We digital marketers may not like to admit it but there’s a lot of trial and error involved in our field. We know what works and what doesn’t work but understanding when, how, and why a particular strategy works with a certain client can sometimes be a result of hard work with a little luck thrown in:
“Why did those keywords pick up so much traction?”
“What sort of lead generator will suit the client more – a calculator or a whitepaper?”
“Will paid ads be a better route?”
“Are paid ads suitable for the budget?”
“Paid ads aren’t a better route – ABORT!”
We might know a hell of a lot about the world of digital marketing but every so often, digital marketers are humbled by the cosmic randomness of:
a) the Google search engine results page algorithm
b) the universe as a whole
Suffice it to say, there isn’t a boring day in the office of a digital marketing agency but a lot of mistakes and errors are made along the way to become a truly great digital marketing agency. And that is the mark of a committed marketer, a tenacious marketer, one who can see the path before them and not know what is ahead except that the path to a happy client will be strewn with as many errors as there are small victories.
With that being said, we’d like to impart some wisdom onto anyone reading this who may be interested in entering their construction brand into the world of digital marketing.
Read more: Digital Marketing Trends You Need to Look Out for in 2021
No website
There’s no nice way of saying this so here it is, plain and simple.
Your construction company needs a website.
There’s no way around this one, really. Having no website in the age of the internet is like having no phone or email contact details. To your customers, a company without a website is like having no employees behind it. A website is the first tangible piece of evidence that you exist amongst all of the other companies and competitors around you.
About 97% of consumers search online for products and services that they’re looking for, so without a website you are already invisible.
You may be one of the lucky few construction companies that gets by on local word of mouth alone, and you should be applauded for this because word of mouth nowadays can only get a business so far. It takes a lot of trust for someone to part ways with their own hard-earned cash without doing some modicum of initial investigation and with half of local searches being made online, that’s where you need to be.
The internet is your construction business’ best friend here, once you’ve got a website on the Google search engine results page, you are available to anyone looking.
By having a live website, you’re also having a permanent ‘OPEN’ sign on your business because, unless the internet decided to turn off one day, your website is always there to take orders or enquiries from customers 24 hours a day; further increasing the chance of those sales and money in your pocket.
A website’s potential doesn’t end there, however. It isn’t just a virtual leaflet or another place to put your contact details; your website can be used to actually further encourage sales and leads. For many construction brands especially, it can seem quite daunting to create a website from scratch using CMS software like WordPress and Shopify.
With help from agencies like Framework Marketing, your website can have a life of its own and give visitors that small step towards making a purchase and increase your revenue like you’ve never seen.
You may be a small construction company that uses the vast networking capabilities of social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn as platforms for your business, but social media only works up to a certain point and should actually exist to drive people back to your website before anything else.
Not using social media
Although it’s not a replacement for having a company website, having a social media page for your business is still vital in today’s world simply because that is where most of your customers are. If you can meet prospective customers where they’re already virtually hanging out, then you have a better chance of piquing the interest of a wider audience and gaining better reach.
Obviously, not all of these users will become converted customers but having your brand out there in front of the eyes of (potentially) thousands of people certainly can’t do any harm.
It isn’t just the exposure that your construction brand can benefit from through using social media. Sites like Facebook and Instagram especially are very multi-media focused and allow brands to utilise the power of video that many consumers actually come to expect today.
To reinforce the point about video being a powerful marketing tool, here are some eye-opening statistics on video and marketing.
Two thirds of people prefer online video to TV (Google)
In 2018, 93% of business reported a new customer on social media thanks to video content (HubSpot)
YouTube is the second most visited website after Google (Alexa)
72% of customers would rather learn of a product or service from a video than from text (HubSpot)
As you can see from these figures alone, video is at an all time high when it comes to accessibility and popularity amongst its users so, where you can, it would benefit you to utilise the social media platforms that consumers use and the tools within them that make video marketing your construction brand that much easier.
Not enough research done
As you may be aware if you’re reading this blog post, growing your construction brand is a long game to play and requires a lot of forethought, planning and collaboration to really let it hit the ground running.
If you are running your business with little to no clue of what or who you’re targeting for the future, you’re basically running in the dark. Proper research of your company allows you to know several crucial elements of its success and growth.
- Who is your target market?
- What is their demographic?
- Where is best to target them? Social media? Emails?
- What is your USP?
- Where do you hope to be in a year? Five years?
- How much time can you put aside to work on marketing your company?
Knowing the answers to just a few of these questions can help you run your company with slightly more clarity and understanding and, with a little of that luck we mentioned earlier, an increase in customer numbers and overall revenue.
If you’ve reached this far in the blog post and are concerned as to whether you may not have the time or capacity to expand your brand in this way, then you’ll be please to know that digital marketing companies like Framework Marketing specialise in exactly that.
In fact, Framework Marketing have created a free, bespoke marketing template that you can download right now in order to take that first step into understanding your construction company a little more and to making fewer of the mistakes that I’ve mentioned here in the future.
We’re a national agency rooted firmly in the construction industry that helps construction companies like yourselves to grow further than they could ever imagine. Interested in knowing more? Get in touch here!
To read the latest Framework Marketing blog post, click here.
This post was originally posted on the Framework Marketing website on May 2021
