages by incorporating target keywords and phrases you want to rank for.
Off-Page SEO – Working on other websites by getting backlinks and mentions. Off-page SEO also includes your social media presence.
Technical SEO – Fulfilling the technical requirements of search engines, such as ensuring your site loads quickly and every page works.
Local SEO – As an electrician, local SEO is critical because this is where most of your business comes from. Local SEO focuses on ranking for location-based keywords, such as “electrician in Kansas City.”
Typically, any SEO campaign begins with technical SEO because these issues undermine anything else you do. Moreover, technical SEO is the easiest issue to resolve, and you’ll see immediate results from doing so.
Many electricians hire SEO experts to handle each of these four broad areas but remember that publishing new content and driving traffic can take months. Whatever anyone tells you, there are no shortcuts to climbing Google’s search engine rankings.
Let’s start with some of the things you can do right now to address SEO.
2.1 Publish Engaging Electrician Content
Google wants your site to provide value, and there’s no better way to do this than to publish useful content. Content marketing is a way to answer user queries and demonstrate your authority.
Examples of issues you could address include:
When to call an electrician.
What does an electrician do?
What are the most popular services electricians provide?
You can also dig into niche areas. For example, perhaps you’re an expert in designing and installing LED systems, installing smart devices, or modernizing legacy electrical circuits. Lots of properly optimized content over time continually boosts your SEO.
What matters is that you focus on the things you’re great at to emphasize the fact that you’re the best expert on a particular subject.
2.2 Fix Your Page Speed
Page speeds are essential to ranking because Google won’t tolerate slow-loading websites. Remember, since 61% of online visits come from mobile, Google uses your mobile site when ranking websites.
What’s considered a slow-loading website?
Anything over two seconds will adversely impact your rankings. If you’re unsure about your site, check out the free PageSpeed Insights tool and speed-test it.
2.3 Obtain an SSL Certificate
Look at the address bar right now, and you’ll see that the webpage you’re currently on begins with “https,” which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. It’s a protocol protecting data moving between your computer and the site.
HTTPS has been a ranking factor for many years because it shows that a site is trustworthy. Install an SSL certificate to protect your website from cyber attackers and reassure your customers (and Google) that your site is safe.
Don’t worry if you’re not up on the technology because SSL certificates can be generated for free online, with countless providers offering them.
3. Focus On Local Advertising for Your Electrician Business
The chances are that 99% of your jobs are located within a particular city or county. Electrician businesses serve local communities across the country, meaning this is where you should be spending your advertising dollars.
Every local campaign will have different goals. Whether it’s to drive web traffic, increase sales, or use Google Local Services Ads to expand your brand awareness, choose a single goal before starting your campaign.
Remember, all successful digital marketing campaigns for local businesses rely on specific goals that can be measured to define success or failure.
For example, let’s say you want to increase sales. Instead of saying that you want to increase sales, you might say you want to grow your sales by 20% year-on-year over the next six-month period.
In the meantime, let’s concentrate on two specific areas for advertising yourself locally.
3.1 Local SEO
Local SEO is the same as ordinary SEO, but you focus on ranking for location-based keywords. These are the rankings based on geography.
For example, search for “commercial electrician in Miami” and you’ll only see electricians in that specific area. Since you’re probably serving a specific area, you’ll want to focus on your vicinity.
Areas to target with local SEO include:
Your city
Your district
Your neighborhood
Drill down as far as possible because this is where your customers will be searching. Furthermore, focusing on local SEO means less competition because you’re only competing with people in your area.
Your first step is telling Google that you’re a local business. Start by setting up your free Google Business Profile. Follow all the instructions and fill out every field thoroughly. Your listing is also where you’ll want your customers to leave reviews because positive reviews mean higher rankings.
With your Google Business Profile activated, you’ve boosted your local visibility. Build on this by getting your business listed in other web directories, like:
Apple Maps
LinkedIn Company Directory
Yelp
Facebook
Bing
Like the Google Business Profile, Google also scans these other directories. Additionally, it’s an easy way of getting some backlinks before you really start to ramp things up.
3.2 Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Campaigns
Local SEO is free, but PPC campaigns allow you to wield your marketing dollars to start advertising to your target market immediately. Rather than worrying about SEO, PPC advertising puts your business front and center for specific keywords.
Essentially, PPC means you’re bidding on ad space on search engines and social media platforms. Win the bid, and your ad will appear first. The more competitive the keyword, the more it will cost.
What does an electrician PPC campaign consist of?
Clear goals
Keyword research
Compelling ads
Performance management
Ad optimization
PPC is highly successful, but remember that you can’t just “set it and forget it,” or you’ll waste your money. There’s a learning curve, but that’s why electricians often outsource this function to PPC experts.
