Are you a contractor struggling to get more jobs? The solution isn’t rocket science, you simply need better marketing.Although we understand that, very few contractors are making the time to develop a brand and reach an audience, placing a limit on their amount of leads.
Luckily, we live in a digital age now where marketing a construction business has never been easier. In this post, we’ll cover the eight digital marketing strategies you have to know to jumpstart your construction business.
1. Build a Strong Online Presence
Without a doubt, building any kind of online presence should be your first step with digital marketing.
In this day and age, most people discover brands and services through some sort of online interaction initially, whether that be social media or Google search results. If you really want to grow your construction business, you have to reevaluate the way people perceive you online.
First things first, having an updated and professional-looking website is a must. After all, it’s through here that clients will be able to see your brand, your portfolio, reach out for bids, etc. By making sure your website has a modern look, is easy to navigate, mobile-friendly, and contains essential information such as your contact details and the services you offer, you show to interested clients (and Google) that you’re a serious business.
The reason I mention Google is because the next part of your online presence you want to overhaul is your Google business profile. Your Google business profile is where customers can immediately engage with your business and it’s how Google determines whether to show you in local search results, so it’s important to get this step right. Make sure that your profile’s contact information is up-to-date, respond to the reviews (you should be encouraging clients to leave reviews), and especially include good-quality photos that show your brand and past work. It may seem simple, but appearing professional on Google is one of the most impactful things you can do for your business’ online presence.
Once you got that done, social media channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram are other great ways to connect with potential clients and showcase your work. Through these sites, you can regularly post updates, share images of completed projects, and engage with your audience to create a sense of trust and reliability.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Construction Businesses
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a branch of digital marketing that deals with maximizing a company’s presence on search engines, namely Google.
There are three main SEO responsibilities you want to focus on:
- Local SEO
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
We’ve already covered a bit of local SEO in the first tip, since the main concern with this type of SEO is maintaining a professional Google business profile that will rank high on keywords related to your city or area.
But what is a keyword? A keyword refers to any term or phrase that people look up on Google. The main goal of SEO is to optimize websites to show up at the top of results pages for profitable and relevant keywords. For example, a drywall contractor would work especially hard to appear at the top position for a keyword like “drywall contractor near me”.
On-page SEO deals with optimizing your website or blog internally. This involves certain techniques such as incorporating relevant keywords into your website’s content, optimizing meta tags, and using header tags to make your page’s purpose as clear as possible. This helps Google understand what your site is about and improves your chances of ranking higher in search results.
Off-page SEO deals with building backlinks for your website, which is the process of getting links from other websites to your own. Backlinks help Google recognize that your website is credible and so it helps you rank higher. To do this, you can reach out to industry-related websites, local business associations, or construction blogs to write guest posts for them or you can ask about link insertions.
3. Using Content Marketing to Show Credibility
Content marketing (operating a blog or Youtube channel) allows you to demonstrate your credibility as a company and can be another way to engage with potential clients.
You can start by creating a blog on your website where you can regularly post articles offering construction tips, insights, and updates on industry trends. This not only keeps your website fresh but also provides valuable information that attracts potential clients and improves your SEO. A blog can be especially helpful if you write your articles with the intention of targeting keywords that are relevant and popular among potential clients.
The key here is that, regardless of whether you get lots of readers, Google will recognize your business as being more legitimate and rank you higher on search results, which means more traffic to your site.
4. Email Marketing for Client Retention
Most contractors spend a lot of their day on their email responding to bids and coordinating with subs, but they don’t go the extra mile of doing email outreach.
Email marketing is a cost-effective way to retain your existing clients and get connected with new ones. You should start off by building an email list of clients, prospects, and anyone who’s expressed interest in your services. There’s a million ways to do this, but you can get started by researching architectural firms or other clients in your area and recording their contact information. Using your online presence, you can also set up newsletter sign-up forms on your website, social media channels, or your blog.
