For the longest time, construction companies relied on traditional marketing to get their brand in front of the public.
Over the years, the construction industry has spent millions upon millions of dollars on TV and radio spots and print ads in their effort to bring in more clients and grow their business.
However, times have already changed. While traditional marketing techniques are still very much in use, more and more industries are now turning to digital marketing to get the word out about their business.
Given that practically the entire world is on the Internet, it only makes a lot of sense for businesses—those in the construction industry included—to market their brand online.
The Benefits of Engaging In Digital Marketing
Traditional marketing channels work, but the benefits of digital marketing are not something that construction companies bent on growing their business can ignore. Those benefits include:
- Access to a much larger audience—There are more than four billion active internet users worldwide.
- The ability to target the RIGHT audience—Digital marketing techniques allow you to focus on users whose preferences and initial actions to your marketing efforts show them to be interested in what you have to offer.
- Cost-effectiveness—The ability to target a specific audience also makes digital marketing a more cost-effective way of promoting your business.
- Easily trackable results—Unlike those of traditional marketing techniques, the results of a digital marketing campaign can be monitored and measured quite easily, thanks to the wealth of free and paid tools that make it possible.
- The ability to make adjustments to their strategy—With readily available data, construction companies can see how their digital marketing campaign is performing, which allows them to make the appropriate adjustments right away.
If you have a construction business and you’re considering jumping onto the digital marketing bandwagon, here are some tips that should help you get started:
Create A Website
Your construction company’s life in the digital realm begins with the creation of a well-designed website.
Customers are always on the lookout online for general contractors who can build the home, commercial building, or public infrastructure they have in mind.
With a professional-looking website that’s easy-to-use, fast-loading, and mobile-friendly, you can put your construction business in front of those customers.
Optimize Your Website
However, to get your website in front of potential customers, you must first raise your website’s visibility in search engines such as Google and Bing. That’s where SEO comes in.
SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it represents one of your website’s best chances of making it to page 1 of search engine results pages (SERPs).
With the application of organic SEO practices like keyword research, writing strong titles and descriptions, and posting quality content, your construction website’s pages stand a chance to be more visible in the SERPs.
The more people see those links, the better their chances of bringing in organic traffic. With more people checking out your website, the better your chances of attracting customers in need of your general contracting services.
Optimize For Local Search
If your construction company is local in scope, then ranking high in local searches specific to the area where you conduct business is a must.
Performing well in local searches requires optimizing local search ranking signals.
You can start by claiming your Google My Business page and making sure to choose the right categories and put in accurate information like your office’s exact location, contact numbers, and office hours, among other things.
You can also further optimize your Google My Business page by posting photos of your location and your staff to lend more credibility to your business.
Claiming listings on review sites like Yelp and Angie’s List are also good ways of optimizing for local SEO.
If you can consistently publish content about local events or interests on your website, that would be a great idea, too.
Go For PPC Advertising
While organic SEO has long proven effective, results could take somewhere between six to 12 months.
If that’s too long for you, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising might be more up your alley.
While running PPC advertising means you’re going to have to spend money on ads, you’ll be glad to know that you will only have to pay for your ads that users will actually click with this online advertising model.
With their cost-effectiveness, PPC ads have become a popular way of increasing traffic and, consequently, revenue. They’re also easy to track and measure.
Email Marketing
Email marketing may be one of the oldest digital marketing techniques in existence, but it remains pretty effective at leveraging sales, generating new customers, and retaining them.
If you’re going to give email marketing a try, make sure that your emails to prospective customers are well-written, engaging, and personalized but professional at the same time.
Do Content Marketing
Take a look at traditional ads, and all you’ll see are products and services being thrust into the audience’s face, with little to no regard for their relevance and value to them.
Content marketing takes a different approach, as it focuses on creating and distributing content that your audience will find truly relevant, valuable, and useful enough to help them find answers to their questions or solve their problems.
When you do content marketing, you are essentially educating your prospect about your industry.
Your content can talk about, for example, the difficulties the construction industry is facing amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Discussing the use of aerial drones in your company’s projects would also be quite informative and interesting, especially when you post videos of some of your footage.
If a new, cutting-edge type of construction equipment debuts in the market, you can review it through your blog or make a video out of it.
You can even touch on the importance of a general liability insurance policy for contractors and the consequences of not having one.
Whether your content is in article, e-book, guest blog posts, or video form, what you present to your audience helps you position yourself as an authority on the subject.
Engage In Social Media
There was a time when social media platforms were simply a way to touch base with friends and family.
Today, social media has transformed into a powerful business tool, with businesses big and small establishing a presence on the social media network of their choosing.
Your construction company can use a social media presence, too, especially when billions of users are on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms.
Whatever platform you go with for your social media marketing, you will be getting the chance to share more quality content, connect with the people who follow your pages, and even field inquiries from potential customers who stumble upon your posts.
These are just some of the digital marketing strategies that your construction company can implement to help grow your business.
Admittedly, though, employing these strategies effectively requires time, skill, effort, resources, and patience on your part.
Good for you if you have all five, but if you don’t and you’re still bent on digital marketing for your construction business, you might want to consider partnering with a digital marketing agency.
With an entire team of skilled and experienced professionals working on your project, your chances of digital marketing success will be so much better.
Bio: Rachel Porter is the content specialist for Custom Contractors Insurance, LLC, an Arizona roofing and contractors insurance company. When not writing, she enjoys reading and mountain biking with her friends.
