August 25, 2021
by Star Building Systems
As construction industry professionals we’re hands-on types. We work with tangible goods, build physical structures, handle tools and machinery. And although we have all become accustomed to technology moving into more areas of our lives, there may still be some hesitation when it comes to marketing your company online and through social media.
In 2019, we created a helpful guide, Marketing Your Construction Company, to provide a resource for professionals in many areas of the construction industry. If you haven’t downloaded it, we recommend it as a wonderful place to start. You’ll find some general guidelines and best practices about the different channels of marketing your company may be (or should be!) considering traditional marketing, website development, search engine optimization, email and digital marketing, and social media. More recently, we consulted some of the marketing experts at Jordan Advertising in Oklahoma City and asked them to share some of their recommendations. While this is certainly not an exhaustive list of possibilities, we have included below some of the highlights from their team along with some insights we’ve gained along the way, in what we hope will serve as an easy-to-follow series of marketing tips for construction professionals. In this edition, we’ll focus on online marketing and social media.
The most basic yet vital element of your online presence is your website. Simply put, your website is your salesperson before you ever meet a customer. Research shows that most users who land on a website spend about 10-20 seconds looking before they decide if they want to stay and find out more or simply click away. If your website doesn’t grab them, you may have lost a potential customer to a competitor whose website does. While every website has its own unique design style, the key factors, no matter what style is used, are that it is easy to navigate, looks clean and not cluttered, and delivers the pertinent information quickly so users stay to find out more.
Once your website has drawn someone in, keep them looking by ensuring they can get to the information they want without too much clicking around. And don’t rely solely on your own written sales pitch to convince someone they should give you their business. More than ever, people rely on online reviews when deciding if they should use a specific company. In fact, according to Broadly, 84% of customers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. That’s a powerful way to help customers feel good about their decision to choose you – so be sure to ask for customer reviews and testimonials and make them available on your website and on social media. If you’re not comfortable asking each customer directly for a review or testimonial, try sending out a survey and encourage responses that way.
You can also lend your expertise to digital platforms such as forums, blogs and online discussion groups. By answering questions, taking part in discussions, or writing a guest blog, you can provide helpful information, attracting potential customers who are looking for a company with the experience and expertise you offer.
Extend the effort you put into your website even further by maintaining a strong social media presence. This means different things to different people of course, but in general, making a focused effort to ensure your company is not only visible but active and relevant on social media can generate remarkable results. In Marketing Your Construction Company, we pointed out that 77% of consumer-facing businesses and 43% of B2B-focused firms get customers just through Facebook alone. That’s an effort that’s worth your time. The good news is you can get a lot of mileage out of social media for extraordinarily little to no cost.
New social media platforms surface every day and it can feel overwhelming to try and stay current. But you don’t have to be active on every form of social media available; just pick the platforms that are best suited for your business and maximize those. For the construction industry, Facebook and Yelp are two of the most powerful resources for reaching potential customers. Like your website, Facebook is a great forum for highlighting customer reviews, and people will be looking for them. While having a business page does not cost anything to set up and maintain, if you do want to increase the number of followers you have, generate interest in a specific promotion or share an announcement, Facebook ads can be a valuable investment. Yelp, on the other hand, is a marketplace designed to help people find businesses and services in their local area. Yelp users leave reviews about the businesses and services listed, so it’s important that you are aware of how these reviews are filtered, and how you can make sure your business has a strong profile. Yelp also offers paid ad opportunities to help you target customers in your area.
Once you’ve set up your social media accounts, it’s important to actively support them and keep your followers engaged with fresh content, responding to questions and comments promptly. Staying current with what followers post also gives you an opportunity to address any negative feedback that might be shared and to try to fix the problem.
Lastly, be sure you’re not missing out on potential customers altogether simply by not showing up in online search results. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential tool for keeping your business in front of people who need your services. According to Google, 46% of all online searches are related to finding local businesses. Google uses a ranking system to decide where websites show up when a user searches keywords related to specific subjects. There are steps you can take to make sure your website ranks higher and shows up in the types of searches that can connect potential customers with your business. Some of these include:
There are many other tactics for ensuring your website and social media efforts not only look great but work hard for you while you’re working hard running your business. And speaking of running your business, we know it’s a fulltime job just keeping the day-to-day operations going smoothly. Consider hiring a web development team or social media specialist to help you make the right decisions for your digital presence in the marketplace and set yourself up for long-term success. For more detailed information on the topics covered here, download a copy of Marketing Your Construction Company. In our next blog, we’ll discuss marketing your construction business through community outreach and promotions.
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