For construction companies, marketing is a way to find leads that allow them to win more projects and succeed in business. There are many different approaches to construction marketing, and marketing your services successfully means finding the strategies that work best for you.
The Importance of Using Effective Construction Marketing Ideas
Using effective marketing ideas for a contracting company can make people aware of your business and the services you offer. These strategies can then go a step further and build a relationship with your audience, giving them helpful information and positioning you as a trusted resource in a few different ways.
Awareness
One of the top goals of marketing is to simply build an awareness of your services. People can’t hire you if they don’t know you exist, so building a cohesive set of residential backyard building marketing ideas will help you get your name and services out into the world.
Differentiation
The best builder marketing ideas will differentiate you from your competition. For potential leads and, ultimately, future customers, differentiation may mean that you are their go-to source for practical guidance or that they know you provide top-notch customer service and that they can contact you in a pinch.
Engagement
Marketing allows you to engage with your customers on a more personal basis. You can determine their needs and make adjustments accordingly. There are several ways to increase engagement, including creating social media content, offering resources through your website and even producing webinars or online courses.
Lead Generation
Lead-generation marketing ideas for the construction industry are geared towards drawing in leads via social media, the business’s website and other efforts like inclusion on lead-generation sites like Angi, Bark or HomeAdvisor. Leads can also be generated from review sites like Google and Yelp.
Expertise, Authority and Credibility
The best contractor marketing ideas will establish your expertise and credibility, positioning your company as a trusted authority in your field. Engaging with customers, providing quality resources and delivering on guarantees will vouch for your company and result in more leads and jobs.
Consumer-Based Knowledge
Consumer-based knowledge is a multifaceted approach that takes into account your knowledge of the customer — who they are, what they know and what they need to know. Developing a consumer profile and understanding their needs will help you tailor your construction business marketing ideas to them.
20 Best Construction Marketing Ideas
This extensive list of the best builder marketing ideas can help your business whether you need to begin or extend your marketing efforts.
While you probably won’t need to use every one of these marketing strategies to be successful, choosing a few and doing them well may increase your leads and provide more opportunities for work.
It’s also important to find a balance between in-person and digital marketing ideas for construction companies.
1. Research Your Audience Often
Understanding your audience and their needs is key to a successful construction business. Research your target customers often to determine their needs and then deliver high-quality services that address those needs.
2. Build Audience Personas
Analyzing who your audience is — considering who needs your services, why they need them, their stage of life or business, and other factors — can help you build an audience persona to which you can tailor your marketing efforts.
For example, your homeowner’s persona could be “Steve,” a middle-class, 44-year-old with a wife and two kids. He has a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in the suburbs and wants to spend more time with his family outdoors.
He’d like to improve his home by adding a deck. While he is handy, he wants to hire a professional to execute the project to ensure it is done correctly.
By creating personas like the one above, it’s easier to empathize with your audience and create marketing materials that resonate with them.
3. Create Professional, User-Friendly Website
A user-friendly website is essential to keeping people on your page and moving them toward contacting you. While many companies use social media profiles — like Facebook — as their main websites, this can frustrate customers, who will likely move on to companies with more professional, high-quality, multi-use websites.
Fortunately, you don’t have to be a website designer to craft a site suitable for your audience. Investing in website builders like Wix or Squarespace can help you build a site that generates business leads. The best part? No coding skills are required.
4. Set Up a Google Business Profile
With the availability of online reviews, potential customers will likely vet a few different companies online before they consider reaching out. Setting up a Google Business Profile and then encouraging customers to leave reviews there can put you in a good position when people search for services that you offer.
5. Make Your Contact Information Easy to Find
It can be frustrating for a potential customer if they are ready to reach out but can’t find your contact information. Making your contact information highly visible and easy to find, whether it’s a banner with your phone number, a clearly labeled contact page or a contact form, is a marketing win all by itself.
6. Build a Blog
A blog (like this one!) is a good marketing idea for construction companies because you can communicate directly with your audience and potential customers. You can offer information about your services, tips for your customers, resources and whitepapers and contact information for your company.
7. Use High-Resolution Images
Providing engaging, high-resolution images can engage people by showing them examples of your work and can connect them emotionally with what you can do for them. Seeing the visuals can inspire them to contact you when they’re ready to begin their own projects. Be sure you get permission from owners, though, before posting images of their property.
8. Repurpose Informative and Engaging Content
People and potential customers consume information in different ways. Where one may choose to scroll social media and click on an ad, another may prefer to read blog posts, view videos or receive a newsletter with information pertinent to their life and interests.
While taking on all of these different mediums may seem overwhelming, the good news is that you don’t necessarily have to create brand-new content for each platform.
Repurposing information and engaging content for different platforms allows you to use the same central idea but switch up the format to include:
- Blogs
- Social Media
- Videos
- Newsletters
- Emails
9. Talk About — and Feature — Your Team
Increasingly, people want to do business with people. Talking about your team can make potential customers feel like they know the people they’ll be working with. Creating a website page or social media posts about different team members, their specialties and their roles within the company can create connection and engagement with your audience and customers.
10. Join Construction Associations
Joining local builder or construction associations allows you to network with other people in your industry and provides you with additional credentials and visibility.
11. Create a Referral Program
Referral programs can offer customers discounts on future projects for passing your name along to others who need a contractor.
12. Hire a Quality SEO Team
Understanding search engine optimization (SEO) and using SEO best practices on your website can increase your search engine rankings. However, incorporating effective SEO strategies may mean hiring a quality SEO team to research high-ranking keywords and integrate them into your website and blog posts.
13. Run PPC Ads
Purchasing Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads through Google or Facebook can be effective in generating leads, and because you only have to pay for each click, you may be more likely to get a good return on your efforts.
14. Attend or Sponsor Events
Attending or sponsoring local events can get your name out and show that you are interested in the well-being of the community, which can build relationships and trust.
15. Establish Partnerships with Companies
Introducing yourself and establishing partnerships with relevant companies and industries may make them think of you when they’re looking for services.
16. Offer Free Resources or White Papers
Offering free resources or white papers via your website can establish you as an authority in your field and build trust with potential customers. You can put together a digital “lookbook” featuring all the kinds of projects you’re able to build and the incredible results you’ve achieved for homeowners.
17. Start Using Email and SMS Marketing Campaigns
Email and SMS text marketing campaigns can get you right in front of potential and interested customers. Setting up an email or SMS text sequence can guide leads through your services and encourage them to reach out when they’re ready to start a project. There are a few inexpensive tools available to help automate this process for you.
18. Follow Up with Customers After Purchase
Following up with customers after they’ve made a purchase or you’ve completed a service can continue to nurture the relationship and show them that you’re available if they have questions or future projects. That’s also a good time to encourage them to leave a review. Showing friendly concern with their success can go a long way toward securing a positive review.
19. Track Conversions
Tracking conversions can help you determine the most effective marketing ideas for your company. If, for example, you’re putting lots of time and energy into email campaigns but aren’t seeing conversions, it may be time to direct your efforts toward a different type of marketing. Google Analytics is a free tool that can help you track where your web traffic comes from and what actions users are taking on your site.
20. Learn from Competition
Sometimes your competition can be your best teachers. Check out their website, social media accounts, services and other marketing efforts to see what’s working for them, and then tailor strategies to fit your business.
Learn More Backyard Construction Marketing Strategies
Contact the experts at Simpson Strong-Tie today to learn more about our products and services and join the StrongPro community to hear from like-minded backyard builders in our growing discussion forum.