How Can I Compete with Low-Cost Construction Service Competitors?
Digital marketing for construction companies can be tough, especially if your services are more expensive than others’. In the highly competitive construction industry, price is one of the most common objections your leads will have. So if you don’t market your services the right way, they’ll look the other way, fast.
That being said, the key to successfully marketing your big-ticket services is continuously emphasizing the additional benefits and value they bring. Your goal is to make your prospects stop worrying about prices, and start worrying about value. (New to the idea of selling value? Check out this post: How to Sell the Value of Your Service in 2 Simple Steps). Here’s how you can do that.
5 Digital Marketing Tips for Luxury Contractors
In most cases, big-ticket services come with a longer sales cycle. Your lead may be stuck in the consideration stage of the buyer's journey for quite some time, trying to figure out if your premium services are worth their premium costs. While they’re stuck there, it’s important to keep nurturing them with things that help them see the value in what your company has to offer. To get you started, here are five of our most effective digital marketing tips for contractors looking to sell expensive services:
01. Understand Your Buyer Personas
Your services aren’t for everyone — but they are for some people. You just have to find the right ones. Identifying and understanding your buyer personas will help you tremendously in targeting ideal customers who are more likely to convert. In the case of marketing expensive services, it’s especially important to understand your buyer personas’ motivations and pain points. You not only need to know who would consider buying your premium services, but also why. It’s this information that will give you the upper hand in communicating the unique value of your services.
02. Use Storytelling to Your Advantage
Storytelling is a powerful tool in communicating your company’s successes, while also helping customers envision what it’d be like to work with you. Stories make things more personal, and can help a stronger relationship with your prospects, pulling them in more than any cold-call messaging ever will. And when your story has a problem and resolution that hits your buyer personas’ main motivations and pain points, you’re definitely in business.
Storytelling can be used in a number of ways, but it’s most effective when providing the basis for content marketing. Things like content offers, case studies, or testimonials work especially well for incorporating storylines. But, as always, feel free to get creative with it — as long as your prospect can envision themselves as the champion of the story, you’re sure to drive in more qualified leads.
03. Highlight Your Key Differentiators
Construction is a competitive industry, and you want to be the first company that comes to your ideal audience’s mind when they want to start a new project. Therefore, you need to highlight your key differentiators in everything that goes out to them, from content marketing tactics like blogs and emails, to paid media tactics like Facebook and Google Ads. The most important thing to remember here is to base your comparisons on value, not price. If your services come at a higher cost than your competitors’, “affordability” isn’t a unique selling point (USP) for your business — but things like custom design, sustainable solutions, and lifetime value may be.
04. Help Customers Visualize What Could Be
In the construction industry, photo and video are everything. Your prospects will use the portfolio of work you’ve done to determine whether you can achieve the build they’re looking for. Especially if you’re delivering specialized services, media is a great way to showcase how you stand apart from others.
Digitally speaking, this means you should be outfitting your website and social media (yes, Instagram too!) with great images and videos of your latest projects. And you get bonus points for anything that helps customers visualize your process, from before-and-after photos to behind-the-scenes footage. You don’t need fancy equipment or a background in photography or videography to get this done, either — just a fairly up-to-date smartphone and a steady hand.
05. Create a Calculator Tool on Your Website
Last, but not least, prospects like transparency when it comes to pricing. And there’s no better form of transparency than letting them calculate an estimate of their own project costs right on your site. Not only will they appreciate the interactivity of it, but they could also treat it as a means of starting the pricing conversation with you. Today, calculator tools are common website plugins used for a variety of applications, from mortgage estimators in real estate, to project cost estimators in construction. They’re fairly simple to install, and they can help customers break large projects and expenses down into something more digestible.
Let's Talk Growth!
At Evenbound, we’ve worked with a variety of construction companies and home builders who sell specialized services at premium prices, including design-build firms, custom home builders, and sustainable home builders. If you’re looking to sell more of your company’s premium services, we’re happy to help you figure out the digital marketing strategies it will take to get you there. Give us a call or contact us online to take the next step toward growth.
