How to Build a Restoration Marketing Plan That Grows Your Business

Alexa Hertel

February 24, 2025

Insights

5 min read

A restoration marketing plan is the foundation of how you get leads as a restoration business.

You’ll use it to establish marketing strategies for revenue, guide growth activities, and measure success. While you can run a restoration business without one, a detailed marketing plan can be an extremely helpful resource for you and your team.

This post will help give you clarity for what you need to include, lead you through the process of creating a marketing plan, and provide an example of a marketing plan that you can use as a starting point.

Table of contents

Step 1: Create a Budget and Understand Your Costs

You’ll need to be very intentional about where you spend money on marketing, especially in early stages of your business. Part of this is understanding what you should do yourself versus what’s worth outsourcing.

For example, unless you’re willing to spend a lot of time learning how to set up a Google Ads account, it's probably worth it to hire someone to do this for you. On the other end, if you’re comfortable setting and executing a social media strategy, that’s a great thing to take on yourself.

Start treating your time as a valuable resource, as you’re key to ensuring that the business runs smoothly and profitably.

As a general rule of thumb, restoration expert and President of Business Mentors Phillip Rosebrook advises a marketing spend that’s 3-9% of your total revenue. “The lower budget is a maintenance program and the higher budget should lead to rapid growth,” he says.

As you set out to craft a marketing budget that makes sense for the size of business you operate (and your growth goals), you’ll also need to consider both job margins and costs.

Restoration margins

‍While there are many different factors, like regional differences, that will impact your margins, industry experts have established benchmarks you can use as guidelines when anticipating them.

Phillip Rosebrook, and and Shane O’Dazier of The Restoration Contractor on YouTube share approximate expected margins below:

Reconstruction: up to 10% gross margin
Fire damage repair: 20-25% gross margin
Water damage restoration: 50-80% gross margin with larger margins on smaller jobs‍
Mitigation – direct cost – labor and material: 70+% margin
‍Contents – direct labor and material: 55% margin (Indirect – warehouse storage space, vehicles, cleaning processing equipment).‍
Mold remediation: 55% margin‍
Construction: 40-45% margin

Restoration costs

A few costs besides marketing spend to consider include:

Equipment
Labor
Materials
Square footage of jobsite
Warehouse storage
Administrative costs (tools, employee health benefits, etc.)

Now you’re ready to add the first section to your marketing plan. Below is the template you’ll fill out for this section. Feeling stuck? Check out the full marketing plan example at the end of this post.

Marketing channel: [e.g. Google Ads]
Spend allocated: [e.g. $100 per day]
Percent of total revenue: [X% of total revenue for a set time frame]

Resources 📚

Step 2: Define Your Goals for Your Restoration Business

Goal setting can be a challenging exercise if you don’t set parameters for them. It’s easy to set goals, but harder to set goals that you can actually measure and attain.

It’s like a new year's resolution––how many people have you seen at the gym the first week of January never to return until the next year begins? It’s only if you set out an achievable and likely plan that you can actually start to work towards and meet it.

Using SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time bound) for marketing is a great way to do this. Cover different time frames when you set goals as well––a good marketing plan should define both the short term and the long term.

Specific

Boil down what you’re hoping to achieve into very specific outcomes. For example, rather than “get more leads,” the goal could be to hit one job per week consistently for six months.

Measurable

Can you actually measure success? For example, rather than setting a goal to provide a top-notch customer experience, the goal could be, “get four new 5-star reviews per month.”

Achievable

Each goal needs to be realistic for your business. For example, if you only have the ability to staff one job per week, scaling up to 2+ jobs per week likely isn’t realistically attainable without hiring first.

Relevant

Is the goal an essential business activity that will garner new leads or customers? For example, if you rarely get new business via organic social channels, a goal to grow the number of social media followers likely doesn’t make sense because it’s not immediately relevant to your needs.

Time-bound

Each goal should be achievable within a certain, fixed amount of time. All this means is setting timing parameters. So, if you’d still like to increase the amount of jobs per week, for example, your goal could be, “increase jobs to 2x per week within 6 months.”

Fill out the template below and add it to your marketing plan. Need more guidance? Jump to the full restoration marketing plan example at the end of this post.

Short-term goals
- [e.g. Increase the number of 5 star reviews on your Google Business Profile by 15% in three months.]
- [Increase website leads by 25% in six months]
Long-term goals
- [e.g., Expand to two new locations within 5 years]
- [e.g., Expand to 4 jobs per week in the next two years]

Resources 📚

Step 3: Identify Your Target Market and Your Most Profitable Jobs

If you service all types of restoration jobs, it can be tempting to market heavily on multiple channels for each of them. But in reality, staying focused on certain markets and types of jobs can lead to better revenue in the long run.

For example, water damage restoration has an approximate 50-80% gross margin with an even larger margin on smaller jobs‍. You might find that water damage leads from insurance agents and local plumbers are the most reliable and profitable for you.

You then could tailor messaging, strategies, marketing channels, and spend to this particular focus area.

Fill out the target market, demographics, profitable job types, and unique selling proposition of your marketing plan. Look to the template below for guidance. Or, jump to the full restoration marketing plan example.

