About
One bloke, not an agency.
Marketing for Plumbers is me, Stu Clark. I am English, I run EightySix Digital from Christchurch in New Zealand, and I work with plumbing businesses across the UK, the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. This site exists because plumbing is a trade I actually understand rather than one I looked up before the call.
Countries: the UK, the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Account managers between you and the person doing the work.
Page of reporting a month, in plain English.
I used to be on the tools
That is the whole reason this site is about plumbers and not about every trade under the sun. I know what a Monday looks like when two jobs run over and the phone keeps going. I know that the enquiry that comes in at 4pm on a Friday is worth more than the one that comes in at 10am on a Tuesday, and I know which jobs you actually want and which ones you take because the diary is thin.
It matters because most marketing aimed at trades is written by people who have never done the work. You can tell, because it talks about brand and engagement instead of who picks up the phone and whether the van can get there.
Why marketing and not websites
EightySix Digital does both, but they are genuinely different jobs and I would rather not blur them. A website build is a one off piece of work with an end date. Marketing is an ongoing thing that only makes sense if it is measured. Charging a monthly retainer and quietly spending six months of it building a site is one of the more common ways plumbers get taken for a ride.
So the builds live on a separate site, webdesignforplumbers.digital, with separate pricing. If you need both, you will get two quotes and you will be able to see exactly what each one buys.
How I work
I will not sell you an exclusive area. Plenty of agencies do, and it sounds reassuring, but there is far more plumbing work in any town than one business can take and the scarcity is mostly manufactured to close the deal. What I will do is cap how much I take on, because one person can only do so many accounts properly. If I cannot give yours the attention it needs, I will say so.
Everything goes in your name. Your Business Profile, your ad account, your tracking, your analytics. If you leave, you take all of it, and I get removed as a manager. I have seen enough plumbers held hostage by an agency that owns their ad account to think that is anything other than basic.
And the reporting is one page. Calls, forms, where they came from, what each booked job cost. If a month goes badly the report says so, which is the only way the good months mean anything.
Being English and living in New Zealand has turned out to be useful rather than odd. I understand a UK plumbing business from the inside, and I am awake and working while the UK sleeps, which means things get done overnight from your point of view. I still have not adjusted to Christmas in summer.
Stu Clark
EightySix Digital
Christchurch, New Zealand
Marketing for trades, with SEO as the main event. Ex-plumber, which is why this site is narrow rather than broad.
What you will not get
No deck, no jargon, no guaranteed leads.
I do not do discovery phases that last a month, strategy documents nobody reads, or numbers invented to make a slide look good. I also will not guarantee you a quantity of leads, because nobody can control how many cylinders burst in your suburb next month and anybody who says otherwise is selling you something.
If that sounds like less than other people are offering, it is. The difference is that all of it is real.
Including when the answer is that you should not spend the money yet.
You deal with whoever is doing the work, because they are the same person.
Tracking goes in first so the numbers cannot be dressed up later.
Other services
The rest of what moves the needle.
Most plumbers need two or three of these, not all five. I will tell you which on the first call.
Get started
Have a word before you commit to anything.
No pitch deck, no discovery phase, no account manager. Tell me where you work and what is not working, and I will tell you what I would do about it.