Generating leads and sales for various residential and commercial contractors and construction trades is a very active market with a variety of choices from lead portals like HomeAdvisor to Pay Per Call / Pay Per Lead providers to running Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns on Google and Facebook to traditional channels such as TV, Radio and Billboards. Several contractors across various trades have limited budgets for advertising and marketing and lack even basic sales collateral. Typically, those small operators struggle or make just enough to get by through referrals and repeat business. The subs and contactors who generate meaningful revenue usually appreciate what marketing and advertising efforts can generate. For those type of contractor firms, we look for gaps in their current marketing strategy or areas that are under-utilized or underperforming. At times, we may need to re-launch, update or tweak an existing website or build landing pages to improve conversion results, which our team of web designers can handle, working with most major content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Wix and SquareSpace. We can also handle custom HTML sites and custom coding and application development as needed.
It is not uncommon that direct sales and lead generation efforts are already covered by a contractor’s in-house staff, or even a small agency. However, at times, the staff or agency could be under-performing. In those instances, we can assist across a wide variety of options, such as Pay Per Click ads on Google, Bing and Yahoo that show relevant text ads in the search results or we can provide an analysis of current PPC campaigns, along with recommendations. There are also social media efforts like Social Listening which flags certain phrases, tags and other variables to engage in the ‘social conversation’ and Social Media Ads which tend to cost less than PPC campaigns, that could be incorporated too as part of the overall media plan. For those seeking a longer term online strategy to maintaining leads, Search Engine Optimization, Content Marketing and boosting positive Testimonials across a variety of review sites, industry portals and social channels are all good investments to harness more traffic naturally and organically via the major search engines while avoiding payment to Google and Bing for clicks and sales.
Another marketing tactic that is used in nearly every industry is Email Marketing, using customer lists and lead lists, which are then applied to direct mailers, drip campaigns or leveraging CRM mining to spur leads since email is still one of the more cost-effective marketing tools available. Custom lead lists have grown in demand for contractors seeking niche areas in their local market that they believe are underserved. We are also able to recommend lead lists that are commonly requested by similar contractors and trades to help grow their pipeline of opportunities so that they can dominate their regional area. Of course, there are also traditional methods like PR, Billboards and TV buys that can be explored. Our PR team is comprised of former journalists that know how to uncover the story and message unique to each business and have deep relationships to most media outlets across any major DMA and print publication to get noticed on TV and print. As for Billboards, we can incorporate that as part of the media mix, using a variety of Out of Home (OOH) options like static or digital bulletins, transit shelters, wallscapes and taxi toppers. They are not only effective but can be surprisingly affordable depending on the market, location and other factors. A newer approach to consider could be Location Based Messaging to reach physical visitors at locations like construction sites, general contractors’ offices and home improvement stores, while they are on-site or even if they were previously there. We apply location information from mobile devices and 3rd party data to deliver Location-Based Messaging. Therefore, home contractors can show their services promotions to visitors of a Home Depot or Lowes store.
A marketing tactic that is typically under-utilized by contractors and construction trades, in general, is Remarketing to bring former website visitors back, using visual ads that appear as those virtual visitors surf the internet. The same retargeting tactic can be applied to email campaigns and social media sites to entice those who opened emails or view their social media channels with the same promotional ads to stay ‘top of mind’. Any creative needed to support these sales promotions and lead generation demands will also have access to our team of graphic designers, animators and video producers to build the layout, custom design and messaging needed. Also for SEO and Social Media campaigns, we have writers available that have construction and contractor specific experience to boost traffic, clicks and conversions via text copy as well as artists that can create images, social media banners and infographics to be shared, boosted, promoted, bookmarked and incorporated into various campaigns and social channels. Lastly, a service we offer that tends to be overlooked is lead tracking of online and offline campaigns. It is not uncommon for us to work with various construction firms and contractors that do not use reporting tools or have limited data on what is working on all their campaigns, beyond guessing and inferences. We like to apply analytics to all our campaigns since it helps us better optimize each program, which then improves results and ROI, since it lets us and our clients know where their money could be best spent.
