Kansas City Plumbing CEO Builds New Customer Pipeline Using Digital Advertising
When Stella Crewse started at Morgan Miller, she was working part-time for a plumbing company that had just laid off half its workforce, and that was throwing away tens of thousands of dollars advertising in the Yellow Pages. But fast forward to her rise as CEO. and Stella was utilizing the innovative technology of easy access platforms and incorporating them into their business model. Morgan Miller was able to rebrand and rebuild to the point of being named one of Kansas City’s top companies with fewer than 25 employees. As CEO, Stella hopes to apply more digital tools across all the company’s processes to go entirely paperless within the next year.
Morgan Miller Plumbing shifted the company’s advertising to entirely digital, a major change at the time, but one that cut costs and increased visibility among consumers who might not otherwise have heard of their services. Paid advertising on Facebook and Google, as well as a presence on Pinterest and YouTube, have exposed the company to a wider audience in the Kansas City area, particularly among young homeowners. Digital solutions have also helped Stella to increase efficiency in financial record keeping, employee time management and inventory management. Morgan Miller Plumbing is a small business, and it relies upon these platforms to operate effectively and to reach out to customers so they can become familiar with the company’s ethic, reputation and culture.
Understanding how to optimize digital technology is vital for small businesses to succeed, and the opportunities that these platforms provide, from targeted advertising to in-house compliance, are just as important at the community level as they are at the national. Online marketing allows Morgan Miller to be more than just another plumbing service, but a familiar figure coming to help and fix a problem. Stella joined the Connected Commerce Council as a Board Member because she believes that all small businesses should have the knowledge to successfully incorporate digital technology into their operations to streamline their practices and make them more productive.
Stella stood up for digitally-empowered small businesses in Missouri with a Letter to the Editor in the Columbia Missourian in 2018. Read more.
