The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction Table of Contents Customer-driven Marketing Ideas 3 Give your clients something to share 3 A project book and your clients will never forget 3 Keep in contact with clients 4 Get the kids involved 5 Doing something extra on every job 5 Attention-driven Marketing Ideas 6 Make a statement and let it be known 6 A tiny office to on display 6 Trick out a dug out 7 Create a product 8 Be bold with your brand 9 Develop a memorable tagline or slogan 10 Become the star of your own show 11 Create a billboard everyone will notice 11 Create a game on your website 13 Give your crew a unique look 13 Become a local hero 14 Spiff the Pro Desk 14 Localized advertising simplified 15 Content-driven Marketing Ideas 16 2 Create a podcast for future buyers 16 Become the #1 source for local media 17 Be active in community message boards 17 Become the Dear Abby of building 18 Create a blog for homeowners 18 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction Customer-driven Marketing Ideas Capture pictures during your home build/project and give your client a book they’ll never forget Whether you’re building new homes or remodeling kitchens, your clients are excited about seeing the vision come to reality. If you want to truly impress them and ensure they rave to their friends and family about your work (and company), present them with a coffee table book of professional photos of the completed project. Using a website like Shutterfly to create the photo book will make this both simple and fairly inexpensive to produce for each client. And, it’s sure to leave a lasting impression that will keep you top of mind when their next project comes up or they’re asked for a recommendation. Give clients easily shareable before/after shots of the project If putting together a photo book for each client isn’t something you want to consider, then here is an alternative that might interest you ... 3 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction At the end of your project, send your client side-by-side before and after photos in a size that makes it really easy for them to share on their social networks. People love seeing transformations and clients love showing them off. You should be the beneficiary of those natural human tendencies. If you’re a new home builder, you can use the rendering as your before image. But, for remodeling projects, just make sure to capture the photos before and after the project. Format both images to sit next to each other in a size that works best for sharing. With a simple Google search, you’ll find a ton of articles like this about the best image sizes for each social network. Oh, and don’t forget to add your company name and logo to the images so everyone knows who made this amazing transformation possible. Keep in contact with past clients While this may seem obvious, it’s often ignored. This doesn’t need to be complicated either. After you complete a project with a client, set up a single reminder to follow up with them at a future date. When that date arrives, reach out and ask how your work is holding up and if they have any upcoming projects they’re considering. Immediately after, set up your next reminder. 4 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction Staying top of mind and showing a genuine interest in their happiness with your work will go a long way in getting more work from them in the future, not to mention increase the number of people they’ll refer your way. Get the kids involved (create a kids program, give them a hat, apron, teach them something) Young kids are fascinated with construction. And, when you give them the chance to participate, you become their hero. If you want to win over your clients, put together a program that allows their children to feel like they are part of the process. Make them an honorary member of your team and give them a company hat and tool apron. You could offer a small pre-created project for kids to do, teach them to use a particular tool, or even involve them in your project in a small way. Just make sure it’s safe and parent approved. Do something extra on every job You don’t need to be the star of a home improvement show to surprise your clients with an unexpected reveal. As you begin your relationship with your client, pay close attention to pick up on any clues they give you towards their interests or needs. Capturing these little nuggets will be the key to going above and beyond the call of duty. This could be something as simple as building a small custom key rack because you noticed they had a drawer full of keys. The point of this is, you paid attention to something they said or something you noticed and took it upon yourself to respond to that. These small gestures can even turn the unhappiest of clients into raving fans. 5 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction Attention-driven Marketing Ideas Make a statement and let it be known What sets you apart from your competition? Or, rather — what do you want people to remember about you and your company? For example, there is a home builder in Minnesota that operates on the principle of keeping a 100% clean job site — everyday. When they’re building a new home, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything laying around the inside or outside of the property when they are not on the site — not even equipment left behind. They are so committed to this approach that they plant a large wooden sign in front of each new home they’re building that boldly states their commitment to cleanliness. If you want to grab the attention of potential clients, take a stand and make it known. Build a tiny office to put on display at the jobsite People are fascinated by the look and design of tiny homes. Simply put, they command attention. 6 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction And as a builder, you have a huge leg up on capturing that attention because … well, you can build one. However, rather than constructing a tiny home, why not construct a tiny office? Something that puts your craftsmanship on display in a cool way. You can either build it as a stationary office on your property, or build one on a trailer to bring along to your jobsite and use as a remote office (AKA travelling billboard). Aside from serving a practical purpose, it’s sure to draw attention and give people something to remember you by. Sponsor youth sports teams in your area Sponsoring youth sports in your community is affordable and a great way to stay on the radar with the parents of those kids (AKA your future clients). Not to mention, it’s a great way to show that you’re a supporter of the community. 