Building a powerful brand online is no longer a luxury for the construction industry. Today, it’s essential because it shows prospective customers that a company is trustworthy and helps to maintain awareness with current customers and the media—critical aspects to growth in the highly competitive industry.
The good news is that building a trustworthy brand is simple. The bad news is that it’s not easy. While that may sound contradictory, it’s not. Building a trustworthy brand is simple because there are proven steps a company must take to achieve success; however, it’s not easy because following those steps takes a fair amount of work over an extended period of time.
Consistently following these steps over time will enable a company to build a trustworthy brand that encourages new and repeat business.
1. Maintain an active social media presence
Social media is essential to business today, but it works a little differently in the construction industry compared to some other industries.
Generally, no one is going to see a Facebook post and say “I need to hire those guys right now!” There aren’t often very many impulse buys in commercial construction. Rather, social media in this industry is all about building brand awareness and name recognition, which, when executed properly, leads to trust.
The key is to consistently share valuable information, along with content that demonstrates competence, experience and trustworthiness.
Examples of valuable information could include industry-specific news that the target market and/or peers might find valuable, such as:
- New construction laws and zoning regulations;
- Industry trends;
- Inventions and innovations that affect the industry;
- News about key individuals, companies and organizations; and
- Data and statistics.
Examples of content that demonstrates competence, experience and trustworthiness could include anything that highlights the brand and/or leaders behind the brand in a positive way, such as:
- Positive media coverage;
- Recent awards, certifications or other recognition;
- Partnerships with other well-known brands or organizations; and
- Philanthropic activity.
2. Encourage customers to post reviews
Positive reviews on Google My Business, Facebook and other large review platforms, as well as smaller, industry-specific platforms, can go a long way in helping to establish trust with prospective customers.
That’s because of a principle called social proof, in which people see positive feedback about a company as evidence they are trustworthy. This is especially true when they recognize the names of other people who have posted the reviews.
These reviews won’t magically appear, though. Getting those reviews will take a fair amount of effort because it requires doing such an amazing job that is truly impressive to the customer and then getting them to take time from their already-busy day to post a review. This can be especially challenging if the customer isn’t particularly tech-savvy, as is sometimes encountered in this industry.
A good way to simplify this process is to use a proven email script. Here is one that Spartan Media uses internally and for clients:
I’d like to ask you to do something for me…positive reviews help us to build trust and bring on new clients like you, so I’d like to ask you to post a brief review for [your company name] on Google, Facebook.
Google: [link to Google My Business listing here]
Facebook: [link to Facebook reviews tab here]
Here is a tutorial on how to find the URL to post a review on a Google My Business listing. To find the link to post a review on a Facebook page, navigate to that page, click on the “Reviews” tab and then copy the URL from the browser’s address bar. These are the two URLs that will be used in the previous email script.
3. Use value-based messaging
Many websites do a great job of telling people what a company does, but very few effectively convey the real value that a company brings to the business relationship.
This is a critical distinction, because while it’s important for prospective customers to understand exactly what a company does, it’s even more important for them to understand why they should work with that company.
A website should vividly convey what problems a company will solve for their customers, not simply explain what they do. Doing so creates a greater perceived value compared to competitors that only convey what they do. Companies that can clearly convey value generally earn more business—often at a higher price point—and those that can’t are generally treated like a commodity.
Here is an example that is specific to the commercial construction industry. Rather than simply talking about technical capabilities and the products and services they offer, Flagship Fire’s website conveys the true value they bring when working with their customers. That value is not the products they sell and install, which would be a commodity. Their true value is their deep and highly-specialized knowledge of specialty fire suppression. This specialization gives them a deeper, more complete knowledge on their area of specialization, which makes them more effective than a generalist fire suppression company when it comes to protecting highly sensitive environments, such as server rooms, power plants or chemical facilities.
4. Maintain an up-to-date website
A common mistake is thinking that once a website has been published, the work is done. In reality, it’s never done because a website is not a static asset similar to a building. It’s dynamic, and must be updated regularly to account for current strategic objectives, market conditions and technological standards.
Failure to do so can make it more difficult to reach the necessary audience and close new business, and it can even create security vulnerabilities that can open a Pandora ’s Box of other problems.
Often, a website might go years without being updated, which sometimes leads to certain details becoming outdated, such as an address or phone number. While this may seem relatively minor, especially if a company already has lots of repeat business from existing customers, it’s actually a tremendous problem. It’s less about the information itself and more about lack of attention to detail that it demonstrates to prospective customers. This is a huge red flag that turns customers off.
But it goes well beyond basic contact information. The content on a website needs to be updated regularly to reflect strategic goals and current market conditions. Customers are looking for a company that understands their needs as well as what’s going on in the industry, and up-to-date content is a powerful way to demonstrate that a company does.
Updates based on strategic objectives might include messaging that plays a role in branding and positioning and highlighting particular products and/or services over others, while updates based on current market conditions might include information related to the industry as a whole as well as the local market. Failure to keep this kind of information up to date could present a false image of a company that isn’t a good fit for a particular customer, one where management is out of touch with the industry and/or local market or one that lacks attention to detail. In any of these cases, it will diminish customers’ trust to the point that they will look elsewhere.
These updates would take place in:
- All content on pages, including text, images and video;
- New blog posts (Old blog posts can generally remain as-is indefinitely provided that the date published is apparent);
- Product technical specifications; and
- Industry statistics and data.
There are also technical updates that take place behind the scenes, too. These play a role in how visitors interact with a website, as well as how that website performs in the search engines. These might include factors such as:
- Updating WordPress core and plugins;
- Ensuring compliance with current SEO best practices;
- SEO tasks to ensure organic ranking and visibility in search engines;
- Adjusting for current technology, such as cross-browser compatibility, mobile responsive design and https; and
- Page speed optimization.
5. Develop PR opportunities in relevant publications
People often view positive things a company says about itself with some degree of skepticism—after all, what company would ever admit their own weaknesses? However, when a reputable third party shares the same message, it’s usually trusted significantly more.
For example, if XYZ Building Corp. published a flowery article raving about how amazing they were, most people would ignore it due to its obvious self-serving bias. On the other hand, if Construction Executive published a similar article about that company, it would generally be trusted because of the trust so many in the commercial construction industry already have in the staff and management of this publication.
That type of trust in an entity can be leveraged to increase exposure to and trust with prospective customers. Some of the entities that can be used include:
- Digital and/or print publications (websites, magazines, newspapers);
- Television programs (news, business, construction-themed);
- Trade organizations (ABC); and
- Podcasts and/or radio programs.
The key is identifying what their audience wants, and then finding a way to help them (producers, editors, etc.) provide that to their audience. Sometimes, this might just be a one-line quote from an expert; other times, they may want to interview a guest on a television or radio program. Most often, it’s something in between.
Successfully earning this kind of publicity comes down to not making the same mistakes that most people do. Instead of simply reaching out and asking to be featured (which is what most people do—and it fails every time), invest some time to learn about their audience and goals. Then, connect with the appropriate person and, armed with that information, offer to help them in some way that adds value for them.
There may not be an immediate opportunity for publicity—that’s just how it goes sometimes. In that case, stay in touch, continue helping them when possible and don’t try to force it. Ultimately, it will take time to build these relationships, but the investment of time is well worth it.
