Many Contractors tend to associate themselves with more real-time activities than digital ones. This is why they might lose many potential clients just by sticking to traditional contractor marketing channels. However, this attitude will not help them sustain the cutthroat competition in this industry. In such a case, they can implement digital marketing for contractors in their publicizing campaigns.
Online marketing smoothens your promotional efforts to a great extent. It does not matter if you are a freelance general contractor or a contractor company. With the right digital marketing strategies, you get to work on more projects thereby fueling your revenue generation.
In this guide, we have discussed tips and strategies for contractors who aim to attract more leads through online marketing.
What is Digital Marketing for Contractors?
Digital marketing for contractors is a process that promotes the business using cost-effective online strategies. It involves techniques like SEO, PPC advertising along with social media marketing to attract specific types of potential clients.
Additionally, there are other strategies that contribute to an effective digital marketing campaign. These include email and content marketing coupled with online reputation management.
This kind of online marketing solution enables contractors to build a solid customer base by improving brand awareness. It also improves the quality and quantity of organic along with paid website traffic. This, in turn, amplifies the chances of a better conversion rate, leading to an increased return on investment.
4 Benefits of Digital Marketing for Contractors
The primary motive of all marketing forms is revenue generation. However, as digital marketing has a wider prospect than that of any particular streamlined approach, it can give you a plethora of other benefits.
Here we are discussing the four major benefits that contractors can get when they implement digital marketing strategies in their businesses. Have a look!
- Broader Audience Reach
Digital marketing for contractors allows a contracting business to reach a wide spectrum of audiences. Online marketing exposes your business far and wide, which generates more qualified leads.
Efficient search engine marketing efforts, together with proper PPC and social media advertising services, allow you to attract the attention of potential customers. It does not matter if you are a contractor from Las Vegas, with effective digital marketing people from New York can also discover you with strategic implementation of internet marketing techniques.
- Improved Brand Awareness
When your website ranks on the first page of search engine results, it automatically makes your website more discoverable to potential clients. More people come to learn about your contracting business. In turn, your brand awareness improves significantly.
- Enhanced Conversion Rate
Contractors can take advantage of the streamlined approach of digital marketing agencies to earn profit in their business. It allows them to focus on the target audience from different angles, which increases the chances of a higher conversion rate.
- Better Customer Engagement
Digital marketing is a great method to enhance customer engagement. It is a two-fold marketing strategy that benefits both the customers as well as business owners.
The interactive feature of this advertising system helps contractors build strong connections with their core audience. Emails, social media posts, online reputation management, etc, are the tools that lead to better customer engagement.
6 Digital Marketing Channels Contractors Can Leverage
Before beginning the digital marketing campaign for contractors, you should have a basic knowledge of the strategies. After careful observation, we consider the following tactics to be best suited for your contractor marketing services.
- SEO (Search Engine Marketing)
One strategy that can boost your contractor marketing efforts is SEO. Search engine optimization is a digital marketing strategy that brings organic traffic to your business website. It is a long-term tactic that offers favorable results over time. A successful SEO strategy puts your web pages at a higher rank on the search engine results pages.
There are several important components involved in SEO marketing. After running a website audit, you need to perform keyword research. This is an extremely crucial step in SEO. It lets you identify the trending search terms and phrases for contractors.
SEO can also take care of your website’s technicalities. It involves tracking page speed , mobile optimization along with security. This keeps you updated on your websites technical performance.
Apart from this, you can also build a strong backlink portfolio with the help of an effective SEO strategy to improve your domain authority. Internal and external linking increases the crawlability that ensures seamless user navigation.
Moreover, it allows you to optimize your website content with the correct implementation of the keywords. The higher the quality, the better the chances of increased online visibility among viewers.
In essence, SEO makes Google crawlers easier to index and find your website. Besides driving organic website traffic, it improves brand awareness in the most cost-effective manner. So, construction companies who want to boost their visitors steadily can always fall back on SEO as a contractor digital marketing strategy.
Checklist
- Run frequent website audits to check its current standing in the online market.
- Aim for long-tail keywords while conducting keyword research
- Use relevant keywords in content, headings, titles along with meta description
- Make use of local SEO to reach the target audience in your service area
- Acquire high-quality backlinks naturally or via guest posting
- Keep regular tabs on SEO marketing campaigns for better results.
