Standing out from competitors and generating new leads can be challenging for any business, especially those just starting out with either business ownership or marketing and advertising. Luckily, several simple, beginner-friendly ways exist to begin promoting your business and generating more leads.

We recommend starting to implement pool service advertising ideas with your existing clients, providing excellent customer service, and making it easy (and attractive) for them to recommend your business to others.

Start with generating referrals! Loyal customers who are happy with your services will likely recommend you to others. These tend to be repeat customers who are essential for business growth. One of the best strategies for generating referrals is to keep repeat customers happy.

Provide Excellent Customer Service

The best way to keep your customers happy is to provide a great experience every time they do business with you. Repeat customers tend to spend more than new customers and are likely to send referrals your way. Here are a few ways to show your loyal customers that they are valued:

• Get to know your clients and take notes about them in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, so all employees can access their information to provide the best service possible.
• Share your quality guarantee with them so they know what to expect from you.
• Be communicative: remind them of upcoming appointments, send “on-my-way” texts, and follow up after appointments.
• Use surveys and reviews to find out what your customers think about you. Ask for testimonials from happy reviewers and note where you can improve.
• Share educational resources that help your customers get the most out of their pool or spa.

Offer a Referral Program

Word-of-mouth marketing is highly effective and budget-friendly, so it’s a great place to start if you’re new to advertising. Setting up a referral program encouraging current customers to recommend you to friends and family is easier than you think:

1. Offer an incentive to say “thank you” to clients who send business your way. This could be a free service or a month’s supply of chemicals. Whatever you feel your business can afford will be appreciated.
2. When clients are happy with a service or leave a positive review, follow up and ask for referrals — train service technicians to do this on-site.
3. RB’s pool and spa business software allows you to track how customers heard about your business through the CRM, so you can track referrals and resulting discounts.
4. Keep up the momentum by promoting the referral program in emails and other communications to your current customer base.

Traditional Pool Service Advertising Ideas

We’ll start with a few traditional ideas that we recommend beginners become comfortable with when generating pool service advertising ideas.

Branding

Branding involves creating a recognizable identity for your brand. This involves not only a logo, font styles and colors, and voice & tone, but also the story behind your brand that makes you unique among competitors. Branding helps you stand out and helps customers remember you and your reputation.

Flyers & Direct Mail Advertising

Flyers and direct mail are relatively inexpensive and very effective at reaching a lot of people quickly. In today’s digital era, you may wonder if these methods still deliver results. Luckily, they do! The response to direct mailing — the most common and effective way of distributing flyers — is overwhelmingly positive. Here are the most salient statistics:

• 70% of consumers prefer to get printed marketing  through the mail because it feels more personal than email or online advertising.
• 62% of people who acted on the marketing they received through a mail drop went on to buy something from the company.
• 39% of consumers tried a new product or service because they were introduced to the company via a direct mail campaign — either from a brochure, a sales letter, or a leaflet.

Train your staff to ask how a new customer heard about your business so you can evaluate the effectiveness of print advertising. Don’t forget that design and content impact results, so test different versions against each other. Once you feel like you’ve landed on the right version, use what you’ve learned to expand into higher-investment pool service advertising ideas like billboards and local magazines.

Local Reputation Building

Attending local networking events and joining local business associations can help you build your reputation and promote your business while getting to know other like-minded entrepreneurs. Connect with others in your industry, especially those that offer services you don’t, so you can refer business to each other.

Digital advertising has become pivotal for helping companies grow, offering opportunities for smaller businesses to compete more effectively against larger companies. With digital marketing, you can track campaign performance to learn more about what customers respond to and where your advertising dollars are best spent. Here are a few statistics that show how important digital marketing has become:

• Email marketing has the best average ROI at 3,600%
• SEO marketing has an average ROI ratio of 22:1, equating to 2,200%
• Marketers who regularly calculate their ROI are 1.6 times more likely to secure budget increases for their marketing activities.

Below are a few of the best places for beginners to start with digital pool service advertising.

Company Website

If you’ve never built a website, don’t be intimidated. There are many tools to choose from, like Squarespace and WordPress, that make the process simple and beginner-friendly. Choose a clean design that makes it easy for customers to find important information about your business. In addition to the basics (logo and name of the business, address, and contact information), add clear descriptions of what you do and what each service involves. Include imagery (especially before-and-afters) and client testimonials.

Automation and AI are also becoming easier to add to websites, so consider adding a chatbot or self-service tool to make it easier for customers to get the help they need. RB’s software can also integrate with your website so customers can pay bills and purchase supplies online, a convenience today’s consumer has come to expect.

Business Profiles

It may be a good idea to set up a profile on Yelp, Google My Business, and Facebook Business. Find out if any local websites include business listings where you could be added. These listings make it easier for prospects to find your business, whether they’re searching for you specifically or a business like yours.

Content Marketing

Content marketing focuses on providing your audience with relevant and valuable content that helps them solve a problem, answer a question, or learn more about a topic. Content marketing builds your reputation as an expert in the industry with the ultimate goal of encouraging prospects to hire you.

Start with short but informative social media posts asking viewers to comment and ask questions, and add a blog to your website. If you don’t have a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page on your website, poll your customer service-facing staff to compile a list and post it. Create a YouTube channel with content you think would be valuable to local pool and spa owners. You could show dramatic before-and-afters, share educational info, answer common questions, provide pool care tips, and more.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is another inexpensive but effective tactic that allows you to send personalized messages that help you build better relationships with your customers and provide them with more value. Consider sending a weekly or monthly newsletter with new pool and spa-related educational content, reminders about sales and other discounts, promotions for your referral program, and positive customer stories and testimonials.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

PPC ads are displayed in search engine results above organic (or non-paid) results, allowing you to earn more leads. With PPC, you can closely control the budget and the campaign, and it’s easy to make quick changes to test new ads. Pay-per-click ads allow you to bid on specific keywords or phrases, like “pool service in Orange County,” so your ad appears as a top result when users search for them. You can target specific locations, demographics, interests, and more to maximize results—making it one of the most customizable pool service advertising ideas.

How Profitable is the Pool Business

When you’re thinking about the amount of work you need to put into pool service advertising ideas, you may wonder what the return on investment may look like. The revenue potential of a swimming pool cleaning business hinges on various factors such as customer volume, service pricing, and frequency of services rendered. Cleaning 15 pools daily over a five-day week at a standard charge of $80 garners a monthly revenue around $24,000 (though this figure varies.) Comprehensive data from reliable sources like StartingYourBusiness.com, SpringBoard, and the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICSTD) outline anticipated annual revenue benchmarks for pool cleaning businesses:

– Minimum: $57,000
– Maximum: $124,800
– Average: $75,000

Profitability in this sector fluctuates based on influences like business scale, geographical positioning, and the spectrum of services provided. GoCanvas, ICSTD, and BizBuySell have projected the following profit margin approximations for the pool cleaning industry:

– Minimum: 15%
– Maximum: 42%
– Average: 40%

These estimations can help you get a foundational understanding of what’s possible in the operation of a swimming pool cleaning business.

Marketing Your Business is Easier with RB

Meticulously crafted by seasoned industry experts boasting decades of experience, our software is the result of close partnerships with our valued customers. Our unwavering commitment is to deliver software that not only meets but surpasses our clients’ expectations. By embracing our tailor-made pool and spa business software, you can expect to not only recoup your investment on pool service advertising, but also save valuable time and resources. View a Demo now to see how it works!