5. Pay-Per-Click Advertising for Instant Visibility
If you have money to spend on marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an effective way to gain instant visibility for your construction business. Services like Google Ads and Facebook Ads, allow you to create targeted ads that appear when users search for specific keywords. By designing the ads and “bidding” on their respective keywords, you can get seen by potential clients across the internet who are either looking for construction services or have expressed interest in their search history.
An important part of PPC advertising that will especially help your construction business is retargeting ads. These ads target users who have previously visited your website or account, so that way they can be reminded of your services or offered special deals. Although effective PPC advertising involves extensive market research and a bit of risk, it can still be an instant (or short-term) solution to your advertising.
6. Leveraging Social Media for Brand Awareness
As we mentioned in the first tip, social media platforms can be important tools for raising brand awareness and showcasing your construction company’s projects and services. Just by keeping your followers engaged with regular posting, you’ll be doing better than 99% of contractors and increase the chances of potential clients discovering you. Considering posting on content on social media is completely free, what is there to lose?
You might be wondering about what a contractor should even use social media for. After all, word-of-mouth is the dominant way by which most contractors are invited to bid on jobs. However, word-of-mouth is limited in how many clients it can reach. If we want real numbers, we have to get the word out about our brand and social media is the best place to do that.
Social media can be effective as your “digital portfolio” where you share images of your completed projects, progress on current projects, and any behind-the-scenes glimpses that can demonstrate your professionalism (an important factor in getting bigger clients).
Plus, social media is a place where you can directly engage with potential clients by responding to comments and messages. As you will see in the next tip on our list, being able to manage your reputation and engage with clients directly is an enormous benefit that social media brings to the table.
If you feel convinced about using social media for your business, here’s a tip to keep in mind. The key for getting organic growth on your posts is to use relevant hashtags and location tags so that your posts reach the right people. With time and consistency, you’ll see just how much easier construction lead generation can be, using social media.
7. Manage your Reviews and Build your Reputation
One of the most overlooked digital marketing techniques among small business owners is tracking their customer reviews.
Testimonials and reviews are one of the most important factors potential clients consider before they close. When you take the time to respond to both positive and negative reviews, you show that you care about customer satisfaction. Don’t miss out on opportunities to thank clients for their positive comments or to address concerns in a professional manner. What this engagement does is:
- Show you are a professional, trustworthy business
- Lessens the impact of negative reviews.
Of course, none of these tips matter if you’re not receiving any reviews.
Especially since your reviews on your Google business profile affects your local SEO, it’s important to put in an effort to follow up with past clients and encourage them to leave feedback. For especially satisfied clients, it might even be worth it to request testimonials for your website, which helps a lot in terms of giving your website a professional feel.
8. Using Analytics to Drive Marketing Decisions
The hardest part of digital marketing is figuring out if everything you’ve been doing is actually working. Especially when it comes to making future decisions, it’s important to figure out what methods you’ll need to check our progress.
You can monitor your website traffic and user behavior using tools like Google Analytics, which show you popular pages, where visitors are coming from, how long they stay on your site, etc. Using this information, you can see what changes you need to make to keep users more engaged on your site, which ultimately improves your SEO.
As for social media, checking your process is a lot more straight-forward. Some metrics you want to look at are post engagement, follower growth, and click-through rates (the percentage of users who click on your links). Just like with Google Analytics, you want to use your social media data to help you keep refining your content and profile.
For your paid per click advertising, PPC tools like Google Ads and Facebook Ads make checking your progress easy by showing you your click-through rates and other important metrics on the dashboard. If you notice that a certain ad isn’t performing well, learn to cut your losses and try something else. You can either target a new keyword, retarget ads to users from another page, or simply change the design of your current ad.
Analyzing data for your digital marketing can be tricky since it’s not always clear what changes you have to make, but as long as you remain consistent and continuously check your progress, the possibilities digital marketing can have for generating leads, forming new business relationships, and raising awareness about your brand are endless.
The Secret to 10X your Construction Business
If you are interested in growing your construction business, I’ve prepared a short training video for you that you can watch for FREE:
In this training, I will show you how you can put your estimating on autopilot and boost your sales to 10X your business in 90 days; step-by-step with a simple copy and paste formula!