- PPC (Paid Advertising)
If a contractor wants to speed up their marketing campaign, PPC is the right digital marketing strategy. It is an auction-style marketing method that allows contracting companies to bid for relevant keywords along with their ad placement. The payment varies depending on the search volume of the keywords. The higher the volume, the more is the price.
The ads that you see above the organic results on search engines are sponsored ads. Those are the ones run by PPC ad campaigns. They offer instant visibility to your target audience, which leads to more website traffic.
Another reason PPC offers fast results is because of its targeted approach. It aims only at those customers who are genuinely interested in contracting services. The geo-targeting feature of these ad campaigns decreases the chance of the inflow of unqualified traffic, which guarantees better conversion rates.
The payment that the construction firm pays goes to the platform where they run their PPC ads. They can leverage a variety of ads to attract prospective customers, such as Google ads, Bing Ads and Meta ads. So, when a viewer searches for a query on any of these platforms, if that matches your ad campaign, it’s a half-win for you already.
Checklist
- Do keyword research for a successful PPC ad campaign
- Make the bidding as per your revenue
- Craft click-worthy, visually enticing ad campaigns
- Create ad groups with relevant keywords and landing pages
- Be clear in defining your USPs
- Don’t forget to add a prominent CTA message
- Content Marketing
Content is a vital component in digital marketing for contractors. Without it, none of your marketing campaigns will offer the desired results. So, content marketing involves creating high-end relevant content pieces that resonate with the search queries of your core audience. It is a powerful tool that has the potential to significantly bolster website traffic.
This form of digital marketing is a good way to inform your audience about your contracting services. Additionally, having dedicated webpages for each service facilitates seamless user navigation.
You can create videos on “DIY ideas to renovate your house”, or “10 benefits of renewable building materials”. Other topics can be ” Tips to choose the right contractor or your dream home” or “Seasonal maintenance tips for homeowners to fight any weather”. This way you will be able to quench the queries of your target audience by addressing their concerns via video marketing.
You can find other relevant topics by conducting thorough keyword research. It will give a clear picture as to what exactly your audience is looking for. You can use those search terms as topics to craft top-tier content thereby improving your search engine rankings.
If you find it troublesome to run the contracting company and content marketing simultaneously, you can hire a content marketing agency for that cause. Their professional team of content writers will create rank-worthy, engaging content to bring your website to the forefront of your target audience.
Checklist
- Conduct keyword research
- Upload visually appealing content
- Keep the videos shorts and crisp
- Organise webinars
- Email Marketing
If you want to follow up with old leads and keep them updated about your business affairs, you can use email marketing. It is a digital marketing strategy that offers a direct line of communication between the contracting company and its target audience. Starting from new service announcements to acquiring customer feedback, this online marketing method handles it all.
Moreover, research shows that 99% of email users regularly check inboxes which makes email marketing the most contractor marketing ROI.
Apart from sending general emails, customize them before mailing to clients. You can modulate the email marketing strategy such that past customers receive different emails from that of the prospective clients. Through these customized emails, you can jog the past client’s memory of your contracting services and send prospective clients further down the sales funnel.
Don’t skip the part where you have to provide a clear call-to-action in your email content. This will help you drive more traffic to your website which will improve your search engine rankings significantly.
Additionally, it is one of the effective digital marketing strategies that helps you with customer retention.
Checklist
- Be SMART while defining your goals
- Understand your target audience
- Utilize visually engaging content material
- Add Conversion Elements
- Choose a good email marketing agency
- Use analytics to track progress
- Social Media Marketing
Social Media is yet another important element in contractor marketing services. Social media marketing includes the use of all predominant platforms, such as Facebook, X, and Instagram, to promote your contracting business worldwide.
Having a solid social media presence helps to amplify your brand awareness across a wide spectrum of viewers. Social media marketing also enables contractors to build connections with other professionals in the construction industry.
There are 5.07 billion total active members on social media, as a contractor, you need to use this situation to your advantage. Upload fresh, relevant content via image or video format on your social media accounts. Frequently uploading this kind of content will keep the interest of genuine customers high.
You can also run meta ads on Facebook and Instagram along with Twitter Ads on popular search terms and phrases. Make sure to have a distinct and clear CTA on each of your ad campaigns.
Social media marketing truly takes your digital marketing efforts to the next level. It doesn’t matter how large or small the construction firms are. Social marketing strategies offer favorable results to both. It piques the interest of potential clients thereby improving your conversion as well as sales rate.
