You own a construction company. You already have the personnel, the expertise, the tools, and even the requisite permits and licenses. All that is left, is to build a strong customer base.
But as in any business, you have to beat the competition while reaching out to potential customers. This is where the strength of good marketing comes into play. Customers are immediately drawn to brands that stand out, and cater to their specific needs. And the construction business is no different.
But how do the right customers find you? And how do you reach them, grab their attention and convince them to choose your company all while they are flooded with options? Take a look at the strategies listed below!
1. Distinguish Yourself, Utilise USP’s!
The best way to beat the competition is to separate your construction company from the rest. With over 300,000 construction firms in Britain, the need to be distinctive in order to be appealing to potential customers is obvious. But how do construction companies market themselves as inimitable and unique? The answer- by applying USP’s.
A USP or unique selling proposition helps define what makes your construction business better than everyone else’s. It lets clients know, in a nutshell, why your company should be the preferred choice by highlighting its most unique feature.
A USP not only applies to products, but also to the services provided. While some USP’s in construction may focus on cost (“we can work within the smallest budgets”), others may choose to focus on product quality (“using only the best materials”). Ultimately, it is important to remember that your construction company’s USP cannot be a simple boast. It must be a certainty and completely defensible.
So how do you find the right USP for your construction business? Take into account 3 factors:
- Characteristics of your construction business
- What the competition offers
- What the customer is looking for
An amalgamation of these factors will help you create a truly compelling USP.
This USP can then help direct your overall marketing strategy. It brings focus and a clear idea of what the company has to offer to customers inundated with options. So, the benefit of choosing your company is immediately evident. This is why USP’s are integral to a successful construction marketing strategy.
2. Be Easy to Find, Use SEO!
With so many options for users to choose from, it is vital that your construction company is highly visible. And in this age of digital marketing, most people (in fact, over 84%), look online before making a purchase or hiring a service. As such, creating a first-rate website as the online face of your construction company is imperative.
However, for the construction website to be truly effective, it must first reach its target audience. This is why ranking high on search engine results pages (SERP) is essential. 75% of people never go past the first page of a SERP. So how do you ensure your construction company website is one of the top results on the first page? You optimise your company website using SEO.
This involves making changes to the structure and content of the company website for maximum user engagement. Whereas, Google considers over 200 factors and customer requirements to rank websites; there are a few factors that could be most relevant to your construction website:
- Content- Fresh, original and useful content is a leading driver of traffic to websites. 47% of users read up to 5 pieces of content before even speaking to a representative of a company. This proves the value users’ place on the content provided. Informative and relevant posts and articles provide credibility and authority to the website fostering brand loyalty.
- Page Loading Speed- Page loading time has a dramatic influence on a websites’ conversion rate. Most people expect a page to load within 2 seconds and conversion rates drop to their lowest after 5 seconds.
- Mobile-Friendly- Over 50% of online searches are done from mobile devices rather than a desktop. And 10% of all searches originate as voice searches. Hence, structuring the website for mobile and voice search optimisation is a clear winner.
- Security- Website security affects SEO rankings. Investing in website security not only helps protect your website but at the same time makes the website more attractive to users.
- Back-links- Off-page factors such as reliable backlinks and social signals also have a direct impact on website ranking. These provide a unique look into the users’ view of the website and as such, can be an important indicator of brand credibility.
SEO is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies available to marketers today. It optimises your website for organic search, produces higher ranking in searches and promotes visibility of your brand, and generates more leads, traffic and revenue.
3. Begin Blogging!
As a construction company, you may feel hesitant about the use and efficacy of blog posts, but its value in generating leads by maximising the SEO potential of your website cannot be ignored. Creating a blog is a great way of introducing content to your company website. For this content to be considered valuable and effective, it should focus on 3 aspects:
- Quality- The blog posts must be user-focused. Which means, for the user of a construction website to find the content useful, it must be detailed and informative. This optimises user engagement. The blogs and articles should aim to answer common construction queries, whereby building customer loyalty and showcasing your construction firm’s expertise. All of this results in content of high quality that can be more effective than promotional messaging.
- Consistency- For the content to be considered fresh, it is important to post regularly. Studies show that businesses that publish new content more than 16 times per month receive 3.5 times more traffic than those who publish less than 4 posts per month.
- Length- Articles and posts containing more than 3000 words receive 3 times more traffic than shorter articles. This shows that users are much more likely to be drawn to instructive posts rather than snippets of information.
Overall, content creation should be an important aspect of the construction marketing strategy to reach the target audience.
4. Pay-per-Lead using Google Local Services Ads
Google’s Local Services Ads are a wonderful new bonus to using the Local SEO. They are also incredibly relevant to the construction industry where connecting the right searcher to the correct local service provider can be of immediate urgency.
Google’s Local Service Ads not only increase your company’s prominence exponentially in local search results, they immediately provide the searcher with all the essential information of your business including:
- Contact details
- Business hours
- Ratings and Reviews
Not only that, these ads also come with a Google Guarantee. So potential customers are made aware of the company’s credibility, thus ensuring that the advertisers benefit from this endorsement.
Google then goes one step further. If a user clicks on the ad, Google asks them to confirm the service required and the location. And only if both these criteria are met with the services provided by the advertiser will you be matched with the user. This ensures only valid leads come your way. And you will be charged only for those leads.
Google LSAs are also optimised for mobile and voice searches. They can even help you manage your reviews, leads and budget.
With these features, the ROI of LSAs is bound to be very high.
5. Create Interactive Content to Generate Backlinks
Generating high-quality backlinks is an important aspect of the SEO strategy. One way of acquiring such links is by creating interactive content. Interactive content refers to content which encourages user participation thereby maximising user engagement via your company website. And one of the most efficient methods of receiving large numbers of backlinks is by building and creating interactive tools.
These tools such as quizzes, infographics, and polls are effective as they are personalised and straightforward leading to increased user satisfaction. A particularly valuable interactive tool for construction websites is a cost calculator.
Cost calculators are popular among users of construction websites as they take into consideration the different factors involved in construction, and provide estimates based on specific user needs. This simplifies a large part of the construction process for the potential client.
Cost calculators created for construction may take into account:
- Location
- Type of building
- Number of levels
- Square footage
- Materials used
They can be further modified as per customer requirements. All of this promotes positive user engagement leading to increased conversion and constructive customer rapport.
If you are looking to distinguish your construction business, generate sales, and build an impressive customer base, contact the team at Serendipity! We are specialists in curating bespoke SEO and digital marketing strategies for construction companies in London.