Target Market

[e.g. Homeowners affected by water damage]

Demographics

Age: [Insert age range]
Location: [Urban or suburban areas]
Income Level: [Insert income level]
Pain Points: [Common customer concerns, e.g., fast service, insurance claims, affordability]

Most profitable job types

[e.g. Large scale water damage restoration jobs]
[e.g. Small scale water jobs referred by local plumbers]

What makes your business stand out? This is your unique selling proposition (USP)

[e.g. 24/7 emergency response]
[e.g. Top-notch customer service]
[e.g. Eco-friendly solutions]
[e.g. High-quality work]

Resources 📚

Step 4: Choose Your Marketing Channels

Generally, your choice of marketing channels and activities should tie back to your target market.

You’ll also want to focus your marketing activities based on your business stage. For example, if you have a low budget and are just starting out, creating a simple website and adding your business to local directories is a great place to start.

For businesses just starting out

Create an easy-to-navigate website with contact and emergency information front and center.
Add your business to local business directories (like Angi, Thumbtack, your local chamber of commerce).
Create a Google Business Profile.
Run “pay-per-click” Google Ads.
Ask for customer reviews on Google and Yelp.

Resource 📚 Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Restoration Business

For mid-sized and established businesses

Post on social media regularly with tips, client testimonials, and before-and-after photos.
Craft helpful blog content that’s optimized for search.
Build relationships with local trades like plumbers and carpet cleaners, businesses like real estate agents and property managers, and insurance agents for referrals.
Attend or sponsor events.

Resources 📚

Fill out the digital and offline marketing sections of your marketing plan. Look to the template below for guidance. Or, jump to the full restoration marketing plan example.

Digital marketing

Website & SEO: [list marketing activities here]
Organic (non-paid) advertising: [list marketing activities here]
Paid advertising: [list marketing activities here]

Offline marketing

Partnerships: [list marketing activities here]
Direct mail: [list marketing activities here]
Community engagement: [list marketing activities here]

Resources 📚

Step 5: Implement Lead Tracking & Performance Metrics

Tracking leads and reviewing the performance of your marketing efforts on a regular basis is what will allow you to adjust your strategy and ultimately grow your business.

Running tests on different channels and testing messaging strategies will be key for reducing your costs long term. Maximizing efficiency means maximizing your return on investment (ROI).

There are a couple of tools you’ll need to help you accomplish this.

Customer relationship management platforms: These tools, best known as CRMs, track and manage all of your leads and past customers in one convenient, organized place. Note: Asking prospects how they heard about you and recording it in a database is a great place to start.
Website analytics tracking: While there are many third-party tools to track how your website is performing, Google Analytics (now known as GA4) is the tried-and-true way to accurately do it.

Resources 📚

Step 6: Review and Adjust Monthly

Regularly review all performance metrics and adjust your marketing tactics accordingly. Doing this will reveal areas of improvement and show you the places where you’re already excelling.

Here are a few key metrics to track at the start:

Leads
Estimates/proposals sent
Jobs won

General resources 📚

Restoration Marketing Plan Example

Business overview

Blank Slate Restoration is a full-service restoration company specializing in water, fire, and mold damage restoration for residential and commercial properties. Our mission is to provide fast, reliable, and high-quality restoration services to help our clients recover quickly from disasters.

1. Target market

Homeowners affected by water, fire, or mold damage
Commercial property owners and managers
Real estate agents and property management companies
Insurance companies and adjusters looking for trusted restoration partners

Demographics

Age range: 30-65
Service area: Urban and suburban areas in zip codes: [list zip codes here].
Income: Middle to upper-middle class homeowners and business owners
Pain Points: Clients have an urgent need for reliable, quick restoration.

2. What makes us unique

24/7 emergency response team
Fast turnaround times with industry-leading equipment
Certified and insured professionals with years of experience
Eco-friendly and non-toxic restoration solutions

3. Marketing strategies and customer acquisition

Website and SEO

Develop an easy-to-navigate website with service pages for water, fire, and mold restoration.
Produce two blog posts per month with prevention tips, restoration processes, and industry updates.
Create and monitor your Google My Business and Yelp listing.
Regularly ask happy customers to leave reviews.

Social media

Share before-and-after photos, customer testimonials, and restoration tips.
Use Facebook and Instagram ads targeting homeowners in disaster-prone areas.
Engage in local community groups to offer expert advice.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising

Pay for Google Ads targeting local restoration services.
Set up retargeting ads to website visitors who didn’t convert.
Run local service ads for people searching for immediate restoration needs.

Networking

Partner with insurance companies and adjusters to get leads.
Establish relationships with real estate agents and property managers for referrals.
Create relationships with different local trades and services (like fire departments) to get referrals.
Sponsor local events and fundraisers.
Join local business associations and attend local and regional networking events.

Direct mail

Send brochures and business cards to real estate offices and insurance agencies.
Run direct mail campaigns targeting homeowners in high-risk flood or fire zones.

5. Metrics and performance tracking

Website traffic.
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) and return on ad spend (ROAS).
Average customer review rating.
Number of referrals throughout a set time frame.
Social media engagement.
Split of where leads come from (e.g., word of mouth, Google, social media, referrals, etc).

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