Construction Marketing: How To Implement a Successful Construction Marketing Strategy

Sketch out a solid marketing plan that stays true to your budget and focuses on what you need most to grow your construction business. Read on for marketing strategies, ideas and tips to keep business rolling in.

When it comes to construction marketing, it’s all about making sure people can find you when their needs arise.

After all, new builds and renovations will come and go, and your business needs to be there waiting to take on that next job (or two or three).

But you probably aren’t the only construction company or home improvement contractor working in the area, so how are people going to find you and decide to choose you when the time comes?

That’s where construction marketing comes in.

And we mean more than just a cool wrap on your fleet of trucks.

We’re talking about a blend of digital and traditional marketing tactics that can keep your name and services top of mind for your local market for the jobs you want to take on the most.

You buy a new 10-foot ladder because it serves a specific purpose, right?

The money you spend yields benefits because now you can reach new heights (literally).

So what can you get for all the money you’re thinking of spending on your marketing?

A lot, if you go about it strategically. Here are 4 benefits of implementing construction marketing.

That might sound obvious, but take a close look at how many clients you have versus how many you can handle at once.

You probably have some room to grow.

By getting your name out there with consistency and increased visibility, your ideal clients will be more likely to come across your company and reach out for more information. People take to the internet to find local businesses based on specific needs (like “bathroom renovation near me”), and 54% of people run searches like this monthly.

Running ads, creating a website, and maintaining social media accounts creates social proof with potential clients.

Consumers expect professional businesses to have an online presence and at minimum have a website that demonstrates their credibility. Marketing helps you build trust with your audience. After all, would you feel better contacting a construction company with a professional site, a lively social media feed, and eye-catching facebook ads OR a construction company with no digital presence that your neighbor’s wife’s friend told you about?

Marketing gives you the chance to show off not just what you do but how well you do it.

Highlight positive customer reviews, blog about recent projects with before and after photos, or get the local paper to cover the completion of a massive project.

Greater exposure can lead to more leads, and more leads means more customers and more money for your business.

A thorough marketing plan will attract attention and entice people to take action (like fill out a form to get a free quote). The increase in leads can increase your ability to close more deals and take on more projects.

Much of construction is about service, solutions, and support.

Clients have a project, plan, or problem that they need help moving forward with. They’ll be looking for someone with the right blend of price and performance.

Marketing management is about making sure your campaigns are consistent and getting these points across to your ideal market. Here are a few key strategies to keep in mind as you roll out your construction company marketing plan:

• Go local: Make sure your ads target your perfect customer in the right area
• Be consistent: All of your information should match from listings to contact forms
• Stay organized: Get a calendar, use marketing software, and prioritize in advance

Planning always helps, but you can’t expect to avoid all of the bumps on the road when running marketing for construction (or any business, for that matter).

Knowing a few of the more common pitfalls can help you lessen the damage.

Your marketing plan can be as short or as long as you’d like.

Your focus should be on making sure you are honest with yourself about your goals, budget, and everything in between.

For those new to roofing company marketing strategies, it is wise to become familiar with the acronym USP. This stands for your ‘Unique Are you looking to boost referrals from current customers or increase your reach to brand new clients? How much new revenue do you want to bring in? Where should these new customers come from?

Asking yourself these key questions can get the ball rolling for you as you outline exact objectives. Be as specific as possible with yourself because you’ll use that information next.

This is where you go deep on your business strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) to make decisions to move forward. You can use a template or just ask yourself another series of questions for each area.

What is already working for you or gives you an advantage? Where are you going to have to work harder to compensate for missing services or where the competition beats you out?

Can the local area accommodate the growth you’re looking for, or do you need to branch out to attract more customers? What are others charging for similar services? Should you go cheaper, or offer more and charge more.

Understanding the market, or how many people will pay for each offering, will also help you scale your marketing activities. You’ll get a quick sense of how much (or little) you’ll need to do to get noticed.

With all of this in mind, you can balance how much you should spend with what you can afford to spend.

What will it cost to acquire a new customer? How much will that new customer likely bring in? What do you stand to profit from?

Keep it about the numbers, and you’ll be ready to apply construction marketing strategies based on facts and not feelings. A solid marketing budget will account for:

• Paid advertising
• Public relations
• Software subscriptions
• Staff payroll
• Freelance talent
• Image purchases
• Website hosting
• Event sponsorships
• Video production

You know who you need to target, where they are, and how much you can spend.

Perfect!

Now it’s time to get creative and bring your construction marketing ideas. We’ve put together 10 strategies that you can choose from to get started.

Your website shouldn’t just tell people what you do. It should answer all of the questions that a potential customer will have. You can do this in a range of ways, including:

• Write descriptions of your company and services that include extra details and descriptions.
• Include pictures that showcase the work you do so others can imagine their own projects.
• Organize content into separate pages based on topic so people can easily find what they need.
• Include a form so visitors can easily request more information or a free quote.
• Keep your contact information front and center at all times so you’re just a phone call away.
• Create an FAQ section for each service that anticipates these questions and shows off your expertise.

Whatever your approach, your website will need to have images and content that shows off your construction offerings.

The good news is that you don’t have to be an expert coder to make it happen – website builders like Pedestal take care of all the layout, design, and SEO work for you. Just plug in your logo, add your text and images, and hit ‘publish’ (Pedestal has pre-made construction templates so you don’t need to design a thing).

Now you have a website, you can start to run local Google Ads targeting your specific region and directing traffic to your new site.

