Use these 7 digital marketing strategies to build and grow your construction business
The association between construction companies and digital marketing may not be one of the most popular. You don’t really see contractors strutting their stuff on social media, either. At first glance, it seems construction businesses, online marketing and social media platforms don’t have much in common.
However, if you look closer, you’ll find that many potential benefits can come out of such an unusual friendship. For both sides.
Construction company owners and managers tend to be more traditional. Their digital marketing strategies include a basic website and maybe a Facebook page. And that’s it. Digital marketing, on the other hand, seems to be focused on the now.And on keeping up with every trend and update out there.
So, how can they come together and ever find common ground?
Social media trends and digital marketing feed on both novelty and quality. At some point, there’s only so much you can do and say about fashion, clubs and parties, travel and other social-media favorites. The door is always open for less-known potential trendsetters with good quality content.
Just look at the online popularity of tiny home builders, since we’re on the subject of construction.
So, if a construction company were willing to tap into the potential of social media, it could definitely make a splash with one-of-a-kind content.
Still, that’s a more extreme option. You don’t need to put “become a social media megastar” on your list of objectives for your construction company to get results. There are several business-growing goals you can aim for that are not too far off from the traditional route.
All you have to do is accept is that everything is now happening online and move on from there.
Construction companies need a good digital marketing plan to keep up with the times and trends and use popular online channels to draw in more business.
In this post, we’ll show you 7 marketing strategies guaranteed to reinforce your construction business’ reach, build its popularity and help consolidate its profits.
The 7 best strategies to structure your construction company’s digital marketing plan around:
- Set clear goals: what do you expect from your digital marketing plan?
- Start with the foundation: On and off-site optimization.
- Build up: Local SEO.
- Expand: Tap into content marketing.
- Reach out: Engage potential customers on social media.
- Go above and beyond: Give expert interviews.
- Enhance your chances: Use website promotion tools.
- Set clear goals: what do you expect from your digital marketing plan?
To start off, every construction company digital marketing plan needs a little strategizing. What you want to obtain from your efforts will determine the structure of your digital marketing plan.
You need to define your goals and take them into account for each further step of your plan. Do you want to raise awareness, get your brand name out there? Do you want to attract more potential clients in a short amount of time? Your strategy needs to consider these goals, but also your budget.
Plus, how much time you’re willing to invest in your digital marketing plan.
It will take longer to establish you as a thought leader and get organic traffic than it will to attract short-term leads with a pay-per-click campaign.
Always ask yourself the big questions in the beginning to avoid asking yourself why too many times along the way.
- Start with the foundation: On and off-site optimization.
Depending on your goals, budget and preferences, you have several options for your website. You can get a standard, static website, a [custom] one with all the bells and whistles or anything in between. The only option you don’t have is not having a website for your construction company.
Now, supposing you know that already, you’ll need to make sure that the website you do have is optimized.
On-page optimization strategies include anything and everything on your page that can get you to the top of search engine results. Like:
- [Keyword research]
- [Optimized content]
- [Link building]
- [Website speed and responsiveness]
- [Mobile optimization].
There is, of course, a logic behind the sequence of these factors. It starts with keyword research because (duh!) people use words to perform their searches. So, it’s only natural that the first step is to figure out which words to use to become the top answer to those searches.
You’ll need to take into account keyword popularity, their conversion potential, as well as the location you are targeting.And, of course, your budget. Highly popular keywords come are also the most competitive and the most expensive. On the other hand, less popular keywords have less conversion potential.
The best practice you can use for your keyword research is finding a good balance between popular and more specific keywords.
The point is that instead of competing with everyone in the world for the term “construction company”, you may have a better chance of leads and new business if you use more specific terms like “home renovation company” or “contractor in Atlanta”.
Off-site optimization is all about URLs, backlinks and more technical elements. It also includes website promotion tactics like influencer marketing, PPC advertising or search engine marketing.
- Build up: [Local SEO].
One of the most important answers to the question ‘How to market a construction company?’ is: locally.
A major part of construction company clients come from surrounding areas. Plus, a construction company’s experience and familiarity with a certain area is also a key factor potential customers take into account when deciding which contractor to choose.
It shows them you know your way around, you’ve been trusted to build there before and they can also get to see what and how well you build.
