How to Get Plumber and Electrician Clients (Trades Playbook)
Trades have the highest share of businesses with no website of any local niche — and the lowest email response rate. They're on a roof or under a sink, not in an inbox. If you approach them like an office-based business you'll conclude the niche doesn't work. Approached correctly it's one of the most reliable sources of small, fast-closing jobs.
The shape of this niche
- Very high share without a website. In most European cities, roughly half of tradespeople listed on Google Maps have no site at all.
- Small budgets, fast decisions. Nobody's approving £5,000. Somebody will say yes to £700 on the spot.
- Referral-driven. One happy electrician tells three others. This niche compounds.
- Deeply sceptical of marketing. They've been cold-called by directory salespeople for years.
Why email mostly fails here
A plumber checks email in the evening, on a phone, tired. Your carefully written four-sentence opener sits between a supplier invoice and a spam message.
Meanwhile they answer the phone all day, because the phone is how they get work. That's the whole insight for this niche.
Order of channels for trades:
- Phone — they pick up, because a ringing phone might be a job
- SMS or WhatsApp — read almost immediately
- Email — last resort
That inverts the usual advice, and it's the main reason agencies write off the trades.
What they'll actually pay for
Not "a web presence". Concrete outcomes:
| What they want | What you sell |
|---|---|
| More calls | A one-page site plus a properly filled Google profile |
| To stop paying per lead | Their own channel instead of a lead-generation portal |
| To look legitimate | Site with certifications, insurance, photos of work |
| To be found for emergencies | Local visibility for "emergency plumber [city]" |
The strongest angle is the lead portal. Many tradespeople pay a per-lead fee to a platform for work they then compete for. If they're spending £200–400 a month on that, "you're renting your customers — let's build you something you own" is a pitch they've already half-formulated themselves.
The phone opener
Keep it under thirty seconds. They're working.
Hi, is that Dave? Quick one — I saw your Google listing, you've got 4.8 from 60-odd reviews which is excellent, but there's no website on it. When people search "electrician [city]" on their phone, the ones with a site usually get the call. I build simple sites for trades, about £600, live in a week. Can I text you two examples to look at tonight?
Then text the examples. The follow-up channel is the whole point of the call.
Why it works: it's short, it opens with a real compliment, it names the mechanism plainly, and the ask is to receive a text — the lowest-commitment yes available.
Pricing
Fixed price, stated up front, no packages.
£500–800 for the site. £25 a month if you want me to keep it updated and handle the Google listing.
Do not send a proposal document. Do not talk about discovery phases. A trades customer wants a number and a date. Anything else reads as evasion.
Take card or bank transfer, half up front. This niche pays promptly if you make it simple.
Timing
- Call: 07:00–08:00 (in the van, before the first job) or 16:30–18:00 (finishing up). Avoid 09:00–16:00 entirely.
- Days: Monday to Thursday. Friday afternoon is a write-off.
- Season: January and February are quiet for trades — good for you. Avoid the first cold snap, when every plumber is flat out and won't hear a word you say.
What not to do
- Don't use jargon. "Conversion rate optimisation" ends the call. "More people ringing you" continues it.
- Don't send a PDF proposal. It won't be opened.
- Don't sell SEO as a concept. Sell "showing up when someone searches for an emergency plumber at 11pm".
- Don't target the ones with two reviews. They may not be trading. Set a floor of 15–20 reviews.
- Don't be precious about design. They want a phone number, photos of finished work, and their certification logos. That's it.
Building the list
Search each trade separately — "plumber", "electrician", "heating engineer", "boiler repair" — plus your city. Filter:
- 20+ reviews — proves real volume of work
- 4.3 rating or above — a struggling trade has no money
- No website, or a Facebook page listed as one
- Mobile number present — you're going to call it
Expect 40–80 qualifying businesses in a mid-sized city across the trades. This is the highest-volume niche on the list, which is why it rewards a repeatable phone routine over clever copy.
Lead Radary builds and grades that list in a few minutes, including which ones use Facebook as their website. The calls are still yours to make — and in this niche, that's the part that works.
Summary
- Highest share of no-website businesses, lowest email response. Phone first, then SMS.
- The strongest angle is replacing a per-lead portal with something they own.
- Fixed price, said out loud, no proposal document.
- Call before 08:00 or after 16:30. Never during the working day.
- Filter for 20+ reviews — it separates real businesses from dormant listings.