Google Ads allows you to target specific areas and zip codes to appear in front of people in a specific geographical area. This way, you only advertise to potential customers based on their search term needs and your ideal of an ideal client.

That’s how you go granular and still go big.

TRADIE DIGITAL TIP: Make every Google Ad clear with what you offer, what makes you different, and how they can act now. Include a strong call to action for a free quote or consultation. And link back to your new website or a lead collection form.

Wondering how many leads a Google Ads campaign will generate? Click here for the cold, hard truth (you’ll be glad you did)

People might not go to social media to find a contractor, but they do spend hours each day on Facebook.

So why not feature yourself so when the time is right, they know who to call?

You can create hyper-local ads that target users based on location as well as interests or other criteria. Hyper-local takes things a step further than just narrowing down on a town or state. You can target people within certain streets or blocks and capture traffic from near me searches.

The ads you create for this should link back to your website and keep the call to action clear: reach out now to get started or learn more.

Video content sells.

It was the leading way people discovered new brands in 2020, and 86% of marketers found video increased their website traffic, so you’re working with a proven marketing strategy.

Struggling to decide what videos to create?

Try featuring recent projects, site walkthroughs, team highlights, and explanations about what you do best. Or, why not post an interview where you talk about your expertise and service options. Your video could also include footage of past jobs, close ups of intricate work, and a call to action to reach out to you today.

And the great news is you can keep it short. The best videos are less than 2 minutes.

Forget fancy equipment or expensive camera hire too. You can use your smartphone camera to capture conversations with clients and teams.

Entire textbooks have been written on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but we’re not going to advise you to focus on that.

Because you don’t want to rank for ‘best construction company’ if the person searching is 500 miles away. You want to appear when people look for local construction companies, and local SEO is how you do it.

What is local SEO? Click here for a jargon-free explanation plus 5 proven local SEO strategies to bring you more work

Managing your own local SEO can be cheap, but you risk missing out on some of the advanced local SEO strategies that hiring an agency can bring.

Local SEO also rewards backlinks and citations – or when other websites list your information. Make sure you have a Google My Business (GMB) listing that’s accurate and focus on adding your business information to relevant directories for an SEO boost.

Wondering which directories to add your business to? Take our list of 80 (yep, EIGHTY) business listing sites you should already be on

You’ll also want to ensure that your website works just as well on mobile as it does on desktops. Google takes this seriously and can knock you down the search rankings if your site is slow to load or hard to read on smartphones.

TRADIE DIGITAL TIP: Local SEO is a powerful marketing strategy. To start unlocking its potential, try including local keywords and common phrases (e.g. We’ve provided construction services in Carson, Nevada for over 20 years). Your blog posts are also a great place to include relevant local content.

If you work with local suppliers or equipment vendors, ask them to share your information as they see fit.

You can get referrals this way for people who you know are serious about their upcoming project.

Remember to return the favor by directly others in your industry back to your favorite vendors. It just might encourage them to thank you with more referrals!

Sometimes your existing customers can be your best source for new revenue. After all, it costs 5x more to acquire a customer than to retain an existing one.

Keep in touch with happy customers and follow up after a job well done.

You can ask them for reviews on popular sites like Google My Business or Facebook. But you can also keep the conversation going so they’ll call you or send a friend your way when the next project pops up.

You don’t have to go completely digital with your marketing.

Stay connected with local associations, teams, schools, and groups. These are almost always looking for event sponsors or supporters for their activities.

You can get your logo up on signs, posters, brochures, and even some web ads based on the event packages. Attend the events too, don’t just sponsor them. You can work the crowd and create relationships with attendees.

Oh, and bring your business cards!

This is a great way to give back to the community and the environment.

Instead of tossing out leftover materials, store them in a safe, dry place and call around.

Local organizations like Habitat for Humanity may accept these donations to help with their efforts. And if you volunteer with them, who knows who you’ll meet.

While events were put on pause for a while during the pandemic, they’re bound to bounce back.

Attending industry events, association meetings, and supplier expos can be a great way to network with brand new people.

Even if you don’t make new sales, you can create new referral connections, recommendations, or discover a new product or service that can set your business apart from the rest.

Of course, there are more than 10 ways to ignite your construction company marketing and we don’t want to leave you without options.

So here’s a few more ways to get creative and stand out whether it’s with customers, competitors, or subcontractors.

• Make your contact details consistent and easy to find everywhere
• Follow up with your past customers and directly ask for referrals
• Feature your employees and what makes them a special part of your team
• Prioritize customer testimonials on your website and social media
• Ask associations and vendors to list your website
• Create a blog and post regularly about the latest trends or common questions

With a little time and planning, you can find the construction marketing strategies that take your brand from just another builder to the must-have contractor in your town.

Remember, great marketing is about exposure and credibility, not necessarily ROI.

When you build relationships and trust, revenue follows.

Make sure your website is top notch and make it clear from the start why a potential customer should choose you. Everything else – ads, blogs, and conversations at a convention – should all point back to your site.

When your site is a hub of helpful info and a trusted source, you’ll improve your authority in the eyes of Google – which leads to better SEO results. And you’ll improve your authority in the eyes of customers – which leads to an increase in sales and projects.

Since websites are the foundation of construction digital marketing, you’ll want to make sure your site is built to work for you.

Don’t have a website yet? Pedestal is the website builder created for construction companies, with built-in marketing, SEO, optimized CTAs and ready-made themes available at the click of a button

Try Pedestal for FREE here