7 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction If you want to get creative with this, offer to trick out the dugouts at a youth baseball field, or remodel a concession stand. Use your talents to demonstrate the quality of your work for everyone to see. Create a productized offer (Kids playhouse, decorative item for outdoor, cabinets remastered) While you might be in the business of building new homes or renovating bathrooms, it doesn’t mean that's the only thing you need to offer. Use your skills to build a product you can reproduce and offer in mass. Maybe it's a fancy looking playhouse for kids, or cornhole boards. Or, maybe you make a service into a product — converting all trim to white, or 1-day door squeak removal. 8 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction A great way to come up with ideas is to consider what’s going on in terms of current events. For example, with where we are in the world today, you could offer a “2-day home office makeover” or “garage to office conversion package”.. The goal here is to open the door to new clients with something that doesn’t require a big decision or price tag. Be bold with your brand Being bold works because many builders are too afraid to do it for themselves. Admittedly, this approach isn’t for everyone - but if you’re brave enough to make your brand stand out, the rewards can be incredible. To do this effectively, you need to find an angle and commit to it. For example, while every other construction company drives pickups, maybe you operate with a fleet of el caminos. As an example, there is a siding company in the Midwest called Super Siders that came up with their own superhero character as a way to separate themselves from the competition. 9 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction In order to draw attention to their unique branding they carry the theme across all aspects of their business, including bold designs on all of their vehicles. One effective approach to come up with bold ideas for your company is to look in the opposite direction. You’ll know you’re on the right path when the ideas start to feel uncomfortable. Develop a memorable tagline or slogan If you were asked to recite a slogan from another company, chances are you could do it quite easily. In fact, many people can because they WORK. While slogans like “Just Do It” or “I’m Lovin’ It” may not work without a large advertising budget to support it, there are plenty of small businesses that have had a lot of success by coming up with slogans that get stuck in your head. 10 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction To give you an example, there was a second-hand exercise store that grew to become a very successful franchise thanks in large part to their catchy tagline, “Why buy new when slightly used will do”. Or, who can forget the now popular bathroom spray Poo Pourri slogan, “Spritz the bowl before you go and no one else will ever know.” However annoying you might think they are, slogans work. And, the catchier they are, the better. Create your own “show” - Film the progress of each job and post it on YouTube or Instagram It’s easier than ever to develop your own “show” these days. And, you can do the whole thing without ever spending a dime. To be fair, there are always ways that you could spend money to produce and edit your videos, but in today’s world, it’s simply not necessary. People are fascinated by getting to see behind the curtains to see what it takes to run a business, build homes, redo kitchens … whatever. Whether you turn it into a show of your own or not, start filming your projects from beginning until end. Before you know it, you may even find yourself on HGTV. Create a crazy billboard Doing billboards for your business may seem like an expensive idea. And, depending on where you’re located, that could be true. However, what if you knew you only had to do one of them? 11 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction And if the actual location of the billboard was as important? That seems more reasonable, right? Rather than create a traditional billboard ad that - quite frankly - probably won’t generate much of a result for you, use the billboard to feature what you do on a massive canvas and scale. If you’re a siding contractor, side the billboard. If you’re a home builder, build a small house on the deck of the billboard and put a life-like individual in the house waving at those that drive by. The idea here is to make a BIG splash with a single billboard. Doing this effectively will create a buzz and may even get you featured in a news segment or two. 12 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction Create a building game on your website A fun way to drive a little more traffic to your site and create some engagement from prospects is to offer a simple game to play on your website. Think about as something along the lines of tetris. If you’re a remodeler, you could create an interactive game to drag and drop your dream kitchen or bathroom. You could do something similar as a home builder, but it’s building your dream home. This doesn’t need to be elaborate or expensive to develop. Just something that separates you from your competition and communicates a message of enjoyment. Unless you want to take on the challenge of building a game yourself, you could easily find those that will do it for you on Upwork. Or, there are even sites like Miniclip that offer games you can add to your website for free. Give your crew a unique look Why is it that specialty contractors, like electricians and plumbers are the only ones that wear branded work shirts anymore? If your team isn’t currently representing your brand on the job site, you’re missing a BIG opportunity. However, rather than have your team wear just a standard work shirt, try something bold, that will really allow your brand and team to stand out. If your brand color is bright orange for example, provide everyone with bright orange shoes. Or, maybe it’s a hat with a pencil pocket built in above the ear. If you’ve ever seen an employee (AKA: Agent) from Geek Squad, you may have noticed how they were dressed — a white short sleeve button down dress shirt, skinny black clip-on tie and black trousers. What you may not have noticed is that they also all wear the same black leather shoes. In fact, those are custom made Geek Squad shoes with their logo on the soles of each shoe - for the off chance that an agent leaves an impression in the sand. 13 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction You certainly don’t need to go to the length that Geek Squad has, but if you want to capture attention, don’t just do what everyone else does. Be the company that people remember. Pay attention to the local news stories and step in when you can If you pay attention to your local news, you’ll undoubtedly come across stories of families who are encountering unfortunate events and in need of help. When you come across one of these stories where you think you could help, contact the news station and offer up your support. This could involve helping to repair someone’s damaged home, or maybe building a wheelchair ramp for a family recovering from an accident. While you shouldn’t expect recognition in return, it will most likely come. And, at worst, you will feel better having done good for someone else. Spiff the staff at the Pro Desk If you’re like most contractors, the Pro desk staff at whatever home improvement store you frequent probably knows you on a first name basis. 