Lead generation is one of the most important aspects of any business, and we should know. Contracting and landscaping businesses are no different, and we’re one of the only companies in the marketing industry that specializes specifically in helping contracting companies.
That puts us in the perfect place to talk about lead generation strategies for contracting businesses because it’s the bread and butter and the work we do on a daily basis. After all, if you’re a contracting business and you’re able to bring in a steady stream of qualified leads then you’ll never run out of work. You might even be able to take on new staff or improve your company’s infrastructure.
With all of that in mind, we wanted to share a few lead generation strategies that have worked well both for ourselves and for our clients. If you’re able to deploy some of these strategies then the results will speak for themselves.
Let’s go!
Referral programs are great because your customers do the hard work for you. All you need to do is to launch a scheme in which people are rewarded for recommending your company to their friends and family. If your customers are already pretty happy with the work you’ve done for them then it shouldn’t take too much to encourage them to sing your praises.
Some companies offer cash rewards for referrals, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. You could offer some free work or enter everyone who refers someone into a prize draw each week to win a bottle of champagne. Be creative and try to find a way to use the prize that you give away to tell a story about your brand. So in other words, if you’re a high-end brand, don’t offer money or low-end prizes. Go for something a little more luxurious.
Discount vouchers can be a great way to encourage people to tell other people about your business, but they can also work well as a general strategy to generate leads. You can ask people to join your mailing list in exchange for the vouchers, but you could also use them to score short term sales.
After all, not many people are going to bother to fill out a form to download a voucher for your contracting business unless they actually plan to hire a contractor. All that the voucher does is make sure that you have their details and that you can continue to market to them if they’re not quite ready to buy. Oh, and it also makes sure that they choose to work with your company instead of one of your competitors.
The idea of offering up a free download in exchange for a visitor’s contact information isn’t exactly a new one, but that doesn’t mean that it’s no longer relevant. True, it can be difficult to pull this off if you’re targeting the general public, but if you have a specific target audience such as landlords or small businesses then it can be a great way to add a little value.
Just make sure that your free download is relevant to the target audience and consider supporting it with paid advertisements. The goal is to reach the right people with the right offer so that they head through to your landing page and give you their information in exchange for access to your whitepaper, webinar or ebook. Once you have their information, you can add them to a lead nurturing program and eventually turn them into paying customers.
Quora is the web’s most well-known question and answer site, but it can also come in useful when it comes to marketing your contracting business. That’s because you can start to search out landscaping or contracting questions that are being asked by people in the area and then provide them with answers, mentioning along the way that your company will be happy to help them.
This approach doesn’t work for everyone, but when it does work, it really, really works. On top of that, it’s unlikely that many of your competitors have actually thought to use Quora, which often means that you’re the only person providing people with answers. Plus the questions that people are asking can act as a signal of their intent. If they’re asking for recommendations, you can bet that they’re almost ready to buy.
Local directories and local social networking sites are great for contracting businesses because it helps them to double down on the local area without having to fight for local SEO rankings on search engines. Many of these sites even include the ability to run advertisements, which can be combined with suggestions #2 and #3 on this list and which often work out cheaper than advertising on Google and Facebook.
In fact, local directories can work well for national and international contractors, as well as for smaller independents. All you need to do is make sure that you create a local presence for every physical location that your contracting business is able to service so that when people look for you, they can find you.
Now that you know a few of our secret lead generation strategies, it’s time for you to take over. Spend a little time figuring out which lead generation strategies you’re going to use for your contracting business and then make sure that you have the infrastructure in place so you can carry it out.
And of course, if you’re struggling to implement these strategies yourself or if you’d like someone to lend a helping hand, be sure to get in touch. We specialize in carrying out lead generation campaigns for contracting businesses and we also have a unique model in which you only pay us when one of our leads becomes a paying customer.
If that sounds good then be sure to schedule a demo so we can get to know you a little more. Once we know how your company works and what makes your customers tick, we can tailor our approach to suit you. Click here to find out more.
