Before the first freeze: what a waterproofing company should have running by mid-November
The ground freezes in a few weeks. The short list a waterproofing company should have live now to carry the winter and fill the spring calendar.
The fall rains are mostly done and the first hard freeze is two to four weeks out across the Northeast, the Great Lakes and the upper Midwest, which between them hold the bulk of the 3,745 waterproofing companies in the benchmark data. Exterior excavation stops when the ground freezes. The phone slows down in December. What a company does in the next three weeks decides whether January is a plan or a wait.
The battery backup text goes out this week
Every past interior system install with a sump pump is a service call waiting for the first ice storm. Power goes out, the pump stops, and a basement that was dry for three years floods with the sump sitting full. A text to the past-install list in early November books battery backup installs at $900 to $2,000 each and reminds a few hundred homeowners who you are:
"Hi, this is Dan from the install a while back. Winter outage season is coming. If your sump does not have a battery backup yet, we can add one in about an hour. Reply YES and I will get you a time."
A company with 300 past installs usually gets 15 to 30 replies. That is a week of easy work in the slowest month and a handful of reviews from people who already liked you.
Switch the Google Ads copy, lower the budget, do not pause
December and January search volume runs about a third of April. The clicks are cheaper by about the same share, and the person searching "water in basement" in January has water in the basement. Change the ad copy to the winter message, "interior systems and crack repair install all winter, free inspection," cut the daily budget by a third, and leave it on. An account paused in December starts over from nothing in March, when the auction is at its most expensive. The Google Ads guide covers the campaign structure.
Shoot the crack injection video now
The best winter product in this trade is crack injection: $500 to $1,500 per crack, two hours, and the freeze is what makes the homeowner call. It is also the best winter ad, because a thirty-second clip of polyurethane going into a crack and the water stopping explains itself. Have the crew shoot it on the next three crack jobs, phone, captions, no music. That clip runs on Meta from December through February at $15 to $25 a day and books inspections for a job that installs in any weather. The Meta guide covers the setup.
Reactivate the open estimates before the holidays
Every inspection from this year that did not close is still a wet basement. Most of those homeowners did not say no; they said "we'll think about it" in May and then the basement dried out. Before Thanksgiving, one text from the inspector who was there:
"Hi Karen, Dan here from the inspection in May. The quote still stands, and interior systems install all winter so you do not have to wait for spring. If you book before January 31 the battery backup is included. Want me to send the quote again?"
A list of 150 open estimates usually produces a dozen conversations and a few jobs in the dead month. The battery backup included is the lever instead of a discount, because it has a cost you control and does not teach the market that your prices move. The pricing guide has the reasoning.
Fix the hours before the holiday weekend
Holiday weekends in late November and December bring the first freeze-thaw cycles and a run of calls that land on a Saturday. 41.1% of waterproofing profiles list no hours and only 36.1% show Saturday. A profile showing "Closed" on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, with a voicemail box behind it, hands the inspection to whoever listed hours and has text-back on. Set real hours on the Google profile today and turn on missed-call text-back on the main line. The follow-up guide has the text that goes out.
Plan February now
The spring calendar is built in February, not April. Companies that text their past inspections and open estimates in the first week of February, "we are booking exterior excavation for April, a deposit holds your date," enter the thaw with half the exterior calendar sold. The ones that wait for the phone in March book inspections two weeks out and lose a share of them to the company that answered faster. Put the February send on the calendar now, with the deposit terms decided and the proposal template ready. The seasonality guide has the full month-by-month plan.
The short list
- Battery backup text to every past install, this week.
- Google Ads copy switched to winter, budget down a third, not off.
- Three crack injection clips shot for the winter Meta ad.
- Open-estimate reactivation text with the battery backup lever, before Thanksgiving.
- Real hours including Saturday on the Google profile, and text-back on.
- The February spring-booking send scheduled with deposit terms set.
Six items, most of them an afternoon. A company that does all six usually finds January busier than it expected and April already half booked.
Any of these can be set up as part of the free 14-day trial, no card, text or call. See the free trial page.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, waterproofing companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor