Smart Ways to Get Construction Leads and Increase Sales
Starting a construction business requires you to handle so much more than just building structures from the ground up. There’s also several other aspects to consider, such as deciding between construction funding options and trying to acquire more leads. The latter takes a significant amount of strategizing for your company to achieve the necessary level of profit. Read through this article and see for yourself how each one can help you get leads and increase your company’s sales in the best way.
Smart Ways to Get Construction Leads and Increase Sales
Know Your Audience
Before you start work on either your construction business plan or your marketing plan, one key component to consider would be your audience. It would be a smart move for you to do extensive research on them based on the following criteria:
Personality Traits
- Are you customers thrifty or would they be willing to spend more than average? Do you think they are more likely to respond to direct messaging or would referrals be more appropriate for them? Traits shared among groups make it easier to know how to reach out to potential leads, so it is imperative that you reach out to them.
Background
- The kind of background being referred to here can be social background, educational background, and even financial background. By learning where they come from, you can better determine whether your services are appropriate for their needs and whether or not specific people fit the criteria of your own ideal customers.
Age group
- People within a certain range in terms of age will have specific shared values, personalities, and traits. When looking for leads, it is important for you to consider this factor due to the differences that exist between groups separated by generations.
Interests and needs
- You may have to ask yourself whether a certain prospect even needs your services in the first place. Then you ought to consider whether or not your services or specialties fall in line with what they would be normally interested in. Determining the wants and needs might just be the most important factor of all, so be sure to get this right above all others.
Effective Use of New Technology in Construction Business
To say that success in construction relies heavily on how technology is used would be an understatement. Technology importance and the creation of structures of any kind go hand in hand. For example, to create and be able to submit an auto expense report at a faster rate for the sake of productivity would require the use of the latest software. How this relates to the acquisition of leads and an increase in sales can be explained through the following examples:
- Social media marketing and email marketing allows for faster, more convenient, and more direct ways of interacting and connecting with prospective leads, especially when it is done in the right way.
- Construction websites can be great marketing tools, allowing customers to see for themselves what you have to offer. This makes it possible to convert leads, especially if the site visitor is sufficiently enticed to—for example—sign up for an email newsletter.
Trade Shows for Construction Industry
Getting involved in trade shows can also help you in finding more people to turn into leads. You can expect that the people who attend the same trade shows as you do are either also involved in the construction industry or are heavily interested in the services provided. From there, you can get to know certain groups or individuals better, which may progress towards greater sales for you. Another way that trade shows help is if your company is among those being highlighted. The use of a promotion flyer or an advertisement flyer are traditional methods used to draw an audience to these shows.
Referrals for Construction Business
When you draw up a construction contract with new clients, there’s always a possibility that they themselves will also become an unexpected source of further leads down the line. By tailoring your project management process in such a way that you will impress clients again and again, you increase the chances of them referring you to their friends, family, work associates, and various other people. Below are some things that you may want to know about referrals if you need further convincing of the benefits:
- Most clients tend to trust referrals since these are coming from people that they already know or have a developed interpersonal relationship with. In fact, referrals are known to be preferred over more conventional advertisements.
- The value of referred clients is also greater since these groups or individuals will come to you with a higher or more positive opinions. This relates to how they even managed to find out about you in the first place: through the recommendation of a trusted friend, family, or acquaintances.
- Referrals tend to work themselves, requiring no cost or effort on your part. As long as your services and overall brand reputation is high enough, then you no longer need to do anything extra to gain more leads and increase sales.
Online Marketing for Construction Business
Another avenue that you can depend on for further leads would be online marketing. This comes in various forms, including digital marketing and social media marketing. The marketing strategy one can employ will often consists of various tactics that involve high quality content, engaging posts, relevant and valued keywords, the strategic use of search engines, websites, and more. Because of the sheer volume that an online marketer, regardless of industry, can engage in, it is helpful to come up with a marketing checklist so that nothing is missed and most, if not all opportunities are taken advantage of.
Advertising for Construction Business
Similar to online marketing, there’s a lot that can be done with advertising if your goal is to generate brand new leads or increase your company’s sales. More traditional methods of creating a poster or banner, for example, are guaranteed to catch the attention of your intended audience, although whether it can keep that attention is another topic entirely. Below are other ways that you can use advertising to get leads and increase sales.
