We live in a rapidly changing world where technology is advancing at groundbreaking speed. And with the rise of social media, remote work, and online communication tools, everyone is migrating to researching and purchasing online.
That makes marketing your residential construction business online a necessity. The process of changing the way you market your business might seem intimidating, but it’s actually pretty easy to learn.
Below, we explore the key takeaways from a webinar conducted by one of our partners, Buildxact and Stephanie Campanella, a trade and builder’s marketer, and director of Tradies Get Online . So if you aren’t sure how to promote your business, generate more leads, and win more work, this blog has got you covered.

Below are the 10 tips on how to market your residential construction business.

1. Build a website that you can easily update
Your website is the foundation of your business, and it is an extremely important aspect of generating leads. The more professional your website looks, the more trustworthy it will be to your potential customers.
Your customers should be able to easily navigate through your website on a desktop, tablet, or mobile. By using a Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress, you can access prebuilt templates and themes to get started quickly and easily update content and images. Updates to any pages, content or images will automatically update across each device, saving you time and effort and results in a great online experience for your customer.

2. Create an attention-grabbing homepage banner
Your homepage banner is your “hook”. It will be the first thing your potential customer will see when they click on your website and should include:
1. A hero image – This will be the central piece of your banner so it should be a high-quality image that showcases your business.
2. A catchy tagline – One or two sentences that demonstrates the value your business delivers to your customers.
3. Your main services – Most of your first-time website visitors won’t have the time to read everything in one go. Summarising what you can do for them in bullet points will help them get the gist of who you are and what you do while they speed-read.
4. A call to action button e.g. ‘Find out more’ or ‘Contact us’ – Your banner should have a call to action that directs them to either your contact page or to the next step of your sales process.

3. Invest in photography
Have a professional photographer take photos of completed renovations or builds to showcase the quality of your work on your website’s portfolio page and on your social media accounts. Book a photographer once every quarter to do a photoshoot to keep your portfolio fresh.
You should include images of yourself and your team too. This is part of humanising your brand and your content. Potential customers want to know that they’ll be doing business with real people.

4. Have a call to action on every page
Contact Number:
Your contact number should always be in the upper right-hand corner of every page of your website. This is so that customers are reminded that they can easily call you no matter what part of your website they’re browsing.
For the mobile version, your customers can just tap on your number in the same location, and it should automatically redirect them to their dial screen where they can hit the call button or save your number immediately.
Call to action at the bottom of every page:
Never publish a page without guiding your customers to another page or call to action, e.g. ‘Contact us’
Otherwise, you’re just leading them to a dead-end and they’re left to figure out where to go on their own. Or, they’ll leave your website completely. You want to keep control and push them through the right steps of your sales process.

5. Improve your contact forms
For contact forms, longer forms are always better.
We know that it seems like longer forms could drive potential customers away, but the truth is that a qualified lead with high purchasing intent is going to fill out whatever form you give them.
Business is a two-way street and as much as you want to get new customers, you also want to get ones that will be easy to work with and are willing to give you the information that you ask for.
At a minimum, your contact form should have these elements:
1. Heading
2. Subheading, which includes when they can expect to hear from you
3. Fields
• Full name
• Email
• Phone number
• Property address
• More details about the project
• Ability to add an attachment
4. Submit button
5. Confirmation that their form submission was successful

6. Link to your social media accounts
Social media is a powerful marketing tool, especially for businesses in the construction industry. Links to your social media accounts like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram should be at the bottom of your website as they may detract from your call to actions.
LinkedIn: While this is the most underused platform in the industry, it attracts corporates. Using LinkedIn is actually a very effective way to gain connections with industry groups and associations who can help you find leads, and support you in growing your business.
Instagram: This is the best and most popular platform for builders and trades. People use Instagram to look for homes that they like and aspire to have. If you post good quality photos and content, they’ll find you and start connecting with you. Don’t forget to add your call to action on the profile description (usually your website URL or something like “Direct message (DM) for info”) and use hashtags (like #homeinspo) to get discovered by new customers.
Facebook: Facebook communities and groups are a good source of information, connections, and leads. Facebook is also the largest social media platform in the world, so it’s great to have a Facebook page for your business for more reach.

7. Post reviews on your website
Positive feedback from your customers helps to sell your next customer by proving that your business is trustworthy and provides value. Once the project has been completed, ask your customers to leave a review for your website (if you have a review page) or on Google. Promote these reviews throughout your website and on social media for maximum reach.

8. Rank higher on Google
Here are three ways to rank higher on Google and get potential customers to your website:
1. Google Ads – This is a pay per click marketing strategy that can boost your website to the very top of a relevant Google search.
2. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – This relies on the quality of your content. The best and most relevant content will boost your Google ranking.
3. Google My Business – This leads you to the top of Google Maps.
There are marketing agencies such as Tradies Get Online that can help you with this and make sure that your business is easily found online by potential customers.

9. Dedicate a page for Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Think about all the questions your customers might want to ask and have a page on your website that answers them. Having answers to FAQs helps to further build trust with your potential customers.

10. Use your job management system to market to your leads
To run your jobs accurately and efficiently from start to finish you should be using an estimating and job management system such as Buildxact. But did you know that construction software can also be used as a powerful marketing tool?
Whichever online construction platform you use, make sure that it includes a client portal; that is, a designated ‘mini-site’, with your branding, that you can set up for each of your qualified leads. Your prospective customers can log in, see details of their project, examples of your relevant previous building work, brochures, etc.
All communication is recorded in their portal, as well as their building quote, and any project updates. This sends a strong message to your potential customers that you are in control of the builds that you work on, and that it will be easy and smooth working with you.  This is an important point of differentiation which will set you apart from other builders.

Get started with Buildxact
To see how our estimating and job management software platform can help you win more work.
1. Start a free trial and check out Buildxact for yourself
2. Book a one-on-one demo where one of the Buildxact team take you through how it can help your business