At Plumbing Webmasters, every new client we speak with has been screwed by a digital marketing company at some point in their careers. Unfortunately, while there are a few good digital marketing agencies for plumbers, most web companies are horrible. In today’s The Plumbing SEO podcast episode, Nolen and Jason breakdown why most agencies are B.S.
Why Plumbing Marketing Companies Are B.S.
Most marketing companies are B.S. for the same reasons. They are companies run by salespeople with no SEO knowledge who manipulate the plumber into a long-term contract. Then, once they rope in the plumbing contractor, they perform horrific SEO work and spend money on PPC.
Sales Organizations
The worst type of marketing agency is a sales organization. They are great at sales, i.e., manipulation, but horrible at digital marketing. For example, they have no clue how SEO works or why it works in the first place. Still, they use jargon to create urgency for consumers and rope them into a 12-month agreement for an obscene monthly retainer—sales works…for the salesperson.
Long-Term Agreements
The B.S. of marketing agencies is noticeable in their payment structure. If the agency charges a multi-month agreement for setup, they will probably screw you service-wise. At Plumbing Webmasters, we only charge a nominal setup fee along with month-to-month agreements, so the plumber maintains flexibility and leverage.
Unfortunately, the marketer has all the power with most agencies because of unfair long-term contracts.
Slap On Marketing
We recently did a podcast about slap-on marketing for plumbers, which details how most agencies operate. They might provide you with a WordPress theme template used by thousands of other websites. From there, they will publish spun content and throw on some subpar stock images, and claim to have optimized your website. Of course, none of this drives results for local plumbers in 2022, making it complete B.S.
Shiny Tactics
Since most internet marketing companies are sales organizations, they care more about appearance than results. Shiny features that may appear attractive don’t actually drive results. Most agencies invest in these tasks to manipulate their clients into choosing the services. A plumber doesn’t know what they don’t know, so they try to do their best.
Reporting / Liasons
SEO reports are a popular tool for sales organizations because they create a facade of progress that may or may not exist. They distribute these reports through account managers who are primarily babysitters for the agencies’ clients. They send out reports that highlight worthless metrics and throw their clients of the scent of B.S.
Non-Transparent Billing
Any kind of bundle agency will merge SEO and PPC fees together as one. This is entirely dishonest since the billing looks misleading and fails to demonstrate where your funds are allocated. Some agencies pump all your funds into PPC with Google Ads and then perform nothing on the SEO end. As a result, your organic search results are suppressed.
Bottom Line for Plumbing Contractors
Don’t fall for standard B.S. agency sales, as they will end up hurting your company. Unfortunately, most plumbing companies have already been screwed by at least one web company. However, if you learn more about the value of SEO and other digital marketing tasks, you can more easily fend off salesmanship in 2022.
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