- The use of TV commercials can help people get familiar with your construction business, especially if it is done in a way that endears audiences to you the more they see it. Perhaps a jingle can be written and played in addition to it, for example.
- In the modern day of rampant internet tactics being employed, a variation can be made of the suggestion above through the use of YouTube or Instagram videos. This move can be far less costly and much easier for anyone to do, making it an ideal consideration to make.
- Attending events, such as the aforementioned trade shows, is a great way to personally advertise your business to people who are looking precisely for something like what you have to offer. Even better than attending would actually be getting involved in the event as a speaker or host, so that you can showcase your expertise and be seen as a big deal by those who have never heard of you before.
Be Available for Your Construction Clients
Sometimes the best way to market or advertise yourself is to simply be the best version of yourself. As mentioned before in the referral section, word of mouth can be a powerful marketing tactic that requires little to no effort or cost on your part. What you do need to make certain of is that you honor your client and consultant agreement to the best of your ability and be there for your construction clients as much as possible. It doesn’t matter how many client meeting minutes it will take for you and every other party to get things right. What matters is how you conduct yourself as a professional so that they can be sufficiently impressed to the point of recommending you to their friends, family, and acquaintances.
Create A Sales Funnel
The creation of a sales funnel is useful for your construction company because it will reveal to you the many stages within your pipeline that are either converting or not. For those that aren’t connecting as well as you would like, you will be made aware with enough time to establish a corrective action plan. With a sales funnel, forecasting becomes much easier since you can learn what your overall average conversion rates are for each stage in the pipeline. Drawing up a purchase order becomes an expected move and you will be able to predict with regularity what else you have to do in order to reach the goals that you have set for yourself.
Create A Construction Website
As noted in the effective use of new technology section, the creation and use of a website, when done right, can be an excellent marketing tool and guaranteed to provide your construction business with more leads than ever before. However, it can also be easier said than done. Building a construction website is not an easy task and its maintenance will be worth an entire job description in its own right. Whether you choose to establish a one page website, multiple page ones, a bunch of bidding websites, or just another construction builder website, here are some tips that you may want to know about.
- Do what you can to provide as much relevant information as possible.
- Make good use of pictures and videos to tell the right kinds of stories to your audience.
- Keep a close eye on trends and update the website as often as you need to.
- Keep things simple for the benefit of your site visitors.
- Be sure to apply as much SEO best practices as you can manage.
- Do not neglect to include a call to action on your website’s pages.
Take Your Construction Blog Seriously
Even those who already have a website to call their own would be wise not to neglect their business blogs. Such content are often instrumental in providing your visitors with timely updates about your company, as well as any valuable new insights that they may not get anywhere else. For some, this is something supplementary to the online marketing detailed within their construction startup business plan. It can be either a part of their website or it could come in other forms, such as a monthly newsletter that customers can subscribe to. Either way, if you can make sure that your blog’s content remains engaging and informative, then this can be an excellent way to increase your sales and get more leads than before.
Construction Email Marketing
When you talk about email marketing, you refer to the act of developing your relationship with particular leads or prospective clients, as well as the promotion of your construction services, through the use of email. It can be personalized to fit certain targeted individuals, or to better fit with your brand. An example of the latter would be the inclusion of an email marketing signature. To help with your campaign, it is useful to plot out an entire email marketing plan ahead of time. With that said, here are some tips that you may find useful:
- Be sure that you approach the right people when you send specific emails. Know and understand your audience so that you can better gauge which ones will respond better to email marketing and which ones will not.
- Be sure that you send regular emails. If you are not consistent, then you are not likely to see any results from your efforts. Although you do not want to become a spammer of messages, at the very least you should send emails with enough regularity.
- Keep everything short and simple. There’s no need to write something horrendously long or complicated; doing so will only serve to alienate your prospective client. Get to the point and make it simple enough for anyone to understand and appreciate.
Conclusion
Know that there will always be clients in need of construction services. All it takes would be to make sure that you present your company in a way that will make those prospective clients better aware of you. By engaging in any of the methods written about in detail above, you can ensure more eyes on what you have to offer. In the event that you need an even more in-depth source of information, then it comes recommended that you search for the right construction business marketing guide for your business’ needs.
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