Are you a contractor struggling to get more jobs? The solution isn’t rocket science, you simply need better marketing.Although we understand that, very few contractors are making the time to develop a brand and reach an audience, placing a limit on their amount of leads.
Luckily, we live in a digital age now where marketing a construction business has never been easier. In this post, we’ll cover the eight digital marketing strategies you have to know to jumpstart your construction business.
1. Build a Strong Online Presence
Without a doubt, building any kind of online presence should be your first step with digital marketing.
In this day and age, most people discover brands and services through some sort of online interaction initially, whether that be social media or Google search results. If you really want to grow your construction business, you have to reevaluate the way people perceive you online.
First things first, having an updated and professional-looking website is a must. After all, it’s through here that clients will be able to see your brand, your portfolio, reach out for bids, etc. By making sure your website has a modern look, is easy to navigate, mobile-friendly, and contains essential information such as your contact details and the services you offer, you show to interested clients (and Google) that you’re a serious business.
The reason I mention Google is because the next part of your online presence you want to overhaul is your Google business profile. Your Google business profile is where customers can immediately engage with your business and it’s how Google determines whether to show you in local search results, so it’s important to get this step right. Make sure that your profile’s contact information is up-to-date, respond to the reviews (you should be encouraging clients to leave reviews), and especially include good-quality photos that show your brand and past work. It may seem simple, but appearing professional on Google is one of the most impactful things you can do for your business’ online presence.
Once you got that done, social media channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram are other great ways to connect with potential clients and showcase your work. Through these sites, you can regularly post updates, share images of completed projects, and engage with your audience to create a sense of trust and reliability.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Construction Businesses
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a branch of digital marketing that deals with maximizing a company’s presence on search engines, namely Google.
There are three main SEO responsibilities you want to focus on:
- Local SEO
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
We’ve already covered a bit of local SEO in the first tip, since the main concern with this type of SEO is maintaining a professional Google business profile that will rank high on keywords related to your city or area.
But what is a keyword? A keyword refers to any term or phrase that people look up on Google. The main goal of SEO is to optimize websites to show up at the top of results pages for profitable and relevant keywords. For example, a drywall contractor would work especially hard to appear at the top position for a keyword like “drywall contractor near me”.
On-page SEO deals with optimizing your website or blog internally. This involves certain techniques such as incorporating relevant keywords into your website’s content, optimizing meta tags, and using header tags to make your page’s purpose as clear as possible. This helps Google understand what your site is about and improves your chances of ranking higher in search results.
Off-page SEO deals with building backlinks for your website, which is the process of getting links from other websites to your own. Backlinks help Google recognize that your website is credible and so it helps you rank higher. To do this, you can reach out to industry-related websites, local business associations, or construction blogs to write guest posts for them or you can ask about link insertions.
3. Using Content Marketing to Show Credibility
Content marketing (operating a blog or Youtube channel) allows you to demonstrate your credibility as a company and can be another way to engage with potential clients.
You can start by creating a blog on your website where you can regularly post articles offering construction tips, insights, and updates on industry trends. This not only keeps your website fresh but also provides valuable information that attracts potential clients and improves your SEO. A blog can be especially helpful if you write your articles with the intention of targeting keywords that are relevant and popular among potential clients.
The key here is that, regardless of whether you get lots of readers, Google will recognize your business as being more legitimate and rank you higher on search results, which means more traffic to your site.
4. Email Marketing for Client Retention
Most contractors spend a lot of their day on their email responding to bids and coordinating with subs, but they don’t go the extra mile of doing email outreach.
Email marketing is a cost-effective way to retain your existing clients and get connected with new ones. You should start off by building an email list of clients, prospects, and anyone who’s expressed interest in your services. There’s a million ways to do this, but you can get started by researching architectural firms or other clients in your area and recording their contact information. Using your online presence, you can also set up newsletter sign-up forms on your website, social media channels, or your blog.