Even if you have a construction company doing business at a [national] or [international] level, local search engine optimization is just as important. You need your company to cement its presence in a specific location to build and inspire trust and reach all levels of potential clients.
Your website, as well as your other digital marketing strategies, need to use the target location wherever possible while still avoiding keyword stuffing. Search engine crawlers need to be able to understand that your construction company serves a certain area, but will penalize you if you use a location keyword too much.
Your goal should be to include location references wherever they fit in naturally on your website.
Then, make sure search engines have even more information that shows you are the most relevant answer when someone types in “home contractor in Charlotte, NC”. You’ll need to create business profiles on all relevant local directories to do this.
Only choose the local listings that are relevant to what you do. It’s better to have a few listings that you can always keep up to date and relevant than have 100 and forget all about them in a month.
Engage with potential customers on these platforms and directories and stay on top of reviews.
Google My Business, Yelp, Contractors.com, LinkedIn are just a few examples. Shop around for other options in your area and see where you can market your construction company best.
- Expand: Tap into content marketing.
Kick that shovel, turn off the concrete pump and pick up the pen. There are more people out there asking construction-related questions than you imagine. By offering expert advice, you can solidify your position among other construction companies and stand out as a reputable expert.
Search engines love that so this can skyrocket your digital marketing plan.
You can start a blog with tips for homeowners on how to maintain their new home to avoid long term damage. Or make posts targeting real estate investors, giving them tips on how to avoid the most common contractor scams. Inspire trust.
If you’re feeling motivated or have just always wanted to be on TV, expand even further and make Youtube videos. Teach young kids how to make a simple wooden box in 5 simple steps. Or show Millennials how to DIY a game console shelf.
Offering free advice is the best way a construction company can market its expertise. It builds trust and turns your company into your followers’ first choice when they need a contractor.
However, when you start a new marketing strategy try to focus your content. First, decide who you are making the content for. Define a target audience for your marketing plan complete with age, location and specific characteristics. This way, you’ll know how to address your audience and what language and tone to use.
Next, decide what your goals are for your content marketing strategies. It can be to establish yourself as a leader in the industry, build trust in your brand or raise awareness. This too will give you a better perspective of what content to create and how to use it to market your construction company.
- Reach out: Engage potential customers on social media.
Just like content marketing, social media marketing can help you bring your construction company into the spotlight by showing a new side of your brand. A friendlier one.
Create social media accounts for your construction company on every major platform. Use these platforms to promote your current projects, share infographics, videos, blog posts.
Don’t forget to engage with your audience. There is a lot of priceless insight in that. You can learn a lot about how to market your construction company if you ask the right questions and listen to your followers. Use your construction company’s social media accounts both to show your softer side and gather important information.
- Go above and beyond: Give expert interviews.
Once you get your sea legs with expressing yourself in writing, make the most of it. Get in touch with local reporters and industry bloggers and set up collaborations. They won’t say no to getting behind the scenes access to the construction industry and information from an expert.
Offer them guest posts and use these collaborations to get exposure to new audiences and build links to your website.
You can also offer up your expertise and know-how to reporters and industry bloggers by giving interviews. Give them valuable insight from an industry expert. This will also open up possibilities of new relationships and associations that can turn into profit down the road.
- Enhance your chances: Use website promotion tools.
Although local SEO (which we recommended for construction companies) is easier to tackle, any good SEO takes time.
If your digital marketing plan needs fast results or you don’t want to sit around waiting to build organic traffic, you can choose Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
These campaigns can be set up in great detailto make sure you get as many leads and conversions as possible. They also allow you to appear on top of organic search engine results, stealing the number one spot.
One of the ways you can make your PPC campaign effective is by using Google AdWords to select the best keywords. Again, it’s going to be a matter of finding the right keywords for your specific niche if you don’t want to overspend.
Do serious research as to what words best suit the specific audience you are targeting.Sort through your options to find the right one.
Last, but not least, we’ll leave you with a bonus tactic for your construction company’s digital marketing plan: always track your marketing efforts.
Your digital marketing plan has to be tracked in order to be efficient. There are several tools offering you the possibility of compiling your data, like Google Analytics or Google Search Console.
Once your data is neatly organized, you can start analyzing. See which tactics are paying off and where you should direct your future efforts to get the results you are after.
If you have any questions or feedback feel free to leave a comment below.
