Every industry faces a unique set of challenges when it comes to marketing their products or services. According to Hubspot, nearly two thirds of businesses (63%) see generating traffic and leads as their top marketing challenge.
Most B2B marketing strategies revolve around identifying the buyer journey, doing keyword research, writing engaging content, and then capturing leads and converting them into buyers.
It’s a highly effective way to capture attention and to convert leads into clients. But there’s no magic bullet, and a cookie-cutter approach simply won’t do. Successful marketing strategies are highly-targeted and specific, designed to address the challenges and obstacles a given industry faces.
Unfortunately, some industries have more obstacles to overcome than others. Case in point: the construction industry.
The Problems With Marketing in the Construction Industry
This isn’t to say that digital marketing can’t be a major component of an effective construction marketing strategy – far from it. B2B Inbound lead generation marketing is still an excellent way to capture potential customers for your construction business.
But to grow your business, you’ll need to do more than simply establish an online presence and rely on a content marketing campaign with a “pay and spray” approach. By itself, churning out volumes and volumes of content isn’t a strategy.
One challenge with construction industry marketing is that these types of businesses are intrinsically linked with the other members of the AEC (architects, engineers, and construction) triangle.
So those clients looking for construction work, by definition, also typically need the services of architects and engineers. Unlike other sectors, your potential clients won’t necessarily hire you without also consulting with architects and engineers as well.
Given this environment, how do you then identify the marketing methods most likely to get you leads for the highest ROI? Let’s take a look at five proven construction industry marketing strategies that will maximize your results.
3 Essential Marketing Ideas for Your Construction Company
1. Target Architecture and Engineering Leads
As we mentioned earlier, AEC industry businesses are bound to each other. So it’s not surprising that there is a significant amount of client referrals between industry peers.
There’s no question that referrals are a powerful way to gain clients. Not only does it give your brand credibility – 84% of buyers trust recommendations from people they know – but they can also be an exceptionally valuable form of currency among your peers.
Think about it. As a construction business, you’re just as likely to have clients referred to you from an architect or an engineer than by converting an unknown lead. After all, a client of an architect or a structural engineer will need to hire a construction firm after their work is completed.
And unless they already have someone in mind, that architect or engineer is likely to pass them along to you.
However, unless you can offer something in return, those leads will eventually dry up. It’s human nature:  39% of referrers say they are much more likely to pass leads along if they’re incentivized.
Source: ReferralCandy
Architects and engineers will obviously want to pass leads along to those construction firms who send them the most leads.
That’s why your marketing strategy – in addition to capturing and converting your own clients –  should include efforts to target and acquire architecture and engineering leads which you can then pass along. In doing so, you’ll be making an investment towards future leads that are passed along to you.
2. Build Brand Authenticity
Showcasing your experience, expertise, and the people behind your operations is essential. People are much more likely to do business with a brand they trust, and will want to now that you are capable of getting the job done.
That’s why Brand authenticity is so important. It’s a key measurement of how trustworthy you are. So how do you go about demonstrating your authenticity? There are several ways.
- Showcase your achievements. Any awards, achievements, commendations, positive press and community engagements should be prominently displayed on your website
- Feature your team. Showing off your leadership and specialists not only help put faces to your business, but it also builds trust and humanizes your business
- Highlight your partnerships. Your website should include logos of clients and industry partners, which also builds trust
- Be open and transparent. Your clients will feel much more comfortable doing business with you if they know you’ll listen to their concerns and answer their questions – honestly and with transparency. Your communications need to show this.
3. Take the Right Content Marketing Approach
A content marketing strategy is still a must-have part of your lead generation marketing efforts.
In fact, this approach to lead capturing is considered to be such an effective strategy that fully 91% of marketers use content marketing as part of their marketing plan.
Source: Ironpaper
But unlike with B2C marketing, you’ll need to set the foundation by taking the time to craft a highly-targeted campaign. Otherwise, you’ll waste time & money and your ROI will be poor.
A good construction industry content strategy needs the following elements to succeed:
- A complete buyer journey that identifies and charts the pain points of your target, as well as the solutions you can offer
- Extensive and knowledgeable keyword research that filters out non-buyer keywords, drilling down to discover those search terms that will attract the right buyers for your services
- Content that speaks your customer’s language. Using terms and concepts your audience expects and/or is familiar with helps them better relate to you.
- Highly engaging content that addresses their pain points and offers solutions to their problems
- Story-driven case studies that demonstrate how they helped others with similar problems
- Engaging multi-media content like podcasts, audio & video blogs, interviews, how-to videos, VR/AR walkthroughs – anything that provides the information they’re looking for while positioning you as an expert and trustworthy solution
Construction Marketing Strategies That Generate Leads
The construction industry has unique challenges when it comes to lead generation and promoting services. The good news is that these aren’t insurmountable problems: you just need a strategy that incorporates the right mix of approaches designed to identify your target audiences, capture their attention, and convert them into actual clients.
Remember that referrals are your currency, so don’t hesitate to focus your efforts on recruiting potential clients that you can pass along to your AEC peers. Showcase your brand authenticity to build trust. And implement & execute a highly-targeted content strategy.
If you put these key construction marketing ideas into practice, it’s just a matter of time until the leads start pouring in.
When you’re ready to start generating leads for your construction firm, Jumpfactor is a digital marketing agency specializing in B2B technology and services marketing that can help you increase your revenue up to 5X faster than your competitors. Contact us today!
