Construction companies have a problem: trust. Prospective customers need construction and trades people, yet treat tradies like there's something fishy going on from the start.
How do you get around it?
Win trust with proof of delivery, certifications, qualifications, solid reviews, transparency in your process, consistency of brand and consistency of service.
Work to secure trust at the beginning of the purchase cycle using these tips on digital marketing for construction companies.
How To Advertise A Construction Company online
How do construction or construction-related companies get clients? They’re selling a variety of products, building a variety of jobs, for a variety of leads. How do they, or you, get the jobs you want most?
There are different stages On the path to purchase.
There are different stages on the path to purchase a service. You'll want your advertising to support each. Today we're going to look at advertising a construction company using brand awareness and consideration campaigns.
- Awareness
- Consideration
Your digital marketing activity can support both.
Awareness Campaigns
Awareness campaigns are designed to increase familiarity with your company and the services you offer. There are many different ways to do this, but two of the most popular methods use social media and PR.
Social Media Advertising For Construction Companies
At the awareness stage of the purchase cycle, a construction company needs to make people in their service area aware that they exist. These advertisements tend to be outcome focused. For example, showcasing a portfolio of outcomes in order to entice prospective customers to 'Learn More'.
These image-based ads need image-based platforms, like Facebook and Instagram Ads.
In social media advertising, carousel ads can work really well for construction and renovation companies because they enable the user to cycle through a portfolio of work...
At the awareness stage of the purchase cycle, you're essentially creating interest and sparking curiosity. A 'Learn More' button can work better than 'Call Now' because it's catering better to this stage of the customer's journey. The user isn't ready to 'call', but they might be ready to 'learn more'.
The ad below showcases one beautiful piece of construction, but the ad's Call-To-Action is harder-hitting, asking users to 'Call Now'. Because the viewer has possibly only seen this one project demonstration, the 'Call Now' Call-To-Action button is more likely to face resistance than if they used 'Learn More'.
Sometimes a marketer may do this because the client doesn't have a big enough portfolio to showcase more work examples, OR they know that the client's website is just not set up very well to drive a high conversion rate. For Marek though, his website is pretty good and his Google Business listing is excellent.
Public Relations For Construction Companies
PR can be a severely underestimated tool in digital marketing for construction companies. It helps build your reputation as well as your search presence.
It tends to be particularly powerful for companies with an environmental bent, mainly because you'll probably find more angles to pitch a story. For example, a Passive Home builder has opportunity to plug energy-saving innovations in an energy-stressed market environment.
Other home builders may try other topical issues, like staff shortages but the later clearly paints the business in a positive way.
Securing a story on a website like the ABC or The Australian positions you as king-of-the-jungle not only to the public, but in the eyes of search engines. PR offers long-term, not just short-term benefits to the business.
how to use YouTube Ads for construction companies
YouTube Ads for construction companies can build brand awareness, or your online reach, quickly. Just make sure your first 3-seconds are enticing and target videos relevant to your service in order to capture a relevant audience. For example, if you're a home renovator, you'd target interior design inspo' videos in your service area. These ads are run through the Google Ads platform.
Tip: Avoid wasting spend and get advice specific to your business by working with an expert to set these up.
Consideration Marketing
Consideration campaigns are served to potential customers who may have seen or engaged with campaigns designed to increase awareness of your brand and service. These ads are catering to those who have already decided they need construction services, such as a custom home builder for example, and the prospect is now active in the market, seeking out desired services to fulfil their construction vision.
Offer-Based Campaigns
Offer-based campaigns are powerful when served to people that have already 'sussed you out' online. Google and Facebook ads both offer tracking options, which enable you to retarget an audience with offer-based campaigns.
Build-time guarantees like B1 Home Builders offer in the ad pictured above, is a great offer for prospects.
Service-Based Ads
Service-based ads tend to work better as a part of the consideration stage of the customer's journey. You know, when someone is actually typing in 'bathroom renovator near me' in their search bar. The individual knows what they are looking for. They aren't a casual browser and they have a strong intention to book a service, stat.
Google Ads For Construction Companies (adwords)
Google ads, formerly known as Adwords, can have a fantastic conversion rate for construction companies. Competition means that the cost to get those inquiries can be high, but if your offer is in the thousands, it's a small price to pay.
Are you a construction company on the smaller side? You may be interested in reading Are Google Ads Worth It For Small Business?
Big brands like Henley are paying 3k+ a month for Google Ads according to Semrush.
Omnia homes look like they are giving it a try by targeting minimal keywords, for under $200 a month.
Already running Google Ads? You may be interested in an independent audit of your Google Ads campaigns.
Master Your Google Business Listing
Your Google Business listing will help you come up in search results if somebody is looking for your particular construction service offering 'near them'. Your listed location is important, as are your reviews. If you're confident most customers will leave you a high rating, pop your review request wherever you can - for example in your website header, your email signature, and invoices.
An automated email process is a good way to do this. Unsure how to set this up? You may be interested in email marketing services.
Service-Based Ads On Social Media
Social media service-focused ads still need to showcase the desired outcome. Home Snagging UK is a building inspection company that understands its target market is worried about build quality. Their service promises to assess the build to ensure it's compliant, which is essentially offering the prospective client peace of mind.
