How General Contractors Can Target Customers Seasonally

You love working for yourself. You are living the American dream. When business is booming, your schedule is chock-full of work. However, sometimes this American dream can turn into a nightmare when business slows down.

Business slowing down can cause worry. You’re stuck at home when you should be in the homes of customers, providing exceptional service on any of their home remodeling projects. If you feel a slow season is imminent, you may want to take a closer look at your marketing plan.

General contracting is a business full of pride but can be extremely competitive. If your business fails to make it on relevant searches like “general contractor service near me” or “kitchen remodeling services near me,” you may be in trouble.

In today’s internet-dependent world, digital marketing is the name of the game when it comes to securing success for your business. Your industry is expected to grow by as little as 8% in the next decade, that’s about double the national average. To catch the wave of this increasing demand for general contractors in the next ten years is going to take a little work.

Aside from the amount of elbow grease to put in to attain customers, you will surely benefit from it with more general contracting work. Here’s how to do it!

GMB Optimization

Since 1998, Google and the internet have congealed together to form a societal supergiant. Google is so ingrained in our lives that the Oxford dictionary officially added the word as a verb in 2006. By the early 2010s, Google dominated the internet, making it the search engine. Amd today, Google is worth over $1 trillion.

Furthermore, Google receives an average of over 13 billion search inquiries per day, while almost half of those are for local businesses. With over 7 billion searches for local businesses a day, there are plenty of ripe opportunities to cash in.

One of those ways to cash in is with a Google My Business account. These accounts are free to set up, and one may already be set up for your general contracting business--all you have to do is verify!

Once verified, it’s time to begin optimization. Start by adding photos of your company and your services. For instance, let’s say you offer custom cabinetry. Adding before and after photos of your work will accurately depict the amount of care and craftsmanship you put into your work.

Next, add your service hours and location to your account. You want both your customers and Google’s algorithm to know exactly when and where they can request your service. Last but not least, make sure to add backlinks to your original website and provide all the contact information you can!

Now that you’ve optimized your GMB account, let’s take a look at Google Ads. If your general contracting company begins to slow down at the end of the year and you want to drum up some business during the winter months, these ads are a great way to show a sharp increase.

Google Ads works by getting your website on internet searches not directly related to general contracting. For example, say someone Googles, “how much does a bathroom remodel usually cost?” These ads work by showing you as a top result on searches of the same intention.

Google ads have a low risk but a very high ceiling since they are based on pay-per-click (or PPC.) That means if the advertisement doesn’t generate that much traffic to your website, you won’t be paying an inflated price. You’ll have to pay more money if it does generate traffic, but you won’t notice the cost from all the business you’ll get!

Retargeting Ad Campaign

Now that you have your GMB account set up and Google Ads working to get you on as many internet searches as possible, it’s time to do a little digging yourself! Some people may be thinking about a remodel, but aren’t in any position to pull the trigger just yet. When this happens, they may browse a couple of general contracting websites.

A retargeting ad campaign helps you keep in contact with anyone who stumbled upon your website when they did their research. These campaigns work by using a tracking code on your website that picks up information on any visitor. The tracking code allows these visitors to see retargeted ads when they scroll through sites like Google or Facebook.

Retargeting ad campaigns are a great way to keep a customer thinking about your service without being too aggressive. So when it finally comes time they want to replace that rickety deck, they know who to call.

Here are some ways to further increase the efficiency of your retargeting ad campaigns:

Persuasive calls to action (CTA)
Eye-catching headlines to pull readers in
Personalized ads on specific services and deals
Consistent content that is enriching, neighborly, and helpful

Utilize and Email Marketing Campaign

Another way to target a large group of customers for every season is by way of an email marketing campaign. The step in this campaign is to compile a list of current, past, and potential customers’ emails. Once you have acquired this list of potential clients, you’re going to need to consider the time of your advertisements and their content.

Here are some effective ways to compile a solid email list and to execute your campaigns:

Require email signatures for all estimate requests
Collect emails through Facebook or Google ads
Offer a newsletter subscription service to your website
Offer incentives to subscribers when they share newsletters and posts
Promote email sign-ups through social media

Establish Your Calls to Action

Even with all of these effective marketing techniques for your general contracting business, one important ingredient is missing: your call to action! CTAs are the final step in pulling customers throughout any season.

When you effectively use CTAs, it motivates and encourages the customer to finally request the service they have been putting off for some time.

Here are the steps to follow to increase the potency of your CTAs: