Water damage leads: 7 ways to win more clients

Key takeaways

• Post before and after photos on your website and social media accounts so potential water damage leads can see the quality of your work
• Respond to online customer reviews and display the best ones on your website to build trust in your services
• Partner with local businesses in fields adjacent to your own so they can send you customers who need water damage restoration

For your water damage restoration company to thrive, you’ll need to consistently bring in new local customers. And with predictions saying the restoration services market will grow by nearly 6% through 2033, there are sure to be plenty of new customers to attract. The key is to help them find your company before they find your competitors. One of the best ways to do that is to help the customers already searching for local restoration services discover your company online.

By using a few simple digital marketing strategies and some local outreach, you can generate more water damage leads to grow your business. Here are seven effective techniques for attracting customers who need your water damage restoration services.

7 free and low-cost ideas to generate more water damage leads

These seven lead generation strategies are free and low-cost options that are easy to implement on your own—and they can help you avoid paying for lead generation services with high pay-per-lead pricing.

1. Manage your online presence

According to recent market research, 76% of potential customers will look for your business’s online presence before they enlist your services. So if you don’t have a website, or your site doesn’t look professional (or function properly), your target customers are more likely to choose a competitor’s restoration services over your own.

To catch potential customers‘ attention, build a professional, easy-to-navigate website that explains your restoration company’s qualifications and areas of expertise. You can create separate landing pages for each area of expertise to attract more leads in that area. For instance, you may have one landing page dedicated to water damage restoration and another dedicated to fire damage restoration.

Your online presence shouldn’t be limited to your website. You can also create social media accounts for your small business and add your company to online business platforms like Yelp. Wherever your company is represented online, be sure to use the same company logo, typeface, and colors. Using consistent brand elements across platforms helps potential customers know they’re looking at the right company’s profile.

Business owners often don’t have the time or expertise to achieve their web design and digital marketing goals. If that sounds familiar, try enlisting outside help from a professional marketing service or a freelancer on sites like Fiverr or Upwork.

2. Take advantage of local search

Once your online presence is up and running, take advantage of local search. When homeowners in your service area type something like “water damage restoration company” into a search engine, your company should come up in their search results.

To ensure it does, use local SEO (search engine optimization) techniques. Simple tactics, like making sure your service area and the words “water damage restoration” appear on all or most of your website pages, can attract more local customers to your site, leading to more high-quality water damage leads.

3. Post before and after pictures

Restoration contractors are judged on the quality of their work. Creating a portfolio of your previous successes is a simple but effective water damage marketing strategy.

Show off your past projects by creating a high-quality image gallery on your website and filling your social media accounts with images of current and complete jobs. Make sure to take good photos of your finished product that are well lit, in focus, and high resolution.

Using “before,” “during,” and “after” photos as part of your marketing efforts will allow potential customers to see your entire process from start to finish. Plus, including side-by-side before and after pictures will show the dramatic difference your services can make.

4. Create gated content

Gated content can help you collect a potential customer’s phone number and email address so they become part of your sales funnel. Plus, you can add additional questions that will help your sales team or account manager tailor their sales phone call to the prospect’s needs, which can help increase conversion rates (the percentage of leads who become customers).

Here’s how it works: You create an extremely helpful piece of content. It could be a video or a downloadable PDF, but in either case, it should answer some of the major questions your customers have about water damage.

If you’re trying to reach local water damage customers early in their research process, you might create a video called “10 signs of water damage.” If you want to attract water damage restoration leads who are a little closer to hiring a contractor, you could make a PDF called “10 factors that affect the cost of water damage restoration.”

Next, you’ll add the content to your website. But in order for potential customers to access the content, they’ll need to fill out a short online form—that’s the “gate.”

At the very least, this form should require them to enter their name, phone number, and email address. You can also include one or two short questions, like “Why are you looking for water damage restoration services?” and “When are you looking to start your restoration project?”

Once a potential customer fills out the form, you’ll have all the information you need to reach out to them. Plus, you can add them to your email subscribers list to stay in touch while they continue to research their restoration options.

5. Use your customer reviews to build trust

Reviews from your past customers can be one of your most effective water damage lead generation tools. According to a recent BrightLocal survey, 77% of consumers “always” or “regularly” read reviews when looking for local businesses, and 89% of consumers are “highly” or “fairly” likely to use a business that responds to its reviews.

To make the most of your company’s reviews, add or claim your Yelp Business Page. Not only can you add your business description, upload high-quality photos, and share your contact details, but you can also respond to reviews to thank customers who leave positive reviews and follow up with customers who leave critical reviews.

Your responsiveness can build trust with potential customers and create lasting relationships with past customers. You can also embed reviews on your website to serve as testimonials for homeowners researching your business for the first time.

6. Sign up for cost-per-click advertising

Cost-per-click (CPC) advertising, also called pay-per-click or PPC advertising, is a form of digital marketing in which ads for your business pop up when your potential customers use an online platform—and you only have to pay for the advertisement if a customer clicks on it.

Let’s say you use CPC advertising on a site like Instagram. Your ad might display to thousands of local customers, but if only 10 customers click on the ad, you only pay for those 10 clicks.

CPC ads are often a cost-effective marketing strategy—even for small water damage restoration businesses. You can invest in CPC advertising on a variety of online platforms, including search engines, social media sites, and with Yelp Ads, which helps your business listing show up in a number of key places on the site and app, including above relevant search results and on your competitors’ pages.

7. Partner with other local businesses

One of the best things small businesses can do to get more water damage leads is to get involved in their local business community. Local business owners often support each other, and if you build strong relationships with local service providers in a field adjacent to your own, they could pass exclusive water damage leads your way.

Good local partners for a water damage restoration business could include mold remediation companies, roofing companies, and insurance claims adjusters. Let’s say you partner with a mold remediation company—you agree to pass on water damage customers who need mold remediation to their company, and they agree to pass on mold remediation customers to you.

You can form an exclusive partnership where your partner only passes referrals to your company—giving you access to exclusive water damage restoration leads. Or you can form an open partnership where your partner will refer you and one or two other restoration services. Either type of partnership can help bring high-quality local leads to your business.

Secure more water damage leads

These seven strategies will help you bring in more water damage leads and grow your restoration business.

Start your lead generation efforts by updating your online presence and taking advantage of local search. Then, partner with other local businesses that can pass on referrals. For the biggest visual impact, build trust in your business by sharing before and after pictures, as well as customer reviews, to showcase the results of your past work.

Once the water damage leads start rolling in, you’ll need a good process in place to help you reach out to all of your leads and turn them into customers. Learn how to improve your lead management process so you can win more business.