As a contractor, it’s a constant challenge to balance winning the work and doing the work. You can sometimes get caught up in a current HDD project and forget about sales and marketing to win the next project. The following are a few sales and marketing tips to ensure a steady flow of contract work:
Website as a 24/7 Sales Tool
You’re busy with projects and don’t always have time to be networking and looking for the next project. This is where your company website should be doing the work! You need to employ your website as a 24/7 sales tool. Utilizing an inbound marketing strategy in which prospective customers find you ensures that your company has a steady flow of potential projects and best case, your company can be selective about the types of projects you bid on. If you want your website to be a sales tool, you do need to continuously add content to it. Get in the habit of adding project photos to your blog with short descriptions. When a project is complete, post before and after photos with a brief summary of the work performed. Adding keyword-rich, relevant content helps your website rank for HDD tooling and project related keywords, increases visitors to the website, and prompts conversion. Also, prospective customers may be looking at your website on a smartphone, so you better have a responsive website that caters to users on smartphones and tablets. If you don’t, a prospect may bounce off your website and go to your competitor’s website.
Utilize Digital Marketing
First, you need a credible, engaging website. Then you need a strategy to drive the right audience to the website. Think of online directories where your customers may be looking. Get in the habit of adding HDD contractor keywords to the website to help you better rank on search engines, like Google, for those targeted terms. Invest a small monthly budget in Google Ads to drive relevant search queries to your website (make sure to hire an Ads expert for this). Also, post on social media groups related to HDD contracting where your prospective customers may be participating. Lastly, send a monthly or quarterly email newsletter to all of the emails in your database. Email marketing is an excellent way to stay top of mind and identify new project opportunities. The email newsletter can consist of the same content you are posting on your website—current project statuses, before and afters, etc. The goal is to re-engage with your customer database and discuss a new project.
Build Value with the Proposal
Many novice contractors miss a major opportunity when it comes to the proposal stage. Instead of using the proposal to build value, they send an itemized price sheet of services. No prospective customer ever gets excited about cost! Your proposal is a chance to differentiate your firm and get a customer excited about the project. In the proposal, remind your audience the state of the current situation and the overall objectives of the project. Then explain why your firm is uniquely qualified to perform the task and attain the project objectives. Provide case studies and testimonials in the proposal. Include any information that excites a customer about the project and working with your company, and lastly allows them to forget the cost a little bit.
Touch Points
In sales and marketing, you are building a case of credibility to your prospect so that he or she has the peace of mind to commit to you over your competition. Therefore, take advantage of every touch point you have with the prospect to build this case of credibility. Touch points include phone calls, website, email marketing, proposal, etc. If you differentiate, build value, and excite, you will win more projects!
