Don’t struggle with your construction marketing strategy! Here’s how to nail it
While the construction industry is still warming up to digital marketing strategies, here are a few pointers to take into consideration when developing a full-proof construction marketing strategy. These pointers are useful whether your marketing takes place online or offline.
First, you need to understand what marketing is. Well, most of us misunderstand the term. The word marketing is a world in itself. It encompasses advertising, selling, and even branding of a business.
A construction marketing plan should be made only after you obtain a better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, your competitors, and how the construction market is growing in sectors like retail, public, residential, civil, and others. Your digital strategy should not make you miss opportunities connected to other sectors, too, as they usually form the client base. The best part about any construction business is that its progress is invariably co-related to the different construction sectors and the relationships they make.
Marketing for construction companies has long moved forward with traditional marketing. The bigger the projects, the bigger they invested in traditional marketing. With the advent of digital marketing, it has dawned on the construction industry that the cost of marketing can be reduced to less than half.
What is the objective of your marketing strategy
Before you start, an objective is an essential requirement. Decide! What is the goal of your construction marketing strategy? Is it to increase revenue? Or, is it to create brand awareness if you are a new construction business trying to gain a foothold in the industry? Are you trying to increase the market share of your company, product or services? Your objective will decide the future course of action for your marketing campaign. However, a company that has multiple lines under one roof has to think differently. Their objective of one marketing goal will not work as their clients and operations will vary according to their products and services.
SWOT analysis – A must for small and big businesses
SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Running a thorough SWOT analysis will bring out new avenues for change, and allow you to devise new strategies. This is vital for both small and big construction businesses. The reason being that a small company has to work according to opportunities and threats, while big companies will evaluate their strengths and weaknesses first.
So a SWOT analysis will help you understand things like where your company is lacking, if your products have a limited reach, and if your competitors are doing better than you.
Trends in the current market – Evaluate and evolve
Your plan should focus on your goal in tandem with current trends in the digital marketing world. Sometimes a trend may even influence your objective. What you can avoid here is competing in areas where you don’t see the potential for growth in current markets. Concentrate on your strengths, and where you have a competitive edge.
Want to know more: Check out Top 12 Construction Marketing Ideas
Identify your target audience
Sometimes defining your target audience is not that easy. For instance, consider a supplying agency operating in the construction industry. The clients are builders or firms, but their target audience is the customers who buy those products. So, you should concentrate on the decision-makers in the sectors where you are supplying. After determining who the decision-makers are, take a step forward to analyze their likes, income-group, and other details. Use this to make an effective construction marketing campaign.
Compare your previous growth
Track the past year’s business to set a goal for this year. While deciding on the goal for the current year, don’t go overboard with unrealistic goal setting. Going through your past accomplishments will help you evaluate and formulate a strategy that will make your marketing goal achievable.
Pick the right channels to market on
With respect to all the aforementioned factors, you now need to pick the right channels to market on. Whether your business is B2B or B2C, appropriate channels will help you leverage ways to achieve your goals. To decide on digital or traditional platforms, analyze your target audience, budget, time-frame, possible leads, and a tentative return on investment.
Come up with a budget
Businesses that invest to much find a low ROI on their marketing budget, and the businesses that manage their marketing on a shoe-string budget wish for more money. The point here is that if the advertising spots are on radio or television the budget will shoot up. More prominent brands choose these mediums to hog the limelight. If your budget is less, then concentrate on marketing to a specific segment. Digital marketing here would be helpful. Be clear on the figure you would like to spend and decide how, when, and where it will happen. Simultaneously, keep a tab on your workforce managing the marketing. They should be able to handle any additional job and be able to do crisis management.
Keep an eye on results
As soon as your marketing campaign rolls, check its progress. It will start showing results within a few days. If the strategies you planned are not working, then alter them, or put them on hold. Also, try to analyze the response you get from clients. Based on this, you can make necessary changes too. Results will help you plan future marketing campaigns and will also be a good learning experience.
While you can easily find different ways to do marketing, developing a construction marketing strategy should be done meticulously. When you start planning a construction marketing strategy, keep in mind one thing – analysis. Strategies will yield results only when analysis is done well.
At CMGurus, we work to create a marketing strategy that works and get you incredible results. Contact us for your construction business’ digital marketing needs before your competitors do.