There may come a point when your construction company hits a bit of a marketing plateau. You feel like you've tried everything and are all out of ideas to generate more leads.
This is especially defeating if that lull in lead generation comes when your competitors are crushing it. But no need to fear — there are a lot of marketing strategies for construction companies you can try to not just get your business back in the game, but ahead of the game. They’re each beneficial for different reasons, but proven to give you that extra edge in the industry. Here’s a list of five great marketing strategies to set your construction company ahead of the competition:
Are you interested in learning more about how to propel your construction business forward with digital marketing? We're here to help! Contact the Evenbound team today!
The 5 Best Strategies for Marketing for Construction Companies
Here at Evenbound, we have years of experience creating top-tier strategies for marketing for construction companies. Read below and take some notes, and give us a call if you're looking for more guidance.
01. Give Account-Based Marketing A Shot
If your construction company wants to improve marketing efforts and shorten your sales cycle at the same time, account-based marketing is the way to go.
- Account-based marketing: is a strategic marketing tactic that focuses on developing highly-targeted marketing campaigns directed toward just a few "big-fish" accounts you know are your ideal customers.
From that definition, it may sound like a complicated process. I promise it isn’t. It actually makes things a lot easier. As an experienced construction company, you’re probably already aware of who some of your ideal clients are. With account-based marketing, you’ll pick a handful of them and create marketing campaigns — complete with email marketing, ad campaigns, and more — to directly target each one.
Essentially, you're putting your marketing efforts into just a few companies who you know, when they convert, will be the ideal fit for your business. It’s a great way to get bigger projects, which of course, means more $$$ coming to you. You’ll see results, realize how effective it is, and start reaping the benefits pretty quickly.
Aside from that, Account-based marketing can:
- Help shorten your sales cycle
- Minimize cold calling
- Make efficient use of your marketing budget
But wait — there’s more. The best thing account-based marketing can do for your construction company is to provide your leads with a better customer experience.
It turns out that salespeople aren’t the only ones who hate cold calling. Customers are in the same boat. They’re much happier when you give them some meaningful and relevant content to help them through the entire buyer’s journey.
02. Create & Maintain A User-Friendly Website
Say it with me: websites are not just brochures. Your website is often the first place potential customers will go to find more information about your company and its products or services. Therefore, it should be well-designed and offer them exactly what they’re looking for. If it’s just treated as a photo catalog, any potential leads are likely to close the tab and move on.
In order to make your website stand out among your competitors’ sites, you need to provide consumers with the most engaging content and helpful information. Basically, they’re the researchers, and your website is the answer to all their research questions.
For this reason, it’s important to go back and think about your buyer personas while building your website. Answer all those whos, whats, wheres, whens, and whys:
- Who are they?
- What do you they need?
- What pain points do they have?
- How can you solve their problems and direct
them to the information they need?
Because...
- What do you build when you help a customer in the exact way they need? Trust.
- What do you get when you build trust with a customer? A relationship.
- What comes out of a relationship? A converted lead that takes action.
What should your website include?
A well-designed and highly-developed website can do some serious work generating leads and setting your construction company ahead of the competition. A few key features you should have on your website include:
- Menu bar — Having a descriptive navigation tool makes it easy for consumers to find what they’re looking for.
- Quality design — I’m not talking about anything extravagant here — just something that looks clean, visually appealing, and makes all your great content easy to digest.
- Chatbot — Chatbots are great automation tools for helping your potential customers get the answers they need. They can also help save your customer service team a lot of unnecessary phone calls.
- Blog — Regular, consistent blogging is the best way to provide content that informs consumers, establishes your company as an industry expert, and incorporates keywords that boost your SEO efforts.
- Call to action (CTAs) — When done right, CTAs don’t just help your company sell. Creative, descriptive CTAs also help consumers navigate your website and convert into qualified leads.
But that’s not where it ends. For more insight on how to make your website the best in the industry, check out our website design checklist.
03. Know Your Way Around Social Media Marketing
For one reason or another, many construction companies avoid social media. If you want to stand out, do the opposite. If your target audience is on social media (trust me, they are!), you probably should be too. Strong and consistent social content can help you engage with them, increase brand awareness, and generate leads.
Social media platforms offer a variety of channels with unique features, advantages, and disadvantages in terms of marketing. You’ll want to pick a couple that align best with your business goals. For construction companies, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram are some of our faves.
Wait, Instagram for construction companies?
Yep! Believe it or not, Instagram’s visually-focused design is the perfect opportunity for you to showcase your projects. Although it’s not as effective at converting leads as Facebook or LinkedIn, it’s a great way to get some awareness, grow your brand, and give your company some cred.
Plus, we’ll let you in on a secret: many of your competitors aren’t there yet. After you’ve set yourself up on preferred channels, you’ll want to divide your efforts between marketing and advertising. Uhh.. is there a difference? Yes!
Social Media Marketing consists of any unpaid activity, such as posting photos.
Social Media Advertising consists of any paid activity, such as a targeted ad campaign. But that’s a topic for a whole different post. Like these ones:
As long as your social media strategy aligns with your goals, your construction company is sure to get results.
04. Implement Compelling Content Marketing
Implementing a content marketing strategy can seem like a big jump for construction companies. It might be something you haven’t heard of, or it might be something you’re wary of. It’s difficult to trust something that's a bit more intangible than something like paid advertising. But I’m telling you, it’s so worth it.
Content marketing is one of the best, if not THE best, inbound marketing tools for construction companies. And having a killer content marketing strategy is where you can really start to move ahead of your competitors. From landing pages to blogs, if you're consistently producing better content, you’re going to win in a lot of other places too.
For example, content marketing is a great way to boost your SEO. By inserting relevant keywords into your blog post, you can quickly work your way up the Google search results pages.
Also, you’ll start pulling in more qualified leads. From the great content you’re posting, you’ll start establishing some authority for yourself in the construction industry. If you’re writing content about topics your target audience is interested in, they’ll want to keep up with what you’re saying.
You know what they say: “Quality over quantity.” But a good content marketing strategy will give you both.
05. Adopt A Growth Marketing Methodology
Growth marketing is a great way to get your construction company aligned toward the same goals. It works so well because everyone is on the same page, and no time or money is wasted doing anything that isn’t on par with your business goals. It all starts with defining what success looks like at your company. Do you want to sell more? Build more relationships? Expand?
Write it down. Then, set your SMART goals based on that. All of those goals should help achieve that bigger goal of what success looks like. Here’s a refresher on SMART goals in case you need it:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Timely
After that, make sure all your other marketing tactics are aligned with those SMART goals and that big overarching success marker. Your website, social media marketing, paid advertising, etc. You name it — it should all agree.
The final step is setting metrics to analyze and evaluate what’s working and what’s not. Having regular check-ins is a great way to keep your team focused on the goal. And growth marketing is always there to make sure your company is continuously moving forward.
