Occasionally I will post my weekly newsletter here on the site if I think it will help a wider group of people. I don’t do it a lot because, well, that is one of the benefits of being on the newsletter email list. But this week I made an exception. I think it makes sense to get this out there because this question has come to me more times than usual lately, and I think it needs to be addressed. What’s the question? I will answer that in a second, but I suggest you get on the newsletter list by signing up below in the red box or by clicking here. So, back to the question, the question is; What do I do to market my construction company? Onto this week’s newsletter:
Original newsletter: 2/7/2016
I hope this week’s message finds you well and whether you are going to watch the game for the game, or the commercials, I’m sure you are going to be glued to a television somewhere watching the game. And that’s what today’s topic is about too…games.
It’s about the long game and short game of marketing for construction companies.
I’ve had a ton of phone calls recently with guys and girls just like you who are totally confused with how to promote their business this year.
They hear this and they see that, but they don’t know how to take the first step…because they don’t know what their needs are, or, don’t know what their time horizon is. So I’m going to lay it down for you in case you have this same burning issue.
Let’s start off with the long game
The long game of construction marketing looks something like this; create and maintain a blog that is updated regularly with tips and advice, suggestions and how-to’s and an occasional project or two.
This gives you the ability to ‘teach’ people with your blog. And if you remember, people only go to the web for two things; to be entertained or educated. So let your blog educate.
In the long run, if done properly, your blog will generate evergreen leads for you month after month, but you have to commit to anywhere from 6 months to 18 months, depending on how many posts a month you do, before your blog tree bears fruit.
No point getting into the mechanics of why and all that, just know that if you post to a blog regularly, in a year it should be helping you develop new business.
Ther other long game today is social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you know the usual suspects. They are important because that’s where the eyeballs are, inside these platforms.
Forget about social media advertising and promotion for a second, you just want to make sure your social media profiles are updated regularly because you want to make sure you have fresh information available when someone goes to check you out. This is a great place and way to promote those blog posts I was talking about.
You see, as I mentioned a few years back, social media has become a confidence factor. You MUST be on these platforms when people seek you out because they are using your presence there as a checkmark on the overall pro’s and con’s list they make about your business. So be social!
Who is the long game good for?
The long game is good for companies who want to fill in the gaps of referalls, who realize they need to build a brand over the long term and who want to reduce their marketing spend down the road with a solid marketing program that is offset today by enough business to get to the goalline.
Now let’s talk short game tactics
The short game is easy. It’s all about advertising, and no better advertising today than Facebook to drive traffic back to your website. Facebook advertising is the best way to get at a targeted market in the world right now, hands down.
Retargeting is the cousin of PPC or social media advertising, and it is just as effective. Retargeting shows your ad message to someone who has already say, visited your site. Since 90% of the visitors your site get’s don’t decide right away, you want a mechanism in place to keep talking to them long after they’ve left your website, and that’s what retargeting does.
If you visit darrenslaughter.com, you WILL see ads for us all over the web for the next 30 days. That’s retargeting. The funny thing is, I get calls all the time from people who say ‘I visited your site, now you are all over the place, I want that!’ That’s what we can do for you too.
Let’s talk about your website for a second
If your website stinks, no amount of advertising or promotion is going to offset that. Where you send people in particular on your site matters too. If you use social media to talk about bathrooms, then send people to your homepage, you just wasted everyone’s time. There are execution tactics you need to be aware of. You can’t just drop a $100 into Facebook ads and say it worked or it didn’t, you have to know what you are doing.
Who is the short game for?
The short game is for companies who need leads NOW. Who don’t have the ability to wait, who are more transactional (think plumber, electrician, floor companies) and, therefore, need more traffic than the average remodeler or builder?
In the end…
These are what I think are the four best ways to build your business in 2016. In fact, it is exactly what we are doing ourselves. I don’t think the time and effort in trying to rank organically is anywhere near worth it anymore.
Consider the first page of Google; it is now consumed with mostly large sites buying the traffic (Home Advisor, Lead Bull) or large destination sites or comparison sites (Merchant Circle, Houzz, Manta) ranking higher and higher for your keywords. Why? Simply because they have millions of pages and are much more trustworthy than your little 15-page site in the eyes of the search engines.
The real win is when you are able to put both of these approaches to work for you, but most people I talk to need either a short-term solution or a longer one, so that’s it…a good start to the common question so far this year, “what do I do?”
Have a great week!
-Darren
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