Guide to Marketing a Construction Companies: Comprehensive Strategies
5 Fundamental Concepts of Inbound Marketing for Construction Professionals
February 20, 2024
Construction MarketingMarketing
Moving towards inbound marketing can be a significant shift for construction companies. It’s a comprehensive approach, with various aspects to manage, along with the constant need for enhancement. Implementing it might seem overwhelming at first, but taking that initial step is crucial.
From our experience, simplifying the concept of inbound marketing can make it less daunting. Moreover, there are essential elements that are necessary for your inbound strategy to be effective.
Thinking about that, we’ve taken the whole idea of inbound marketing and broken it into 5 simple basics, especially for people in construction. These 5 basics are like the building blocks you need to start within inbound marketing to make a real impact for your construction company.
Now, let’s check them out:
Inbound Marketing Basic #1: Draw people/leads in, don't push out your message.
At the core of inbound marketing is the idea of drawing in leads.
Traditional, loud marketing is outdated. You might boast about your construction company all you want, but if you’re not providing value to attract those leads, it won’t get you far.
Modern consumers aren’t fans of promotional marketing.
At best, they’ll just ignore your ads claiming you’re the best builder or supplier around.
At worst, they’ll unsubscribe from your emails and complain to Facebook and YouTube that your ads aren’t what they want to see.
And honestly, traditional promotional marketing is a hassle.
– How much time did your sales or marketing team waste on leads that weren’t a good fit?
– How many hours were lost on designing print materials?
– How much cash went into billboards, newspaper ads, or even local radio spots?
And what did you really get in return?
Probably not much.
Inbound marketing flips the traditional marketing goal of “spreading the word” on its head. Instead, it encourages leads to explore and discover more about what interests them.
What does attracting leads involve?
Let’s imagine a builder is in search of a new supplier. He’s seeking a reliable partner who promptly refunds his credit pickups and stocks popular brands like Cambria countertops and Trex decking.
To make his decision, he’ll research suppliers that offer both a credit pickup policy and carry the brands he prefers. If your construction supply company provides this information, the builder will likely come across it, think “these guys seem promising,” and potentially reach out to your sales team.
There you go. You’ve just gained a lead, and it came to you naturally—without your sales team aggressively pursuing the builder.
If there’s one key takeaway from this blog, let it be this: Draw people/leads in, don’t push out your message.
The more value you provide, the more leads you’ll attract.
For your construction company, this translates to more than just an increase in leads. It also means:
– Attracting more qualified leads
– Reducing the time your sales team spends on unqualified leads
– Streamlining your marketing and sales processes
– Achieving a significantly improved ROI, thanks to leads coming to you and a more focused marketing and sales approach.
Setting up a successful inbound marketing strategy involves many steps, and I can’t cover them all here.
However, let’s continue explaining these 5 important inbound marketing basics for construction professionals:
Inbound Marketing Basic #2: Content remains Royalty (Yes, Even for Construction Companies)
Inbound marketing basic #1 was about attracting leads.
Inbound marketing basic #2 focuses on how you deliver the value that attracts those leads — and that’s through content.
Whether you’re a commercial builder or a construction supplier, content remains paramount in inbound marketing.
Content, in all its forms, from your blog to your social media posts to your company’s YouTube tutorials, offers the value necessary to attract leads.
While there are numerous inbound marketing tactics, content development and marketing are the foundation of any inbound strategy.
Why?
Because without content, there isn’t much to offer incoming leads.
From boosting your construction company’s search engine ranking to providing the valuable information your leads seek, content is the backbone of the inbound marketing strategy.
Unsure how to create content for your construction company?
I’ve got plenty of tips for creating inbound marketing content.
Start by considering the questions your sales teams are always asked. There’s probably a few they’re tired of answering.
Develop content around those questions. Offer the answers your clients seek, whether that’s in a blog or a video.
Perhaps there’s a new product you’re selling that customers are interested in but unsure how to use. A quick 5-minute how-to video can attract qualified leads for you.
Getting into business blogging is also a great way to boost your construction company’s search engine ranking while attracting the leads you desire.
And that brings me to our next inbound marketing fundamental — determining the content you need to create to attract the leads you actually want.
“Content marketing is really like a first date. If all you do is talk about yourself, there won’t be a second date.”
