Construction Industry Challenges
Construction industry giant, Carillion collapsed in 2018 and cost the taxpayer a staggering £148 million pounds and it was no surprise there was a ripple effect through the rest of the UK market. Other (smaller) contractors have followed suit such as Welsh contractors Dawnus who were responsible for 44 live projects, including the huge Manchester development Regent Road scheme and surrounding areas.
The future isn’t looking too bright either. In comparison to last year’s quarter, GDP’s growth at 1.8%, ONS released 2019 figures at approximately 0.5% growth and this follows a 0.2% growth Winter quarter.
Whilst we can undertake a number of analyst matrix’s such as SWOT and Blue Ocean to stay ahead of the curve, fundamentally, we need to ensure we are working every possible marketing and sales opportunity.
In 2019, we can no longer rely on “word of mouth” and “referrals”. This isn’t marketing, it’s a testament to your high-quality operations and relationship management. In this article, the objective is to help you understand why you would employ different strategies and what can you act on today.
ACTION
“From the last 6 months, where did every single lead and sales come from? If all your eggs are coming from the same basket, then you might want to review your lead generation process.”
SEO isn’t this magically dark art
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in its essence is a maintenance service to help tell Google how authoritative your website is on a certain subject. Its aim is to rank the most authoritative at the top as this is what’s going to provide the “searcher” with the best possible experience.
There are 200 factors when it comes to Google’s algorithm but when we’re boiling it down to what’s going to help your SEO strategy the most, high-quality backlinks, natural internal links and engaging, relevant content that has been researched through effective keyword analysis. Easy right? Well, not really. All of the above takes times as Google will only crawl your site every 3 months or so which means you won’t see results for a number of results.
In the meantime, you can continue to develop your site by making it user-friendly. For example, how easy is it to find the relevant information? How obvious is the call to actions? How easy is it for Google to find the appropriate pages (think the structure of the website)? How fast is your website to load? How optimised are your images? You can now optimise your video for search and don’t get me started on the future which is voice search. We could go on and on.
ACTION
“Add your website URL into gtmetrix.com and if your website takes longer than 3 seconds to load, then please contact us for a full website audit.
Your site doesn’t have to look amazing. It just has to be easy to use for the user. We’ve been able to help a industrial pipe freezing company generate over £300k worth of orders through an effective SEO strategy.”
Content, Content, Content
If you’re not doing it already, your competition already has. Did you know that 93% of b2b business are using content marketing?
There’s no coincidence that b2b to businesses that are using content marketing effectively and the success of their bottom line. Content marketing can be used in every form of communication you might have with your potential customer.
“58% of respondents say they’ve used content marketing successfully to nurture subscribers, audience, or leads in the last 12 months. The top two methods are email (87%) and educational content (77%).” (CMWorld)
The challenges we have found working with hundreds of businesses over the last 18 years is getting the expertise out of the business and onto paper as well as keeping it fresh. This is where your content plan and keyword research comes into play. If you’re able to write down in short form all the lists of services, applications and problems you’ve solved and combine that will a list of long tail keywords, you’ll find you’ll have enough to say for the next 5 years and more.
If you’re able to develop an effective content marketing strategy in tandem with your SEO strategy, not only will you have a better understanding of your target market but you’ll also be able to drive better quality leads and bottom line results.
ACTION
“Head to neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/ and type in the keywords that you think your customers will write in the search engines to find you or alternatively, add your website into the search to receive recommendations. This will be the start of a content plan. The aim is to write 2 x 1000 word articles a month. Become the expert in your field. We’ve been able to double a website’s organic traffic by becoming the thought leader on their chosen subject.”
Can your business to business be turned into an e-commerce?
An online shop is more associated with the business to consumer world but there are huge benefits to having an online shop in the construction world. For example, are you constantly making quotes for a standardised pricing approach?
We work with a generator/battery testing company and they have a range of products in the price range £5,000 to £10,000 and they are constantly being asked for quotes. By creating a simple e-commerce site using a standard cloud-based e-commerce system they have uploaded all their standard products and now all they have to do is point enquiries to the relevant product on the shop. Price breaks can usually be incorporated for volume or be given a login so that they get volume discounts particular to them.
Another advantage of having an e-commerce platform is that you can create one-off quotes and send out a link for payment by credit card payment. This avoids credit checks and you get paid before you despatch.
ACTION
“Check out Shopify. It’s a great platform for getting your started. It’s affordable, easy to use and ideal if you’re looking to test the water. We’ve been able to generate a further £150,000 per annum to a metal fabrication business by creating a simple e-commerce site.”
Networking. It’s such a dirty word.
We hear it a lot. “I deliver a niche service and networking is pointless for us”. Now, I’ve purposely not used specific marketing and sales services because “networking” can be applied in a number of settings. As a short list; traditional face to face networking, telesales, telemarketing, LinkedIn lead generation etc.
If there’s one book we would recommend and that’s the Challenger Sale. Of course, there are hundreds of “How to” sales book out there but very little of them pragmatically breakdown WHY some salespeople are better than others. At the end of the day, no matter what your role is, we’re all salespeople. So every time we communicate with another professional, how can we maximise the opportunity?
ACTION
“We’ve been able to help a commercial humidification company generate a further 3 quality leads per month through LinkedIn Lead Generation. This is not direct selling, this is conversational marketing.
That’s not all.
We’ve only briefly hit the highlights. Believe it or not, marketing and sales require more. It requires in-depth analysis and monitoring to ensure that you stay on track and hit your goals. Marketing and sales don’t simply go up in a straight line and sometimes, you need to change strategies and tactics when new information comes to light.
What does this all mean?
Digital marketing changes at a pace with the likes of Google, Facebook and LinkedIn regularly changing the rules and so it is important that you regularly review what is working and what needs to be changed in your business.
As we are continuously immersed in digital marketing and combined with professional analytical tools we can review what you are doing and what needs to change in order to be successful.
We offer a free initial review of your digital marketing so that you can gain confidence in what we do at no risk to you. We usually identify a number of things you can do without external help so that if nothing else you get some ideas on how to improve what you are doing.
To book your free review, please call 0333 0509053
KUB is a hybrid digital agency. Having helped companies in the construction and manufacturing industry for over 18 years, we’ve seen it all. Construction and manufacturing companies need marketing more than ever and we’ve developed a systematic, proactive approach to growing your business. If you would like more information about our digital marketing coordinator service, please click the link here or call Charleh on 0333 0509053
