Many companies in the commercial construction industry have become successful without digital marketing; however, that will not be possible for much longer.
As the market continues to boom, the industry will continue to become more competitive. Companies that have consistently earned new business simply because of their brand recognition will soon have to start fighting for new business. Younger and hungrier competitors will aggressively market to the same customer base, and they may be more likely to cut deals to earn the business. Leveraging modern marketing strategies, those new competitors will often be perceived as more valuable than companies that are more complacent.
Whether a contractor is an industry leader or the rising star, strategies and tactics must change to remain (or become) competitive. Relationships will still matter, but other factors will become just as important, such as building a value-based brand, staying in front of customers through multiple channels and building trust using third-party sources.
These are components that have been essential in other industries for a long time and are rapidly becoming just as essential in the commercial construction industry.
Build a Value-Based Brand
Convincing prospective customers to do business with a company requires more than simply explaining what that company does. It requires the true value the company provides to be clearly and concisely explained in a persuasive manner.
Here are a few examples:
- Specialization: A general contractor focusing on a particular niche, such as hospitals, restaurants or data centers, will have a deeper level of experience that a generalist could never achieve. This enables the general contractor to anticipate problems more effectively and makes it more likely to complete projects faster and closer to (or even under) budget.
- Resources: Financial, manpower, legal and other resources empower a company to achieve objectives that might cripple another company. This equips it to take on especially large, time consuming and challenging projects that others cannot or will not.
- Partnerships: There are a lot of trades involved in any project and sometimes, whether due to personality or performance, this can lead to conflicts that adversely affect the project. However, partnerships in which companies frequently work together can reduce these kind of issues, resulting in fewer delays to projects.
Conveying value is essential because it enables a company to differentiate itself from a sea of competitors, which helps it to win more bids, often at higher prices. A contractor that can close more business at a higher profit margin is better equipped to dominate its market.
Stay on the Minds of New and Existing Customers
It’s not enough for customers to simply know about a company in today’s highly competitive market. To achieve aggressive growth today, a company must stay in front of prospective customers so that when they’re ready to make a decision, it’s fresh in their minds.
This requires consistent marketing through multiple channels, including search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media and third-party media. All of these channels work together to make a company appear larger, more capable and trustworthy.
Search Engine Optimization
Modern search engine optimization SEO comes down to three primary factors: technical, content development and link building.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO, or on-page SEO, is what most people think of when discussing search engine optimization; however, it’s the least important factor for many businesses—especially in this industry. Technical SEO encompasses details such as how a website is coded, title tags and URL structure. While these are all very important, optimizing these details usually won’t have much impact on a smaller website.
Technical SEO tends to be more effective when a website has a number of quality published pages. While it might produce results for a website with 100 pages, it most likely won’t for a website with just 12 pages.
Content Development
Regularly publishing original, well-written content is essential to effective SEO because search engines need to deliver answers to searchers. To do that, those answers need to exist on a website.
Generally, longer content tends to perform better but, contrary to what some may claim, there is no ideal length. Sometimes, a 1,500-word article may answer a visitor’s question perfectly and other times, although much more rarely, a 300-word article may be better. The key is to say what needs to be said without a lot of filler or fluff.
It’s also important not to go overboard with specific keyword phrases. While important keywords should generally be included in the text, they don’t need to be repeated unnaturally. Search engines have evolved dramatically over the last two decades and their complex algorithms can understand the text rather than simply looking for a particular keyword density. In fact, today, Google’s algorithm can effectively rank a page that doesn’t even contain the search term a visitor entered—it can understand a page without exact search terms may be the best answer for that particular search query.
The most important aspect of producing content for SEO purposes is that it must be 100 percent original and not previously published anywhere else before.
Link Building
Links from other websites are the Holy Grail of SEO because search engines treat them as a vote for a particular web page. In other words, if two general contractors that specialized in restaurants each had websites where all other criteria were equal, the one with more links from other relevant websites would generally rank higher.
There are two critical caveats here:
- Links must be natural. It’s against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to buy links, participate in link exchanges, or use other manipulative linking schemes. Instead, focus on seeking high-quality links that add value to the visitors on the page where that link is placed.
- Links should be relevant. A general contractor that specializes in building data centers might want a link from a server vendor or a special hazards fire suppression company because both are highly relevant to their service. However, it probably wouldn’t be worth the effort to seek a link from a paving company because that has nothing to do with the general contractor’s service.
It’s important that any links are part of a page that adds value to visitors, such as an information-rich article rather than simply a list of links. Search engines generally ignore the latter.
If it seems as though link building will require a lot of effort, that’s because it will. But that difficulty should be viewed as a positive, because most competitors will either give up or they won’t even try in the first place.
Demonstrate Trustworthiness
People tend to trust people and companies that others already trust. That’s why big brands achieve market dominance. It’s not always that they provide a better product or service, but rather that people are often risk averse, so they simply choose the company a lot of others have chosen.
Fortunately, demonstrating trustworthiness today doesn’t require a giant budget.
The first and easiest way is through online reviews. When a prospective customer sees that other people like them have worked with a particular company and were satisfied with the outcome, it goes a long way in reducing their reluctance—especially if people they know have posted a review. This is a concept known as social proof.
The key to leveraging this is to first do an outstanding job—not simply acceptable. The job needs to be outstanding. A company’s handling of a job, from the first contact all the way through to completion needs to be so far beyond expectations that the customer will eagerly write a glowing review.
Does this mean that everything must go perfectly? Of course not. No job ever will. However, when a mistake is made or when something outside a company’s control occurs that adversely affects the job, the company needs to own it and go above and beyond to make it right for the customer. In fact, this situation is a perfect opportunity to shine because most companies handle mistakes so badly.
Once the job is complete and the customer is ecstatic, it’s important to strike while the iron is hot and ask them to post a positive review. Ideally, this should be on Google My Business and Facebook. However, if the client is technologically challenged, settle for one platform now and another on the next job.