— David Beebe, Founder & CEO, Storified Hospitality Group
Inbound Marketing Basic #3: Identify Your Target Audience with Buyer Personas
There are jobs your team enjoys, and there are jobs they don’t. The profitable jobs that you and your team like are your target market.
Another crucial aspect of inbound marketing for any construction professional is defining your target market. We’ve discussed the importance of contractors knowing their target market before, and those reasons still hold true.
There are countless types of construction jobs out there, and you don’t want all of them. The key to minimizing the jobs you dislike and maximizing the ones you enjoy and that bring greater profit to your construction company is defining your target market and then creating detailed buyer personas.
Your target market is the market your construction company prefers to work in. This could be custom homes at a specific price point or a particular type of commercial building project.
Buyer personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal clients within that target market. For example, if you’re a construction supplier, your buyer personas might include custom home builders, commercial builders, and even a small group of DIY homeowners.
Defining your target market and buyer personas is fundamental for your construction company because these personas help you determine and refine the types of content you develop. Your buyer personas provide insight into who you’re communicating with, allowing you to create content that resonates with your ideal buyer.
With defined buyer personas, your marketing team can focus on creating content that is relevant to the leads you desire most. For your sales team, this means closing more of the profitable jobs your team desires, rather than jobs you feel obligated to take on.
Inbound Marketing Basic #4: Your website is more than just a brochure; it's a lead generation tool.
In inbound marketing, it’s crucial to view your website as a central hub.
It serves as a resource for leads, salespeople, your marketing team, and even customer service.
With all these key players in one place, your website becomes a powerful tool for nurturing and converting leads.
For construction companies, it’s common to see the website as merely a virtual brochure. You may have stunning project photos, but it can be challenging to translate marketing efforts into a digital space.
If your website looks fantastic, you might assume people will naturally reach out to your sales team. But is that enough?
Wrong
Your website isn’t just a fancy brochure; it’s like a handy tool that people are used to using.
People, even those in construction, like to check things online before they buy. They click around websites to find what they need and prefer not having to call anyone for every question they have.
If you make your website a tool for generating leads—by adding things like buttons to click, free stuff to download, special pages, and forms to fill out—you’ll see results. That’s what inbound marketing is about: using digital tools to attract leads, give them what they need, and build a connection.
When someone feels comfortable with your website, maybe they’ve chatted with a robot or read your articles, they’re more likely to call your sales team when they’re ready to buy.
So, it’s important to make your website in a way that helps potential customers move through the process smoothly. If you’re not sure if your website is doing that, let’s talk about it.
Inbound Marketing Basic #5: Work Smarter, Not Harder
This might not be the official definition you’d find on HubSpot, but it’s a crucial principle we swear by inbound marketing, one we strive to apply to our clients.
At its heart, inbound marketing is about helping your team work smarter, not harder.
When you’re doing inbound marketing, right:
– Your sales team spends less time on leads that aren’t a good fit.
– Your marketing team creates and shares content specifically tailored to your ideal buyers, aimed at building trust, answering questions, and solving their pain points.
– Your email marketing runs smoothly with automation, nurturing leads until they’re ready to buy.
– Chatbots engage visitors and leads even when your teams are offline.
Implementing inbound marketing for your construction company means your team can focus more on actions and connections that bring the best results. Instead of chasing every lead, your sales team can prioritize those with the highest conversion potential. Marketing automation handles the rest, nurturing leads until they’re ready to make a decision.
Inbound marketing helps you pinpoint what matters most for your company’s growth, allowing you to concentrate on tactics that deliver the best outcomes. And when executed effectively, it provides valuable metrics to gauge the success of your efforts.
5 Fundamental Concepts of Inbound Marketing for Construction Professionals
There you have it, 5 Fundamental Concepts of Inbound Marketing for Construction Professionals:
- Focus on drawing leads in.
- Use content marketing to provide value.
- Define buyer personas to develop the right content.
- Transform your website into a lead-generation tool.
- Work smarter, not harder.
Inbound marketing is a complex system that takes time to grasp and implement. It can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re transitioning your construction company to a more inbound-focused marketing and sales approach.
But if you remember these 5 basics and start with buyer personas, content creation, and optimising your website, you’ll establish a solid foundation. This foundation will help you attract and convert more leads, driving the growth you desire.
If you need guidance along the way, we’re here to help. We’ve assisted construction pros and suppliers in the past, so we have a good understanding of what works and what doesn’t. Feel free to reach out with any questions you may have.
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