Checklist
- Use the right social media platform for your marketing campaigns
- Craft visually compelling ad posts
- Have a clear CTA in your ad campaigns
- Use the right hashtags in the appropriate number
- Use analytical tools like Instagram Insights to understand your performance
- Collaborate with related local businesses
- Online Reputation Management
Every business might have gone through a situation where people tend to leave negative comments on their website. And, a construction company with a business website or social media account is not an exception. So, how do you handle such a situation? The answer is through online reputation management.
Online Reputation management deals with maintaining the image of the construction company in the online market. It manages online reviews, does reputation monitoring, performs outreach services and handles negative comments. This shows that the firm deems customer engagement and satisfaction highly.
If your in-house marketing team is managing your promotional campaigns, you can hire a professional reputation management company to manage your online reputation.
Checklist
- Audit your online reputation
- Plan out a solid crisis management strategy
- Encourage customer positive reviews online
- Deal with negative comments with courtesy
4 Digital Marketing Tips for Contractors
Knowing the strategies to ace the game of contractor digital marketing is not enough. You also require a few wise tips up your sleeves so as to implement these strategies to garner the best results.
We are discussing a few tips on digital marketing to help in your journey to gain online prominence. Take a look;
- Creating a Visual Online Presence
It is obvious that before a homebuyer approaches a contractor, they will pay a visit to their profile. It can be their official website or social media channels. They will surely want to know what they are getting in return for their investment.
That’s a golden opportunity for every contractor. If you can impress the viewer with a robust online presence, you are halfway there.
Grab the attention of your potential customers by showing them what they want to see. Give them detailed information about your past projects, ongoing ones as well as your future plans via your website. Show them what you are capable of building.
Use high-resolution pictures to back up your claims. You can also upload videos of those projects that were hard to complete yet you could accomplish them successfully. Highlight the ones that are your best achievements to date.
Additionally, make your site more visually compelling by using interactive communicative tools. It will help clients get a visual demonstration of your work. This will lead to viewers turning into potential customers.
- Maintain a Blog Section
One of the best construction marketing strategies is to craft blogs for your web pages and social media posts. Blogs bring a steady flow of traffic to your website as they provide detailed information about construction businesses.
You can create relevant blog posts that resonate with their search queries. Starting from services to USPs to packages, every other detail must be there in your blog section.
Make sure to optimize the content as per search engine optimization guidelines. This will help the blogs rank higher on the result pages of search engines. Additionally, you must not forget to add a clear CTA message in your content.
- Share Before-and-After Photos
Well, before-and-after photos have always been in trend. So, why not use them to publicize your construction business? It is a marketing strategy that significantly intrigues viewers’ curiosity.
You might have a project to renovate the front of a house. While you are at it, you can take pictures of it before you start revamping it. You can create a photo gallery with photos of every step. Use the final look as the final show-stopper picture.
To make it more engaging, try to caption each of those pictures. Describe the step in short. Moreover, you can also add your thoughts about things from where you drew inspiration or if it is your brainchild.
This tactic is one of the best formats for demonstrating how you can transform things with your construction skills. It is also a good marketing tactic to show how competent your team is in creating wonders.
- Share Clients Feedbacks
Client Testimonials serve as a solid source of credibility to viewers who are interested in your contractor services. This makes it a crucial component of digital marketing for construction companies.
Positive client feedback builds credibility among other clients. There is a huge section of society that goes through client testimonials before sealing the deal. Statistical data proves this fact. 49% of consumers trust online reviews as much as word-of-mouth recommendations.
You can send your existing and past clients feedback forms where they can write their views on your service. Or, you can encourage them to leave remarks on your website itself. When you highlight these feedbacks on your landing page, it automatically leaves a positive impression on the reader.
Sharing client testimonials is a good digital marketing strategy to build a trustworthy image in the eyes of your target audience.
Final Takeaway
In essence, digital marketing for contractors is a powerful tool for staying ahead of competitors by attracting a potential number of prospective clients. From this guide you now know how search engine marketing strategies coupled with PPC, social media and email can help you in your digital marketing campaigns.
Although each strategy is different, their goal is the same: generate leads, enhance brand awareness, and increase conversion rates. Correct implementation of these strategies will push you towards your desired marketing success. If you find it difficult to handle digital marketing all by yourself, you can hire an expert digital marketing company to take over the reins. They can come up with an excellent contractor marketing strategy that will be valuable to your business growth
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