If you’re a building contractor, then you’re used to planning. After all, every project you undertake has a concept stage, a start, middle and an end. There’s estimating to be done, products and sub trades to source, and questions to ask the architect or client. Once you’re on site, there’s a sequence to everything too, and it’s predictable and easy to track, because chances are, you’ve got a project plan worked out before you ever break ground.

Your builder marketing strategy is the same thing, except that instead of working towards project completion, you’re working towards meeting your marketing goals. It’s a blueprint that sets out what you’re going to do, and a Gantt chart that outlines which steps you’re going to take. Here’s why it’s so important.

Proper Planning Critical in Marketing and Construction

Just as we’ve established that you’re probably already planning your construction activities carefully, you also probably wouldn’t go to site without a clear understanding of what you need to do, by when, or with the tools and materials you need. Your online builder marketing strategy is the same thing: a method of ensuring that everything happens in sequence, and that you have all the tools and materials you need.

Planning your contractor website design and digital marketing strategy before you start, or before you go any further, helps you to identify what you have, what you still need, and where you will need a little help. It’s the same as not building a house from the roof down. You need to lay a solid foundation and take it step by step.

What Goes into a Digital Marketing Plan?

When you develop a digital marketing plan for your building company, there are many different elements that will be included:

• Your builder website, whether you already have one that needs an upgrade or you don’t have one at all, chances are your builder website will need a little work.
• Your social media platforms. If you have them, how to improve them, and if you don’t, which ones to use and how.
• Marketing materials, such as banners, headers for social media pages, your website, logo and branding if you don’t have them or they need to be refreshed, email newsletter templates and more.
• Automation tools like HootSuite or MailChimp, that you can use to streamline online marketing processes.
• A social media posting plan. What are you going to post, and how often? Where will you post your content? Everything should be planned ahead of time.
• A content marketing strategy, starting with a long hard look at the content you already have on your website and other platforms online.
• A blogging strategy. Blogging is still one of the most effective ways to grow your online presence, so if you’re not already doing it, you need to start!
• An outline of digital offers you will use to capture user information for email marketing.
• Which tools you will use to measure your success.

The list goes on, but the great thing about digital marketing is that it’s just like building. Once you have the core structure figured out, you can always renovate, remodel or tackle an addition.

A Great Plan Is Worth the Time and Effort

Looking at the long list of things you should be doing as part of your digital marketing plan for your builder website can be daunting, and it’s why so many companies (and particularly builders) have limited or completely absent online presences.

Once your plan is in place and you have the tools and the materials to do the work, however, it’s easier than you think to set your online marketing to mostly take care of itself, or you could choose to outsource it so you can focus on building.

The number one benefit? Because your competition probably aren’t on top of their digital marketing game yet either, the sooner you get started, the bigger the edge you will have.