Let’s get real. How much of a return can you expect from these targeted ad campaigns? Your mileage will vary, but one study found that the laser-targeted nature of PPC means ROIs average 200%, with some brands seeing much higher returns.
It must be noted that every platform has its way of doing things, so familiarize yourself with how each platform’s PPC works before spending any money. For example, Google Local Service Ads work like this:
Choose your keywords.
Create an eye-catching ad.
Set a spending limit for your PPC campaign.
Use monitoring tools to watch how your ads perform.
A/B test different Google ads until you find a profitable one.
It’s also worth mentioning that there are different types of PPC ads you can invest in, such as display, social media, and search advertising. Plus, there’s remarketing and sequential remarketing, but it’s best to start with basic PPC before getting into the weeds of more sophisticated forms of electrician marketing.
Due to the complex and time-consuming nature of PPC ads and the extreme competitiveness of the market, we recommend running them with the support of a professional electrician PPC ad agency to bring you the high return on investment you can expect.
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4. Create Engaging Content Marketing Campaigns
Content marketing is an opportunity to generate value for your target audience, which benefits you in search engine rankings, increases your authority, and generates leads. Approximately 90% of all companies create content for this purpose, but few succeed in getting the results they want.
Ask yourself the following questions when considering whether your electrician content is likely to succeed:
Does it solve a problem?
Does it appeal to their emotions?
Is it engaging enough to read?
Is it better than what my competitors are doing?
Ultimately, content is there to deliver value, and if another electrician in your area has done it better, that’s who your prospective client will hire. However, the issue is usually not about the content quality but about providing the content your audience wants.
4.1 Perform Keyword Research
Keywords provide insights into what your audience is looking for. If there’s a high volume of search queries for choosing the best LED lights for your home, this tells you that this would be something to write a guide on.
It’s about finding out what questions your audience is asking and then providing answers.
4.2 Hang Out With Your Audience
Connect with your audience to find out what they want to know. For example, join local community groups, browse electrician forums, and keep tabs on different social media channels. The more you hang out with your target audience, the more you learn about them.
On a side note, it’s also an opportunity to provide free advice and become a trustworthy source of information.
5. Plan an Electrician Email Marketing Campaign
Email marketing is one of the oldest types of online marketing for a reason. ROIs are as high as 4400% because it costs practically nothing to run and nurtures leads by the thousand.
Despite that, newsletter marketing has changed. Mass mailing campaigns aren’t as effective as they once were because the average consumer expects an experience that reflects them. Thankfully, automation tools allow you to segment and create content for groups based on their behaviors.
Remember, email marketing is so effective because someone has consented to allow you into their inbox. Most of us check our inboxes daily, meaning it’s the fastest way into someone’s orbit.
Here’s why you should be building up your newsletter list now:
It’s the cheapest form of advertising there is.
The results are highly measurable.
Form personal relationships with prospective and existing clients.
Expand your customer outreach.
Take advantage of upsell/cross-sell opportunities.
Increase your brand awareness.
Own your contact list.
Like any other form of content, the key to successful email marketing is to provide something of value. It could be a helpful guide, tips, or an exclusive discount on your services. Again, it’s about knowing your audience and what they want and then following through.
6. Track Your Electrician Company’s Online Reputation
Reputation takes years to build but only minutes to destroy. The benefits of having a great online reputation are obvious. By instilling customer confidence in the quality of your electrician services, you become the go-to electrician in your area.
In an online sense, reviews are the foundation of your online reputation. It’s why the most reputable companies that appear on Google all have high average review ratings and considerable numbers of reviews.
Gathering and tracking reviews is critical to managing your reputation and also learning what your customers like about your services and where you can improve, whether it’s on a website, social media platforms, or your Google Business Profile.
Follow these steps for managing and growing your electrical company’s online reputation:
Collect – Make a point of asking your customers to leave a review after every job. Explain to them why reviews are so important for your company. Create a streamlined process for leaving reviews. It could be a QR code, a message on social media with a link, or a simple email reminder. Customers won’t leave reviews if the process is awkward.
Reply – Respond to every review, whether it’s positive or negative. Do it professionally and resist the urge to react emotionally. Nothing good happens from biting back, even if you’re justified.
Follow – Make a list of all of the platforms your company is present on, and then create a schedule for checking each of them out regularly.
Improve – Read through your reviews and look for any issues that customers consistently highlight. Constant improvement isn’t just good for marketing but it’s also good for business.
Strong reviews are one of the influential ranking factors. Invest in gathering them and go the extra mile to ensure you provide the best possible electrical services in your area.
7. Take the Time to Check Your Analytics
The world is driven by data. Every action your customer takes is an interaction that generates data you can use later on to continually refine your sales process.