14 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction What you may not realize is that these staff can be your champion and your key to a constant stream of new work. You just need to nurture that relationship. Next time you’re heading to the store, bring the staff a box of donuts, or a thing of fresh coffee along with a handful of your business cards. Let them know you appreciate them. In turn, they’ll likely become your biggest advocate. Localized advertising on the biggest platforms - Facebook … Instagram … Google … Youtube Many people don’t realize this, but advertising on social platforms doesn’t need to be expensive. In fact, you get to decide how much or how little you want to spend — even as small as $5 per day. On top of that, it’s very easy to target your ads to the specific people in your area that you want to reach — which means that every dollar is spent wisely. While it might not be as simple as just clicking a couple of buttons, setting up and running your ad campaigns on your own is not as difficult as you might think. Plus, there are plenty of amazing free guides and resources available online to help you get better at it. If you choose to give this a try, it’s important that you set some reasonable expectations first because it may take some time before you see results. Here’s an example: Let’s say that you’re a remodeler and your average project size is $20,000. After paying for materials and labor, you’re typically left with a profit margin of 25% - or $5,000. Now knowing that each new client is worth $5,000 to your business, you’ll want to determine what amount of that profit you’d be willing to spend to get them on board. If you determine that $1,000 is reasonable, for example, that would be the amount you would use to evaluate the results against. In other words, if you’re spending $20 per day on ads, you would need to generate at least one new client every 50 days in order for your advertising to be considered a success. 15 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction Content-driven Marketing Ideas Create a podcast for future buyers Due to the convenience and easy accessibility, podcasts have become one of the main ways in which people are seeking to learn about the things on their radar — and this includes those looking to update their home. If you want to grow an audience of future clients, start sharing your expertise and building trust by creating your own podcast! It’s never been easier than it is today to create your own podcast, even from the comfort of your home office. There are free and easy to follow guides (like this one) online everywhere if you want to see what it takes to get started. Even if it takes you awhile to build an audience, you’ll be able to proactively share the content you create along the way with potential clients to establish trust and differentiate yourself amongst your competition. 16 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction Put yourself on the radar of local journalists as a source/go-to-expert Have you ever wondered what it takes to be an expert that journalists will call on when they're doing a story about something in residential construction? The answer is that it doesn’t take much for that to be you. Journalists typically have a go-to list of people they can rely on when needed, you just need to be on that list. In order to do that, you need to reach out to them and let them know you’re an expert and available when they need you. You never know when that time will come so it’s important to stay on their radar by sending useful tips or interesting industry information from time to time. By continually proving yourself an asset to them, you’ll quickly become the first person they think of when they need an opinion on the industry. Be active in community message boards like Facebook and NextDoor Many communities across the US have community pages on places like Facebook and NextDoor where members will often ask others for recommendations about who to hire for their projects. Being active in these groups pays off. The more you participate in general discussions, the more 17 The Unconventional Marketing Playbook for Construction you’ll be seen as a resource. When the opportunities come to plug your business, you’ll get the support from the other members, whether they’ve worked with you before or not. If you simply don’t have time to do this yourself and have an office/admin person on your team, this is a great weekly task to add to their list. Write a weekly “ask the builder” column for your local newspaper/publications Local print and online publications are always on the lookout for good content from outside contributors — especially when they don’t have to pay for it. Reach out to the publisher or managing editor at the publications in your market and pitch them the idea of a weekly article answering readers questions about home improvement. Or, whatever idea you may have. This is a great way to build recognition and your credibility as an expert homeowners can turn to. Create a blog geared towards homeowners Blogging is certainly not new, but it IS a massively under utilized medium with custom home builders and remodelers. And, that’s an opportunity that you can take advantage of. Think about the questions that your clients most often ask. Use those questions as your blog headlines and answer them as a blog post for everyone to see. Keep a running list of each new question that comes up and you’ll never run out of topics for your blog. Don’t be discouraged if you’re not getting much traffic right away, that’s not the objective here. Your goal with the blog is to: 1. Build a base of educational material that you can use during the sales process to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise and, 2. Begin to show up in search results when the questions are searched for in the days, weeks and months to come. When done correctly, blogging is an investment that will pay you dividends for many years on end. 18
