How to get plumbing companies as clients: the list, the buyer, the pitch

To get plumbing companies as clients, list every plumber in the area you serve, separate service-and-repair shops from drain specialists and new-construction plumbers, and contact the owner early in the morning or late in the afternoon, when they aren't under a sink. Pitch one outcome a plumbing owner tracks: booked service calls, answered emergency calls, paid invoices or techs kept on the road. Plumbers are all on Google Maps, so building the list is the easy part; matching the pitch to the type of shop is what gets replies.

What do plumbing companies buy, and who decides?#

Plumbers buy marketing, software, parts and tools, trucks and fleet services, financing, insurance and staffing. At most shops the owner decides; larger shops split the job between an operations manager, a service manager and an office manager.

Know which kind of plumber you're writing to:

• Service and repair plumbers take calls from homeowners and businesses. They care about the phone ringing and being answered, and they buy marketing, call handling and dispatch software.
• Drain, sewer and septic specialists run jetters and cameras and often work for property managers. They buy equipment and commercial leads.
• New-construction plumbers work for builders and general contractors. They buy through estimators, care about bids and supply pricing, and mostly ignore consumer marketing.
• Combined plumbing and HVAC shops are common, and the Census Bureau puts both trades in one code (NAICS 238220). If you sell to both, run the HVAC contractor list in the same area.

How do I build a list of plumbing companies?#

Search Google Maps with every plumbing term across your area in small pieces, dedupe, and sort the export by type and size.

1. Use several terms. "Plumber" is the main Maps category. Add "emergency plumber", "drain cleaning service", "sewer repair", "water heater installation", "septic system service", "gas installation service", "water softening equipment supplier" and "commercial plumbing contractor".
2. Search in pieces. One Google Maps search shows about 120 results; a mid-size metro has more plumbers than that. Split by ZIP code or neighborhood. See why Google Maps stops at 120 results.
3. Remove duplicates across terms and pieces.
4. Keep only your area. Plumbers list service areas, and search results spill across city lines. Keep the ones inside the area you can serve.
5. Segment:
   • category: plumber vs drainage service vs septic vs water treatment vs combined plumbing and HVAC.
   • reviews: the most useful size signal. Hundreds of reviews usually means several trucks and an office.
   • hours: 24-hour shops buy answering services and after-hours dispatch.
   • website: no website or a dated one is a web-design lead.
   • emails with role and source: office@ and service@ beat jobs@ for most pitches.

The plumber lead list page has the full list of search terms and fields.

What should I pitch to a plumbing company?#

Pitch the one problem their type of shop has every week. A generic "more leads" email reads like the twenty others they got this month.

• Service plumbers and marketing: emergency calls are the profitable ones. Show where they appear for "emergency plumber" in their own area, and offer to fix the listing, site and call handling that turn searches into booked jobs.
• Software: pitch dispatch, quoting on site and getting paid before the tech leaves. Target shops with enough reviews to suggest an office.
• Answering services: target 24-hour shops from the hours column. Quote a price per answered call and the hours you cover.
• Supply houses and tool sellers: segment by distance to your branch. Lead with counter hours, stock and delivery. For drain equipment, target drainage and sewer categories.
• Recruiting and training: licensed plumbers are hard to hire. Lead with a filled role, not a platform.

When is the best time to reach plumbers?#

Early morning before the trucks leave, or late afternoon as techs finish, on Tuesday through Thursday. During the day the owner is on a job or on the phone with customers.

These are common patterns, not measured results. Email any time; owners often read in the evening.

Gatekeepers. The office manager or dispatcher answers the main line and books service calls. Say you're not a customer and ask who handles your topic, then email that person directly.

What should my email to a plumbing company say?#

Keep it under 100 words, name one true detail, and ask for a small next step. Double-brace fields are columns in the export.

Subject: emergency calls for {{business}}

Hi there,

{{business}} has {{reviews}} reviews at {{rating}} stars, which says
customers like you. I help plumbers in {{city}} book more of the
after-hours and emergency calls that already search for them.