Meanwhile, back in Australia, the Home Chaperone is a small business offering home construction consulting services. This is a social media campaign they are running...
Notice the ad text is cut off? The copy is long and the imagery, while pretty, is process rather than outcome focused. The black text on white is less likely to attract significant attention, and, is less likely to be read, especially by scan readers, which, let's face it, is most of us.
Here's another ad by a similar building consulting service. Again, text is cut off the imagery provokes thoughts of a Friday beverage rather than an understanding of the actual offer.
Be Clear
Service-focused ads work best when they capitalise on clarity. Compare both of these ads to this one by Aldinga Home Improvements. They're running a campaign that clearly offers custom-designed carports.
Webinars for builders
Another lead generation tool for marketing construction services online, is webinars. Blackberry Build are promoting a renovation webinar, which could attract prospective clients in mass, as well as nurture existing prospects along the path to purchase. Just run via Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Easy.
Webinars can seem old-fashioned, but some demographics love them and it's another way for prospects to get to know the faces behind the business.
Ok so now you're generating leads, how do you encourage qualified leads?
How To Generate Qualified Leads For a Construction Company
Nobody likes a tyre kicker, and leads for construction-related services can be extremely time-consuming. Sometimes people want a quote straight off the cuff when there's a stack of work you need to do behind the scenes to confirm a price. How do you sift through the leads all whilst still supporting the customer relationship? Here are several ways to generate qualified leads for a construction company...
Offer A Quality Landing Page Experience
Make sure your ad + landing page are clear
In online marketing for construction companies, the website page, or landing page, that the user 'lands on' is important. You want the ad and website to 'match' both in messaging and performance. The quality of your landing page will affect your overall ad score, delivery optimisation on online marketing platforms, as well as how qualified your leads are. There are so many businesses competing for the same audience, that the quality of your user experience is critical.
Here are some examples...
Here's what you see when you land on the website, of a building consultant, the Home Chaperone...
You have to scroll down a bit to find the guts of what they do...
Try not to hide anything important in a dark background. I know it can look cool, but fine white text on dark backgrounds tends to be stressful on the eyes and less likely to be read. You want to make it immediately clear what you are about. Use copy, communication design and imagery to support you.
Makbuilt, a Melbourne homebuilder, also uses white text on their home page, but see how it's thicker than the latter? It makes it easier to read, especially on mobile...
However, for some reason they chose fine white text on their service pages...
Sometimes it's the smaller construction companies that can reap the benefits with the clearest landing page experiences. It's the smaller companies that can often be more agile, allowing their marketing specialists more freedom to adjust their site to suit a campaign. Larger construction firms can have their website stuck in processes, or the website may have evolved in a convoluted, and non-strategic manner which hinders results.
You may be interested in this guide to building a website for a homebuilder.
Ask Prospects A Serious Question Upfront
This might seem kind of obvious, but anyone who's a serious prospective customer will probably have some answers to the big questions. They probably have some sort of budget range in mind. So, ask them for their budget, ask them if they've got land, ask them where they want to build. You can ask your questions via your website... like these guys do...
Quality Content Leads To Higher Quality Leads
Qualified leads are generated by running campaigns that deliver appropriate content where the user is at. The most qualified leads will be from those that already feel like they 'know' the business. To get a user to this stage, you'll want to offer quality content at appropriate touchpoints.
For example, Marvel Homes is a home builder in Sydney, and they've started a YouTube channel. Having the faces behind the business in their videos helps prospective customers get to know who they'd be working with before they've even shot through an inquiry. Do you know what's good about that? The faces behind the business become more familiar to the customer, and the more familiar a brand, or those behind the brand are, the more likely the prospective customer is to trust them from the get-go.
Video content helps prospective customers get to know the people behind the brand.
Stock imagery is over-rated. Authentic pics work best, especially for the Australian market. Models actually draw less attention than normal people in ads, and let's face it, in a crowded online world, you want all the attention you can get...
Create content that answers people's online questions. It can draw people to your website, and build your online 'real estate'.
Set Up A Lead Nurturing Strategy
Imagine if you could segment out your inquiries automatically, where specific types of inquiries receive specific information, automatically, saving you loads of response time. You can do this by adopting a bread-crumb form on-site, that requests specific information from users, and this information steers them into email 'flows' that respond to the question.
THE BREAD-CRUMB TECHNIQUE
The bread-crumb technique is like a conversation. It asks users low-threat questions, often securing more information than the usual website inquiry form, and all in a low-resistant manner.
Once the user has completed the form, their answers are sent to an email platform like Klaviyo or Campaign Monitor. Setting up this automation is a form of lead nurturing. Depending on users responses to your questions, you can drive the prospective customer into segmented audience groups. Offer appropriate content with a proceeding Call To Action. Setting up an automated lead nurturing strategy helps vet out low-quality inquiries, quicker. A seriously prospective customer is likely to take the secondary Call To Action, a lower quality prospect, won't. It can provide info about your quote process or an actual quote, quickly.
Depending on your offering, this can be a pretty big job. You'll need someone like me, a digital marketer, to set this up for you.
Summary
Digital marketing for construction companies can be rewarding. Done right, it can generate a high return, and highly qualified leads. To reap the rewards from your effort, make sure your ads and website...
- Push your target market's dream
- Are clear
- Match up
And of course, if you need a hand, contact me.
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