8 Ways To Market A Small Construction Company

Every construction business exists because of 1 thing. Revenue. And revenue is the result of a powerful sales process and proven marketing tactics. So here are 8 battle-tested ways to market a construction business that will lead you to more success for your construction company.

1. Craft a Direct Message to Your Ideal Client

To start, it’s important to understand who your target audience is and how to craft an overall message that will reach them.

Let’s chop it up into 3 steps:

Define your target audience
Craft a message for them
Make sure they see the message

Define Your Target Audience

What trades do you specialize in? Are you a one-man GC? Are you a drywall company with 10 people in your office? Do you usually work in residential or commercial?

Answer those questions and figure your own organization out first. Next, paint a picture on who your dream client is. How old are they? How big is their company?

Get as specific as possible. Once you have your dream client in mind, you have your target audience. A target audience is a collection of your dream clients.

Craft a Message for Your Target Audience

So now you have your target audience, and the next step is to tap into their desires and speak to them.

What does your dream client want? What do they want to hear? What do they struggle with almost every single day? Once you know the answers to all those questions and ones similar, you have all the fuel you need to craft a message.

“Crafting a message for an audience” is more than just what to write in a promo flyer. It’s your entire brand. It’s what you’re all about.

Let’s illustrate an example so you can better understand.

You’re a GC trying to do big commercial jobs in the city. After speaking with developers in your area you start to realize that the biggest problem they deal with is GCs not having budgetary pricing without final drawings. Armed with this info, you set up some Facebook ads targeting developers and people working in real estate development companies and you give a sales pitch on how much better you could estimate projects.

That’s a message for a specific audience.

Make Sure They Get the Message

Once you create the message you need to make sure your target audience receives it. To make sure of this you first need to see where their attention is. Most contractors briefly check their phone on the job site occasionally, and they’re mostly on email or Facebook. Because of this, if you want to target contractors it makes sense to target them on Facebook and Email.

See what has their attention and make a presence there.

2. Build a Content Creation Team

The business world is evolving very rapidly into a dynamic where the people who succeed are the ones putting the most content out into the world and occupying people’s attention.

As a construction business, it’s essential you create and distribute content to attract attention. In other words, you must create and post a lot of content on the internet so you can get a reputation that encourages people to view you as the go-to contractor.

Unless you’re an experienced content creator, it’d be wise to hire a team or to outsource the task entirely. If you’re going to keep it in-house you’re going to need these 4 roles:

Written word person (Editorial Management)
Math person (Data Analyst/Strategist)
Video person (Video Content)
Art person (Designer)

Keep in mind these don’t have to be 4 different people, it can be 1 person satisfying all 4 roles, 2 people with 2 roles each. As long as all 4 roles are satisfied.

If you don’t really understand anything above, then it’s a good sign you should probably hire a marketing agency to help you out. Check out #12 on this article about social media for home builders for help on how to hire one.

3. Post Content on Facebook

Once you have your team, agency, or yourself situated and ready to start producing content, it’s time to go hard on the platforms your potential clients are on.

According to the Pew Research Center, 69% of U.S. adults use Facebook, and many of those are contractors and homeowners who can potentially be people that give you work, so it only makes sense to attack your marketing on this platform.

Make a list of the different types of content you want to post, this will be your guide to having a solid, predictable brand that people can expect, and also not having to think so hard on what to post. This is called a content type planner.

An example content type planner for a construction company could be:

Video’s giving advice to other contractors/homeowners
Quotes from videos
Examples of finished work
Videos of projects being worked on

This is entirely personal and up to you, but the above content type planner should give you a head start on thinking of what to post.

4. Post Content on Instagram

Just like with the content type planner above, you’re going to want to make something similar for Instagram, if not the same thing.

Once you have a planner detailing all the different types of content that you’re going to publish, it’s time to execute and put stuff out to the world.

Remember that if you’re having trouble with social media, don’t be afraid to hire a team or to outsource social media management to an agency. It may be pricy, but the brand it will build will be worth it.

5. Post Content on LinkedIn

If you’re a commercial contractor, LinkedIn should be the platform you’re going the hardest at. There’s great organic reach on the platform which means that if you post things consistently there’s a great chance a lot of people are going to see it.

Most people who have never used social media for their business tense up when it’s mentioned, they don’t know how to make their way into the community or how to get started. Our advice is to just start.

Make a list of ideas for posts and just start posting, as you get more experience it will flow more easily to you. If you don’t have the time to attack your content creation, hire people to do it for you. Invest in your brand and reap the benefits for years to come.

6. Hire an Estimating Firm

Most contractors work 60+ hours a week. They just don’t have the time to focus on marketing and branding.

Truthfully, if you want to grow your construction business, you’ll need to be the head of sales at your company and delegate everything else.

One of the biggest thing’s contractors have in the way of freeing up their time is the estimating and bidding process in order to win jobs. They don’t have the time to be in the office and measure takeoffs and price everything. We know this, that’s why we offer an estimating service that completely takes it off your hands so you can focus on what really matters for your business,

Generating revenue.

7. Attract Leads with a Lead Magnet

This can almost instantly blow up a construction business, especially if you work mostly in the residential sector.

A lead magnet is a free offer for something that collects contact information to eventually sell your services.

For example, a painting contractor who mainly works on residential remodeling jobs may offer a special video training “How to Remodel Your Home on a Budget”, that people can see only after they’ve given away their email address.

That’s a very simple and effective way to collect emails.

8. Invest in Lead Generation Services

One of the best, if not the best, ways to predictably get leads to your construction business is by investing in services that specialize in exactly that.

Sites like Bluebook and iSqft are known to be able to get any construction company off the ground and introducing them to potential clients in their area.

Here’s more info on the top 5 lead generation sites, in case you’re interested.

Conclusion

This is a modern approach to marketing a construction business, there are many other methods and strategies out there, but these are the most standout, battle-tested methods that can bring any construction business from a 1-man company to needing an entire office floor to accommodate all employees.

I hope you got some great value in this piece! Feel free to comment below on your biggest takeaway.

Remember that Estimate Florida Consulting is here to help you estimate your project’s lightning speed so you can spend more time selling the job and less time in the office measuring takeoffs. Check out our services page to see all we can do for you and your business.