Marketing for contractors is easier than you think. Creating engaging promotional material doesn’t require a full-time marketing staff, time-wasting meetings, or whiteboards full of ideas that will inevitably go nowhere.
For contractors, the most powerful content you can generate to move someone to choose your services over the next guy is by showing off the work you’re already doing on a day-to-day basis.
Instead of coming up with a new script or storyboard — instead of creating new content—start documenting the work you and your crews are already doing.
It’s my personal (and totally unbiased) opinion that marketing is not a waste of time or money; in fact, it’s not even a gamble but rather a surefire tactic to gain more inbound sales. Documenting your work instead of generating new content will save you time while turning even the smallest marketing effort into new sales without spending extra cash on marketing efforts.
If you’re like most contractors, you’re already taking tons of pictures on the job site, at minimum for insurance purposes. Going one step further to repurpose those photos to use for marketing is a major key.
The premise is pretty straightforward and anyone can document a job without adding time or money to a project. All it takes is for one guy with a smartphone (just about everyone has a smartphone these days) to snap a few pictures of the job site before, during, and after the job. Something simple like showing a job site before and after you’re there is an extremely powerful way to get new business.
Something simple like showing a job site before and after you got there is an extremely powerful way to get new business.
To make things even easier, there are tons of cheap and free apps to help you organize job site photos and documentation.
How you decide to use those photos is totally up to you, but here are a few options:
- Create a weekly job site update email for customers
- Post photos regularly to Facebook and Instagram
- Compile photos to include in direct mail campaigns
- Record a video explaining the process for an average, curious homeowner
Documenting your work takes no extra time, but you’ll continue to reap the benefits. Here are a few ways promoting your work helps your contracting business:
Brand Awareness
When you’re consistently publishing photo and video updates from job sites you’re working on, it creates a buzz about the work you’re doing. The average person doesn’t necessarily know what a contractor does on a day-to-day basis, so showing the work you’re doing will keep your business top of mind when their needs meet your expertise. You want to be the first person they think of when they need work done.
Brand Feel
Continuously showing off the work you’re doing will give an inside look at what the process was like leading up to the finished product. It will give customers and potential customers a good idea of what your company stands for, help establish a reputation for your work, and prove that you’re worth their money.
Credibility
When a homeowner, building manager or anyone else who might need a contractor runs into an issue or decides it’s time for an update, oftentimes they don’t know where to look (or even where to begin looking). Having tons of engaging before and after photos, a consistent stream of new photos, and job site update videos from work that you’re doing for all of your past, present, and potential customers to see can be just as valuable as a good Yelp rating or BBB status.
Engagement
When your social posts and other promotions get people talking, it both eases the stress of people wondering if they chose the right person and reinforces that someone who decided to use you came to the right place. This type of engagement will inevitably lead to your customers referring you to their family and friends. Not to mention, your customers will love getting a shoutout on social media and will share the post almost every time.
Taking photos on the job site and using them in your marketing is a quick and easy way to create new social posts, promotions and engaging elements for marketing materials.
Documenting your work is a must for insurance companies but it’s far more valuable than that, and it’s easier than most people think. Taking photos on the job site and using them in your marketing is a quick and easy way to create new social posts, promotions and engaging elements for marketing materials.
BONUS TIPS:
When taking photos, make sure they’re quality images that give a good understanding of what the viewer is looking at. For showing off before and after photos, make sure you line up the after photo as close to where you took the before photo so viewers can easily compare the before from the after.
For videos, contrary to popular belief, the quality doesn’t have to be anything special. Taking a simple self-shot video on a phone explaining what’s going on at the job site will suffice. The benefit to making it this simple is twofold. First, you’re not spending money on a camera and someone to run it. The second benefit is that videos shot on a phone are shot in a way that takes up more of the Facebook newsfeed. This makes it harder for people to ignore your video and scroll past it – setting you even farther apart from other companies.