I can send a one-page review of your listing and site, with three
changes I'd make first. Want it?

[Name] · [Company] · [Postal address]
Not interested? Reply "no" and I won't write again.

For a supply house:

Subject: counter account for {{business}}

Hi there,

We're the [supply house] on [road] in {{city}}, open from 6:30 a.m.,
with water heaters and drain parts in stock. I'd like to open a
trade account for {{business}} and send our price sheet.

[Name] · [Company] · [Postal address] · Reply "no" to opt out.

See more examples in cold email templates for local businesses.

How often should I follow up?#

Three follow-ups over about three weeks, then rest the lead for a season.

1. Day 1: first email.
2. Day 3 or 4: one line asking whether you reached the right person.
3. Day 10: something useful: a listing review, a price sheet, a short case for their type of shop.
4. Day 21: a polite close with an offer to check back.

Remove anyone who opts out at once, and keep a suppression list across campaigns.

What rules apply to cold outreach to plumbers?#

Commercial email in the US falls under CAN-SPAM: accurate sender information and subject lines, a physical postal address and a working opt-out honored within 10 business days. Calls to businesses are mostly exempt from the National Do Not Call Registry, but the FTC's ban on misrepresentations covers business-to-business calls, and under the TCPA autodialed or prerecorded calls and texts to cell phones need consent. Many small plumbing shops list the owner's cell. Google's Maps Platform terms restrict scraping and building lists from Maps content, which is a contract issue separate from these laws. See cold email laws and get legal advice for your situation.

Worked example: every plumber in Ohio#

Ohio has 2,970 plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractor establishments with paid employees (Census County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 238220). That code includes HVAC companies, and it leaves out owner-operators with no employees, so a plumbing-only Maps list will be a different size.

Each business is charged once ever, so the second month doesn't charge again for the plumbers you already have. Businesses outside your area or in the wrong trade are shown free, and unused credits roll over while your plan is active. See pricing.

If you'd rather not build the list by hand, Leadraft finds every plumber inside the area you choose, with emails from each company's own website checked against the live mailbox. Try it on your area on the free plan, or see the fields on the plumber lead list page.

FAQ#

How do I get plumbing companies as clients?#

Build a list of every plumbing company in the area you serve, split it into service-and-repair shops, drain and sewer specialists and new-construction plumbers using their Google Maps categories and websites, and contact the owner early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Pitch one outcome they track, such as booked service calls, answered emergency calls or faster invoicing.

Who decides what a plumbing company buys?#

At most plumbing companies the owner decides, often while still running calls. At larger shops, an operations or general manager handles software and vendors, a service manager has a say on tools and parts, and an office manager handles the phones and billing tools. New-construction plumbers buy through estimators and project managers who work with builders.

When is the best time to call a plumber?#

Early in the morning before the trucks roll out, or late in the afternoon when techs are wrapping up. Avoid Monday mornings, which tend to carry the weekend's backlog, and cold snaps, when frozen and burst pipes fill the schedule. These are common patterns, not measured results.

How do I find a list of plumbers in my area?#

Search Google Maps for plumber, emergency plumber, drain cleaning, sewer repair, water heater installation and septic system service in each ZIP code or neighborhood, since one search returns about 120 results. Export to a spreadsheet with phone, website, rating, reviews, hours and emails from each company's own site.

How many plumbing companies are there in the US?#

The Census Bureau counts plumbers together with HVAC contractors under NAICS 238220: 111,207 establishments with paid employees in County Business Patterns 2023. There's no separate plumbing-only count in that table, and owner-operators with no employees aren't included.

Sources#

1. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 (NAICS 238220 establishments by state).
2. Federal Trade Commission, CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business.
3. Federal Trade Commission, Complying with the Telemarketing Sales Rule.
4. Federal Communications Commission, Stop Unwanted Robocalls and Texts.
5. Google, Google Maps Platform Terms of Service.