Marketing your construction business can feel daunting, especially in a highly competitive industry where it can easily feel like the Goliaths have every advantage. But you don't have to be the biggest guy in the room or the best player on the field to get a win for your business.
These ten tips can help you market your construction business effectively, even if you're a new business just getting started.
- Identify Your Niche
- Develop Your Brand
- Get Online
- Regularly Publish Content
- Promote Content
- Pay to Play with PPC
- Automate Processes
- Personalize/ Segment
- Utilize Online Directories
- Build Shoulder Niche Relationships
Identify Your Niche
Expanding your business offerings may be a growth strategy for your business, but when it comes to marketing, you're going to want to zoom in for maximum effectiveness.
Picking a niche makes it easy for potential clients -- and search engines -- to understand what you do.
Construction Business Owner reports that companies who specialize in their services won bids nearly twice as often as competitors without a niche.
Whether it's dental office construction, high-end custom residential projects, or green building, focusing on one specific niche positions you as the go-to expert in the space and provides a jumping-off point for successfully marketing your business.
Develop Your Brand
Brand development isn't just for big corporations. Small businesses can benefit from a unified brand story, as well.
Your brand includes elements such as your name, colors, logo, slogan, and brand story or message.
"Branding is important because not only is it what makes a memorable impression on consumers but it allows your customers and clients to know what to expect from your company," says Brandingmag.com.
Your brand is going to represent you in all of your marketing efforts, including:
- Website
- Print collateral
- Outdoor advertising
- Car wraps
- Business cards/ stationery
- Uniforms
- Social media accounts
- Online directories
This isn't a job for your nephew with a little design experience. Investing in your brand is an investment in who you are as a business and how you want to be perceived.
Get Online
A website is no longer an option if you're building and marketing your construction business; it's a necessity.
Your business offering may be conducted in the brick-and-mortar world, but you still need to bring your business online.
Your potential clients spend their time online: searching for the right person to do the job, looking for inspiration, and spending their time on social sites.
A modern, responsive website can make a good first impression on potential clients. A website that is optimized for your specific offering makes it easier to appear in search results when someone is specifically looking for your services in your area.
A website that is properly optimized, professional, modern, and responsive (works well across devices of all sizes) is essential. But it doesn't have to be expensive. We love the affordable turnkey websites built just for artisan contractors from Artisan Contractor Websites.
Regularly Publish Content
If you've done any research on marketing your construction business, then you've come across the concept of "content as King."
Content marketing is the process of creating, publishing, and distributing content -- blog posts, social media posts, emails, YouTube videos -- to a targeted, specific audience.
If you've identified your niche, then you know who your ideal client is. Content marketing is usually combined with other marketing techniques for the purpose of generating leads and acquiring new clients.
Content gives your business the opportunity to introduce yourself as a solution to their audience's problems and position yourself as a thought leader in your niche.
Whether you decide to write a weekly article or publish a video, consistency is the key to content marketing success. Whatever you decide to do, do it regularly for maximum efficacy.
Promote Your Content
"If you build it, they will come," is a nice catchphrase for a baseball movie, but when it comes to marketing your construction business, nothing could be further from the truth.
Sure, regularly publishing content can help search engines better understand what your niche is and what problems you solve. And, over time, it could help you rise through the ranks on the search engine results page (SERP).
But the more effective way of marketing your construction business is to promote your content directly to your audience.
Promoting your content could mean:
- Sending a weekly email with a link to your most recent blog post
- Creating a digital advertising campaign
- Sharing new videos on your social media accounts
- Asking partners to share it (more on this in a bit)
Pay to Play with PPC
Paid advertising is a tactic you can use to promote your content, but it deserves to stand alone with its own section. Because PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is one of the most popular marketing tactics available to you.
According to a recent survey, 45% of small businesses use paid ads.
PPC advertising is commonly used in search engine results pages and used on social media channels. You can deploy PPC campaigns on a variety of platforms, including:
- Google ads
- Bing ads
- Facebook/ Instagram ads
- LinkedIn ads
- Twitter ads
- AdRoll (retargeting)
Paid advertising can help you rise to the top of search engine results pages or put you front and center of someone's social feed and be seen by potential clients who may not have otherwise known you exist.
Automate Processes
If all of this sounds like an incredible amount of time and effort so far, well, you're right. Marketing your construction business effectively can be a full-time job (or more).
Luckily, there are plenty of ways to automate the process so you can spend less time marketing and more time building.
Make sure your website can do some heavy lifting for you.
Be sure your site includes clear CTAs (call-to-actions) inviting users to book a consultation, sign up for your emails, or any other desired action. When your website is specifically designed to attract leads and gather their information, a large portion of the sales process is automated for you.
There are plenty of marketing automation tools that allow you to automate some or even all of your marketing efforts. Check out this list of 23 marketing automation tools recommended by marketing guru Neil Patel.
Personalize and Segment
Segmentation and personalization are some of the most effective ways to see marketing success.
Segmented emails sends receive 14% more opens, 63% higher clicks, and 8% fewer unsubscribes compared to unsegmented ones, according to Hubspot.
And including a person's name in a subject line of an email can boost open rates by 29.3%.
If you have a company that offers commercial painting for hospitals and concrete sealing, you could have a list of very different potential clients. Segmenting your emails based on interest can help you deliver the right message to the right potential clients.
List Your Business in Online Directories
Online directories can help online searchers find service providers in their area. And they provide multiple benefits for your construction business.
Many of these local directories perform well in search results for highly competitive keywords, meaning you may have a better chance of getting found online via your directory listing compared to your website's search results.
Listing your business in online directories can also help your Local SEO by sending signals to search engines about what type of services you offer plus what geographic area you serve.
Be sure to list your business in relevant contractor directories, and be sure that your business information is consistent everywhere online. Your business name, address, and phone number should always be listed exactly the same. Don't spell out "Baker Street" on one listing and then abbreviate to "Baker St." on another, for example.
Build Shoulder Niche Relationships
Sure, relationship building helps businesses grow. But when it comes to marketing your business, there's a very specific type of relationship you'll want to focus on: the "shoulder niche".
A shoulder niche is a niche that is closely related to your niche.
If you specialize in deck and patio construction, for example, shoulder niches could be gardeners, landscapers, landscape design companies, pool design/ pool construction companies, and pool service companies.
None of these businesses are in direct competition with you. But they are closely related to your niche.
Building a relationship with shoulder niche companies gives you the opportunity to integrate -- and supercharge -- each other's marketing efforts.
You and your shoulder niche partners can guest post and engage in link outreach with one another. Write a guest blog about what type of deck or patio space you need in order to install a hot tub and include a link back to your website. Give it to your pool construction company or landscaper partner to publish on their site. Create a video about how to create the perfect backyard for entertaining and invite your partners to join you.
Engage with, link to, and cross-promote one another's content. And, of course, refer one another to potential clients.
Building relationships with shoulder niche partners allows you all collectively to share your audiences and amplify your marketing reach.
These 10 marketing tips can help you build your brand, increase awareness, fill your lead pipeline, and grow your business. While some tips are easier to implement than others, all earn a spot on our list for their proven ability to get the job done. Start putting them to the test and see just how far you can grow your construction business this year.