How to Get More Jobs: A Practical Guide For Gas Engineers

Jobs are the lifeblood of any heating & plumbing business, and a busy schedule is what keeps businesses like yours afloat and in a position to grow.

But finding work isn’t always a walk in the park – especially for newer businesses that don’t yet have a loyal customer base. The majority of heating business owners are trained engineers, not businesspeople, meaning many of the different skills needed to run a business (including marketing) have to be learnt on the job.

This article will be a practical marketing guide for gas engineers. We’ll walk you through all the major ways you can find jobs for your business and hopefully provide you with some promising ideas.

Finding customers, and getting them to find you

To simplify things, we can break marketing down into things you do online, and things you do in the real world. For gas engineers, both are effective ways of getting business.

Part I: Growing your digital footprint

Social media

In the UK, people spend an average of 1.56 hours a day on social media. The past decade has seen social media spiral in popularity. It’s now one of the most effective ways to market your business – not just keep up with family and friends. 

Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are three of the most popular in the UK, and all offer great opportunities for heating & plumbing business owners. Social media has become one of the best places to find younger customers who may have just moved to your area and need a gas engineer. 

Here’s what you can do on social media:

• Post regularly to build a following. Primarily, this is a way for you to build your authority as a professional and spread brand awareness for those who stumble across your account. This will cost you nothing and can be very effective if you play the algorithm’s game (how these platforms decide which content goes viral).
• Join Facebook groups of any local area you want to service. People often use these groups to find tradespeople like gas engineers and ask for recommendations. This is another cost-free and great way to find more customers and, again, is totally free.
• Run advertisements. Setting an appropriate budget, social media ads can be used to attract more jobs. All social media platforms offer a range of advertising options which can be cleverly targeted to your ideal customers. 

Your Google Business Profile

Here’s an example of Waitrose’s Google Business Profile:

Your business website 

A well-made (and maintained) website will help legitimise your business and make it look more professional.

Here are some things you should include on your website:

• A contact page, with all relevant contact information including: 
  • Phone numbers
  • Email addresses
  • Physical addresses
• A services page that talks about what kind of jobs you do.
• An about us page that talks a bit about your business, its history, etc. 
• A pricing page that details your current rates.
• A page for testimonials and/or case studies.
• And of course an appealing home page.

What about search engine optimisation (SEO)?

You could go deep into the world of SEO, but we would recommend simply creating a few detailed and well-written pages to start like the ones we listed above.

As you’re creating these pages, think about using certain keywords to help attract relevant website traffic (people that might actually ring you up). Some examples include: 

• gas engineer [your town/city/region]
• best gas engineer [your town/city/region]
• heating and plumbing company [your town/city/region]
• boiler service [your town/city/region]

For example, if you operated around Sevenoaks, you might want to write sentences like:

“We’re a family-run heating and plumbing company based in Sevenoaks. We do boiler servicing and installations in Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells, and all nearby areas.”

People in these areas looking for an engineer will type these kind of things into Google, who can then help guide them to your website.

Online directories

Often for a small fee, you’ll be able to get your details listed in the very same place that customers go to find tradespeople (like gas engineers).

Google Ads

Here’s an example for when we searched for “gas engineer sevenoaks”: 

While there are plenty of other search engines, Google is by far the biggest (used by almost 94% of us in the UK) and therefore should be your first priority.

Email marketing 

A great example of email marketing is sending out a simple yearly boiler service reminder. Customers are usually keen to service their boilers once a year, and landlords have a legal obligation to do so.

Automated reminders can even be fully automated thanks to apps like Gas Engineer Software

Online reviews

We recommend you try and encourage your customers to leave reviews after a job. Many are happy to do so, but simply forget. For prospective customers, a good review can help build confidence in your business and ultimately be what gets them to ring up. 

As an example, here are Gas Engineer Software’s reviews on the Apple App Store:

Some interesting facts about reviews: 

• A 5/5 rating isn’t necessarily better than a near perfect score. To customers, it suggests there are too few reviews for an accurate rating or something suspicious is going on. 
• The trades industry is one of the 3 most reliant on reviews.
• 88% of customers are likely to use a business that responds to reviews, but only 42% if they do not. 
• 38% of customers believe a 4 star rating is the bare minimum.

Source – BrightLocal’s 2023 Consumer Review Survey

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software

Ringing them up and seeing if there’s anything you can do to help them out is an excellent method to turn these leads into booked jobs. If not – you can scratch them off your list. 

Part II: Traditional marketing

Leaflets/flyers

When we spoke to Luke from Blue Bulldog Heating & Plumbing, he mentioned that flyers were an early successful marketing strategy for him: 

“One of the jobs I did today – I was like, hey, where did you get my number? He had one of my old leaflets on his fridge from when I first started. He has kept it all this time.”

Vehicle advertising

The best part about it is that you only have to do it once, and you’re good to go for years to come.

Front garden signs

Referrals & word of mouth

Richie Basquine from RJ Heating said his best piece of advice is “just try to do a good job and hope for word of mouth”.

There’s a few reasons for this: 

• They’re completely free
• You don’t really have to do anything extra
• It’s extremely effective

Referrals are all about turning your customers into your advocates, and keeping them happy. You’ll want to make sure you focus on quality work and offering a professional service, but also think about how you can go the extra mile for them. 

Boiler stickers

Stickers are easy to get printed off, and the design need be nothing more than your logo and contact details. The only other thing you’ve got to do is stick them onto any boiler you work on, whether its an installation or a service. 

The whole idea of boiler stickers is to remind your customers of your business when they need you the most.

Most people aren’t interested in boilers and only look at them when there’s a problem. And if they have a problem, they’ll probably need your help… you can see how these stickers then come in handy and get a bunch more repeat work from previous customers. 

Business cards

We’d always recommend you hand out a business card after you finish a job – especially for new customers. You never know when they might have a friend, neighbour, colleague, or family member in the local area who needs a gas engineer, and they can simply pass your card around. 

Our final takeaway: Look at marketing from the bigger picture 

More often than not, a customer needs to “see” or “interact” with a brand several times for them to follow through and book a job. This could mean finding your ad on Google, then your website, and then reading some reviews – although each journey is different. 

We know that heating & plumbing business owners are notoriously strapped for time, so it’s good advice to only continue with the strategies above that are working for your company. It may take some time, but good marketing can make running your business less of a struggle and more about doing the work you love.