Roger Wakefield is the founder of Texas Green Plumbing, a Green Certified Plumber, speaker, and successful YouTuber whose channel focuses on plumbing and trade advice. He shares how using social media for local leads has brought his business growth and success. 

Texas Green Plumbing is a full service, residential plumbing company that specializes in slab leaks and leak detection, just Northeast of Dallas, TX. With only three trucks, they’re not a big company, but they are a very busy company that does well in their area. 

Social Local Growth

Leveraging social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok is often an undervalued and tough to tackle part of running a home services business. But Roger argues it doesn’t have to be. 

A few of his tips for simplifying and making your marketing strategy effective include:

1. Utilize keywords that pertain to your home services industry and geographic location.
2. Define who your customer is and figure out which platforms they like to hang out on. That’s where you should be publishing your content. 
3. Focus on creating a synergy between all of the platforms you are using by repurposing content in creative ways. 
4. Network on social media like you would in real life by telling your story, sharing why you do what you, and answering questions.

Networking 

You only get one chance to make a first impression. Roger shares how when his wife encouraged him to attend a local networking event, he was hesitant. However, once he was there, he was in his element. 

“And I kid you not, that first night networking, we got three lead calls the next week… and I was like wow, that was really really easy. I think all tradespeople should be out networking. All you do is talk about the business that you do. People will love you for that.”

He emphasizes that this kind of organic sharing is exactly how you should approach your social media content. For example, we all love to buy but we all hate to be sold to. When you’re meeting people at a networking event, anyone who tries to hard sell or cold sell to you is not going to be someone you want to keep in touch with. 

After this first successful networking event, Roger and his wife eventually got involved in the group called Master Networks which teaches you how to bond, find common interests, and build relationships.

He started applying these concepts he was learning about networking in real life to his networking on LinkedIn.

“How could I use LinkedIn to get in front of not just people, but the people that can introduce me to people. So I started looking at real estate agents. And I thought, ‘I want to be the most informative plumber that there could ever be for real estate agents. I want to teach them about plumbing… I want them to understand the value of it…’ and I started using LinkedIn to grow locally. I started reaching out to local real estate agents. And I would just tell them ‘Hey, I’m Roger Wakefield -  I put out valuable content that can help you help your customers.’ And I started building connections.”

Roger highlights that by telling your story in this way, by adding value, you become a trusted advisor to your audience. You position yourself as the first person they think of when they need help. 

Websites

Websites are crucial, but they don’t need to be complicated. They also don’t need a lot of pages in order to be effective. Instead, make it easy for your customer to find what they are looking for. 

A website should: 

• Tell your story and tell the customer why you do what you do. 
• Tell your customer how to get in touch with you. 
• Add value to the customer’s life with helpful information about questions they need answered. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will make your website easy for Google to find and retrieve when your customer is searching for an answer. By positioning your blog around topics and keywords your customers are asking about, you will help Google direct your customers to your site. 

YouTube

On YouTube, SEO is equally important, since it is owned by Google and functions as a search engine. 

Roger shares that he likes to utilize long-tail keywords to attract his target audience. These are people searching for specific plumbing and trade content. Long-tail keywords are more specific and have a lower search volume, but often yield higher conversion rates because they attract a very niche audience. 

Roger’s tips for creating content for your social media platforms and blog are simple:

1. Ask your receptionist what questions they are receiving on the phone from customers. Create content that answers those specific questions. 
2. Never stop learning. And never stop sharing what you are learning, whether it’s a new tool or new technique in your industry. 
3. Start! You don’t have to have everything perfect to begin. You just need to start, and improve a little bit everyday.  

YouTube: Roger Wakefield 

LinkedIn: Roger Wakefield 

Website: Texas Green Plumbing

Podcast: The Trade Talks (coming soon!)