Data takes the guesswork out of understanding what your customer wants and whether you’re meeting their expectations.
Thankfully, you don’t need to be IBM to take advantage of in-depth data analytics. Google Analytics is one of the best tools available for tracking your audience, but there are countless solutions for tracking users at every stage of the buying process. Examples of information you can track include:
Social media activity
Online behavior
Browsing patterns
Search patterns
Email open rates
Sales conversion rates
The problem for most electricians is figuring out which metrics they should be tracking and which they should be discarding. Avoid following so-called vanity metrics. For example, lots of Facebook likes might be great, but they don’t mean sales.
If you’re looking for a basic framework, let’s look at the four categories IBM uses for user tracking:
Journey – How customers arrived at your website, the devices they used, and the number of times they visited it.
Behavioral – Where did the customer get stuck? Essentially, this means when they didn’t take the action you wanted them to and clicked away.
Sentiment – Finding out how your customers feel about the experience. What are the pain points they care about, and what do they value?
Predictive – Mapping out the move your customers are likely to make next. How can you engage with new and existing customers by giving them what they need?
It’s easy to get lost in the trees with this. The best way to handle analytics is by using it as a tool to find out what your customers want and whether you’re giving them what they need.
8. Get Social With Electrician Social Media Marketing
Approximately 92% of marketers use social media as part of their online marketing strategies. It’s no secret that most people have at least one social media account, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok. With a platform for everyone, electricians can share content and build a following where their target audience hangs out.
Social media provides a platform for you to accomplish a range of goals, including increasing web traffic, generating sales, and expanding your brand awareness through actions like:
Making instantly shareable content.
Linking to your website to increase traffic.
Engaging with your customers on social media.
Joining groups to demonstrate your expertise.
Learning more about what makes your target audience tick.
The key to success on social media is investing time in the right channels. It’s always best to focus on one or two platforms instead of trying to cover four or five. Using the results of your analytics, you can discover where your audience is and what they want.
We recommend checking out the Current Electrics Facebook Page for help on how to succeed on social media. They are one of the standout electric companies on social media, and you’ll see what works by following their content. Some of the things that work include:
Promotions
Electrician tips
Reviews
How-to videos
Before/after pictures from jobs
User-generated content
Like any other form of marketing, it takes time to build up a reliable following. Test out different types of content and combine your efforts with social media ads to grow your page.
Should You Hire a Digital Marketing Company to Promote Your Business?
Every electrician knows they must wear multiple hats when running their business, but do you also want to wear an online marketing hat? If you’re already overstretched and would rather focus on your core business, hiring a digital marketing company makes sense.
Hiring a professional marketing agency leverages experience from a team that has already done it before. While no results are ever guaranteed, choosing a reputable online marketing company is a move that consistently delivers a positive ROI.
If you want to learn more about hiring a digital marketing company, call us at (312) 265-0580 or fill in our contact form below.
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Grow Your Business With a Digital Marketing Agency Today
Anyone running an electrician business in 2024 must have an online presence to grow their business. Break through the glass ceiling by outsourcing your marketing needs to an electrician marketing agency that enables you to outperform your local electricians with proven, cutting-edge marketing strategies.
If you’re searching for a company that can manage everything from building a website to managing your social media accounts, contact Comrade Digital Marketing for your free consultation now.
Electrician Advertising FAQs
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How do I advertise myself as an electrician?
Advertising yourself as an electrician can happen on social media through investing in your SEO or investing in paid advertising. As a local business, you gain the biggest results through investing in local SEO by choosing location-related keywords, claiming your Google Business Profile, and building up your bank of positive reviews.
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Where do electricians advertise?
Electricians can advertise just about anywhere. Customers can be found through Google searches, social media platforms, and local publications. You must discover where your audience is and target them there. We recommend focusing on a smaller number of platforms to concentrate your marketing efforts and increase your chances of connecting with your target audience.
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Do I need online marketing to grow my electrical business?
Online marketing is crucial to growing your business because online is where most people find electricians for the first time. It’s a source for tens of thousands of potential customers in your area and is limitlessly scalable. Hiring an electrician marketing agency is the best way to get instant access to a marketing expert who can attract new customers and grow your sales.
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How do I do electrician SEO?
Electrician SEO is a combination of on-page, off-page, technical, and local SEO. Optimizing your content and creating a search engine-friendly website are the foundations of good SEO, as well as a good dose of patience.
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What type of electrician content can I create?
All electrician content should be relevant to your target audience. Great content identifies an issue someone has and then solves it. Building out relevant content in mediums like blogs, infographics, how-to guides, eBooks, and videos are the best types of content for tackling your audience’s needs.
