Marketing your commercial construction company online doesn’t have to be difficult. However, it does require having a multi-faceted approach to both your website, social media profiles and the content that you post there.
If you’re like most businesses, you probably don’t even know where to start with the process other than knowing you need a professional website. That’s fine! In this guide, we’ll give you a few commercial construction marketing ideas, explain why digital marketing can help you attain more leads, and discuss different elements of the process.
What is Digital Marketing and Why Does It Matter?
Digital marketing is simply any advertising that you do online. This can be something as simple as having a website for your company, posting to a social media profile, or buying a paid ad somewhere.
While digital marketing sounds fancy, it really gets its roots in traditional advertising. The process of putting out your business information in front of your target prospective customer and persuading them to take action is exactly the same as it has always been. The only difference now is the internet is involved.
Marketing for commercial construction is actually quite similar to advertising in a magazine or putting an ad in the phone book. You want to be able to make it easy for your customers to reach you while building up trust and recognition of your company name. If you’re able to do that, then using digital marketing to your advantage becomes very simple.
Things to Know About Your Construction Company Website
You know having a website for your company is important, but understanding the reason why is what is so crucial. Your business website is your little piece of real estate on the internet where potential customers, future employees, and even members of the media looking for expert advice can go to learn more about who you are. It is essentially a sales tool and an informational guide, all rolled into one.
This cannot be replicated by a Facebook page or other social media profile. For starters, those types of social media profiles don’t provide the flexibility that having your own commercial construction website offers. Plus, the guidelines of those platforms are always changing. One false move and they could opt to cut your traffic or outright ban your page, which would be detrimental to all of your online marketing efforts. And what would you do if you spend a ton of resources building out your profile and the platform shut down altogether? That’s just a few of the many reasons why you need your own domain name and website.
It is also important to ensure your website looks professional. User experience is generally linked to whether or not consumers feel the company is trustworthy. This is still equally true or even more important with commercial construction, where your customers are other companies looking to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars or more on a project.
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
If you’ve talked to any digital marketing agency in the last five years, chances are high that they’ve brought up the concept of search engine optimization (SEO). This is simply the process of ensuring your business website follows all best practices to show up on Google and other popular search engines.
There are two types: on-page SEO that focuses on what is actually on your website and off-page SEO that involves things that are on someone else’s site. On-page optimization can sometimes be a little technical, as it involves both front-end concepts that you see on your page and a few elements that happen on the back end. It also requires adding new content to your website on a fairly regular basis and ensuring those posts include the best keywords for your niche.
Off-page SEO generally means finding guest posting opportunities and trying to get backlinks from other websites. In the construction industry, this also means claiming local listings at places like Google My Business, Yelp, YP.com, and the thousands of other directories. By placing your company information on these websites, they link back to your site and give it a little search engine ranking boost.
As you can see, these concepts are more advanced than most beginners want to handle on their own. For busy construction company owners and managers, it is generally recommended to work with a trusted agency to get results.
Reasons Why You Need to Have a Blog on Your Website
Keeping search engine rankings in mind, it is important to have a blog on your website for a fully comprehensive digital marketing strategy. Why? Besides being an excellent SEO practice, it allows more people to find your page on a regular basis.
Think of a building that your company might work on. There are many different doors and windows. And the whole structure itself probably has more than one floor. Your website is a lot like this. Just like the more doors and floors you have for someone to enter the building, additional content on your website gives someone searching the internet an easier chance of finding you. It also gives those looking at your social media a way to dig deeper on certain topics, assuming you’re adding each post to your profile page, of course.
Blog content also allows you to accomplish numerous other things besides just a better search ranking. You can highlight certain projects, offer behind-the-scenes looks at jobs your firm is working on, discuss certain industry topics, or even commend great employees for their hard work.
Using Social Media in a B2B Environment
Now that you know the importance of having a website, it’s time to discuss how to use social media in addition. It might surprise you, but social media still works really well in a B2B environment like commercial construction.
The reason is two-fold. First, it gives your potential customers a way to interact with you on a platform that they’re already on. Second, it offers a way to create buzz around your brand by sharing out blog content, recent projects, and industry-relevant posts. Utilizing your social media platforms to distribute this information not only helps build credibility with your following but can complement your off-page search engine optimization efforts. Simply put, the more people who read your content, the more likely it is to be shared. For example, if someone reads your blog and shares a link to it on their own website, your website will gain more authority and trust within search rankings. Utilizing your social presence is a great way to get your content in front of your target audience, and potentially build up a more robust backlink profile.
The trick with using social media is it comes down to knowing what platforms your ideal customer is using and the types of content they engage with. When developing your social strategy you may identify that you’re much more likely to cross paths with a potential lead on LinkedIn over TikTok. In fact, the best social media platforms to market a construction company are LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Houzz, and Pinterest. Identify the platforms that your customer base is on, then ask what the key pillars your customer type seeks out in a brand. Determining these pillars will help your company identify what types of posts should be made for each platform and how you can add value to the conversation. Check how these strategies have worked for our clients in the past.
Does Paid Advertising Work for Commercial Construction Companies?
One of the most common questions commercial construction companies want to know is whether paid advertising works for this niche. The answer? Yes and no.
Just about anybody can opt to place paid ads on Google or Facebook and hope for the best. But, if you don’t have a solid target audience or aren’t using the right ad copy, you could really be in a place where you’re losing tons of money without making any real progress.
Instead, it is a better idea for commercial construction companies to work with an experienced digital marketing agency. These experts can help narrow down when and who to show ads to for a better return on investment. Additionally, they can also assist with connecting your paid ads to other digital marketing goals, such as growing an email list or getting potential leads to fill out a contact form.
Combining Both Online and Offline Marketing for Ideal Branding
Don’t think for a second that digital marketing exists in a vacuum. What you do online affects your reputation offline and vice versa. That’s where branding is important.
Branding might sound like a term used by millennial Instagram influencers and large corporations. The truth is that anyone can create a cohesive brand, which is what you should be doing for your commercial construction company’s success. So, what is it? Simply having the same fonts, logos, and imagery standards across all of your media.
For example, your Facebook page and website should contain similar imagery. And any offline advertising you do must somewhat coordinate with your digital assets, making it easy for anyone who sees your marketing to realize they’re the same organization.
You can also add your website address and the logos of the social media platforms your company is on to all of your fleet vehicles. Signage and banners used on fencing at job sites should also include this information. By adding these details to your offline marketing, you can help gain more traction for your online advertising.
Wrapping Up
Using digital marketing to advertise your commercial construction company is simple. However, you have to first have a professional website and a bit of knowledge about search engine optimization, social media marketing, and paid advertising for it to really work. In most cases, this requires having a professional partner to help you out.
Are you ready to learn how we can help you grow your commercial construction company through online advertising? Our team at ER Marketing understands the unique challenges of B2C firms just like yours and pride ourselves on helping our clients achieve results. Please contact us today for a free quote and more commercial construction marketing ideas.