5. Pay-Per-Click Advertising for Instant Visibility
If you have money to spend on marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an effective way to gain instant visibility for your construction business. Services like Google Ads and Facebook Ads, allow you to create targeted ads that appear when users search for specific keywords. By designing the ads and “bidding” on their respective keywords, you can get seen by potential clients across the internet who are either looking for construction services or have expressed interest in their search history.
An important part of PPC advertising that will especially help your construction business is retargeting ads. These ads target users who have previously visited your website or account, so that way they can be reminded of your services or offered special deals. Although effective PPC advertising involves extensive market research and a bit of risk, it can still be an instant (or short-term) solution to your advertising.
6. Leveraging Social Media for Brand Awareness
As we mentioned in the first tip, social media platforms can be important tools for raising brand awareness and showcasing your construction company’s projects and services. Just by keeping your followers engaged with regular posting, you’ll be doing better than 99% of contractors and increase the chances of potential clients discovering you. Considering posting on content on social media is completely free, what is there to lose?
You might be wondering about what a contractor should even use social media for. After all, word-of-mouth is the dominant way by which most contractors are invited to bid on jobs. However, word-of-mouth is limited in how many clients it can reach. If we want real numbers, we have to get the word out about our brand and social media is the best place to do that.
Social media can be effective as your “digital portfolio” where you share images of your completed projects, progress on current projects, and any behind-the-scenes glimpses that can demonstrate your professionalism (an important factor in getting bigger clients).
Plus, social media is a place where you can directly engage with potential clients by responding to comments and messages. As you will see in the next tip on our list, being able to manage your reputation and engage with clients directly is an enormous benefit that social media brings to the table.
If you feel convinced about using social media for your business, here’s a tip to keep in mind. The key for getting organic growth on your posts is to use relevant hashtags and location tags so that your posts reach the right people. With time and consistency, you’ll see just how much easier construction lead generation can be, using social media.
7. Manage your Reviews and Build your Reputation
One of the most overlooked digital marketing techniques among small business owners is tracking their customer reviews.
Testimonials and reviews are one of the most important factors potential clients consider before they close. When you take the time to respond to both positive and negative reviews, you show that you care about customer satisfaction. Don’t miss out on opportunities to thank clients for their positive comments or to address concerns in a professional manner. What this engagement does is:
- Show you are a professional, trustworthy business
- Lessens the impact of negative reviews.
Of course, none of these tips matter if you’re not receiving any reviews.
Especially since your reviews on your Google business profile affects your local SEO, it’s important to put in an effort to follow up with past clients and encourage them to leave feedback. For especially satisfied clients, it might even be worth it to request testimonials for your website, which helps a lot in terms of giving your website a professional feel.
8. Using Analytics to Drive Marketing Decisions
The hardest part of digital marketing is figuring out if everything you’ve been doing is actually working. Especially when it comes to making future decisions, it’s important to figure out what methods you’ll need to check our progress.
You can monitor your website traffic and user behavior using tools like Google Analytics, which show you popular pages, where visitors are coming from, how long they stay on your site, etc. Using this information, you can see what changes you need to make to keep users more engaged on your site, which ultimately improves your SEO.
As for social media, checking your process is a lot more straight-forward. Some metrics you want to look at are post engagement, follower growth, and click-through rates (the percentage of users who click on your links). Just like with Google Analytics, you want to use your social media data to help you keep refining your content and profile.
For your paid per click advertising, PPC tools like Google Ads and Facebook Ads make checking your progress easy by showing you your click-through rates and other important metrics on the dashboard. If you notice that a certain ad isn’t performing well, learn to cut your losses and try something else. You can either target a new keyword, retarget ads to users from another page, or simply change the design of your current ad.
Analyzing data for your digital marketing can be tricky since it’s not always clear what changes you have to make, but as long as you remain consistent and continuously check your progress, the possibilities digital marketing can have for generating leads, forming new business relationships, and raising awareness about your brand are endless.
The Secret to 10X your Construction Business
If you are interested in growing your construction business, I’ve prepared a short training video for you that you can watch for FREE:
In this training, I will show you how you can put your estimating on autopilot and boost your sales to 10X your business in 90 days; step-by-step with a simple copy and paste formula!
