Digital marketing is extremely important for all businesses, regardless of your industry. Over the last decade, there has been a major shift in how people look for products and services with more people searching online than ever before. This includes services that are provided by contractors such as disaster restoration, construction, remodeling, and others. If your company provides contracting services, then it is important to understand how digital marketing can generate more leads for your business.
Contractors have generally stuck to more traditional means of advertising to get jobs, including direct mailers and word of mouth. However, as more people begin their search for contractors online, it is important for these professionals to focus more on digital marketing to complement their other marketing strategies. When done effectively, digital marketing can bring in cost-effective leads from customers within their service areas. If your business does not have a strong online presence, you can easily lose leads for good jobs to your competitors.
It is very important for contractors to understand the importance of digital marketing when it comes to lead generation and connecting to new customers. Effective digital marketing will help create a flow of new jobs that will allow you to grow your business.
In this guide, we will discuss why contractors must keep up with their digital marketing as well as provide tips to help you start and maintain an effective digital marketing strategy. Working with a digital marketing agency like Proceed Innovative can help greatly improve your online presence and generate quality leads.
The Growth of Digital Marketing
As mentioned above, digital marketing has come a long way in the 2010s. More people have access to the internet now than in 2010 and a much higher percentage of consumers go online to find products and services as well as read reviews of local businesses before making a decision. These numbers are only going to grow as the younger generations come of age and search for everything online, including general contracting services.
The popularity of search engines like Google and their improved algorithms over the last decade has also contributed to the growth of digital marketing. In 2010, search engine algorithms were not nearly as sophisticated as they are now as search engines were still learning how people use the internet. Keyword stuffing, blast emails, and aimless website changes were common as users were also learning how to best use the internet for marketing purposes. Search engine algorithms have become much more sophisticated as search engines have a better understanding of user behavior, which makes search engine optimization (SEO) extremely important.
Social media platforms have also advanced significantly in the last decade. In 2010, Facebook was not the marketing behemoth it is now as there were only 431 million users. There are now more than 2.5 billion users on Facebook, and it has become a popular social media platform for brand awareness, customer engagement, and paid advertising. Other social media platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest have grown as well and are used by companies for brand awareness and customer engagement.
The development of search engine algorithms in response to a better understanding of how people use the internet has allowed digital marketers to have a more complete understanding of how customers go from finding your business to a conversion. By tracking analytics data, you can see how people are coming to your website, what page they landed on, which other pages they visited, how long they spent on each page, and when they completed the conversion. Using this data, businesses of all types, including contractors, can better understand the actions of their visitors and make adjustments to help generate more conversions.
Digital Marketing Trends for Contractors
While many industries have jumped right into digital marketing, contractors have been slow to embrace it. It is very important for contractors to understand the importance of digital marketing as appearing on the first page of the search results will generate leads. Studies have shown that around 90 percent of consumers search online to find local businesses and 98 percent choose businesses they find on the first page of Google’s search results. So, if your business is not present in the search engine results pages (SERPS), you will loose business to your competitors.
The other thing for contractors to keep in mind is that millennials born between 1980 and 1996 will be buying homes in the next decade and will likely buy older homes that will need some work done over time. This demographic is also very savvy when it comes to finding businesses online so establishing a good web presence now through effective digital marketing will set your company up for future success.
Digital Marketing Strategies
Effective digital marketing campaigns consist of multiple strategies that work together to drive your target audience to your website, generate leads, and increase conversions. When forming a digital marketing plan, make sure you include the following:
- Web design: Creating a visually appealing and functional website is the first step for building an online presence. Your website will be the first introduction of your company to many potential customers which is why the user experience of your website is important. Your site should load quickly and have smooth navigation, valuable information, and clear calls to action. It is also very important for your website to be mobile friendly because of the number of people searching on mobile devices.
- Search engine optimization (SEO): A great website will not do much good if it cannot be found on search engines like Google. It is important to optimize your website with industry specific keywords in the headers, content, and page title tags and descriptions. SEO does involve some technical expertise to track and implement so you might consider working with an SEO professional.
- Content/ blogs: Creating valuable, fresh content is a very important aspect of SEO. Your service pages on your website should be clear and concise and provide the information that your customers need. You should also make sure your main keywords are used within content to attract search traffic. Adding a blog to your website is a great way to provide fresh content that is valuable to your audience. You should always avoid duplicate content on your website.
- Social Media: Social media is an important part of digital marketing because it gives you a platform to share pictures and information in real time and engage directly with your audience. Posts on popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can help build brand awareness and direct people to your website.
- Email marketing: Email marketing can be beneficial for contractors to update your contact list with announcements and promotions. You can gather contact information for your email list by putting a sign-up feature on your website and social media profiles.
Digital Marketing and Lead Generation from Proceed Innovative
Effective digital marketing is crucial for businesses in all industries, including general contractors. With more people searching online for local businesses, it benefits contractors to have a strong web presence so you can be found on the first page of the SERPs. The digital marketing strategies outlined above can help you build brand awareness and rank well in the SERPs which will increase your number of leads and boost your conversion rate.
Many contractors are busy with projects and may not have the resources within their company to devote attention to digital marketing. Our professionals at Proceed Innovative can work with contractors to create and implement a multi-faceted digital marketing plan that includes web design, SEO, content creation, and data tracking.
Proceed Innovative also provides cost-effective lead generation services through our website restorationmasterfinder.com. Our proven contractor lead generation strategies will generate quality leads within your service area to help connect you to customers and improve your number of conversions.
You can reach Proceed Innovative at (800) 933-2402 to learn more about how we can help contractors generate quality leads.
