Digital Marketing Strategy for a Construction Contractor

1. Evaluate past efforts and situational analysis
2. Establish GOALS
3. Identify target audience
4. Create buyers persona
5. Content strategy
6. Measure results and KPIs

Introduction

In an ever-growing digital world, it is important to be able to create a unique digital footprint. This could be effectively acquired by thorough research and setting up a digital marketing strategy based thereon.

Digital marketing plans are based on a company’s unique goals and objectives. Different factors play a role, like the industry you are in, what you sell, and whom you are selling to. After establishing these factors you can determine how to approach your digital marketing plan.

1. Evaluate past efforts and situational analysis

The first point of research in approaching the digital marketing plan would be to look into the company’s current online success. Knowing your current status will give insight into where the company could improve, and where adjustments would be necessary to achieve better performance.

There are a variety of tools that can be used to measure success on different platforms for example:

• If your company has a website Google analytics can be used to identify trends and patterns in how visitors engage with your website
• If your company has a Facebook page, a useful tool would be Facebook Analytics to gain data on your audience and their engagement with your page
• If your company has an Instagram account, there is a built-in tool called Instagram Insights which is useful for determining the demographics and activity of your audience

Using the abovementioned tools, you will already have a brief overview of your current success and understand your audience better, making it easier to determine your goals. 

2. Establish digital marketing strategy GOALS

Based on the information gathered up until now you will need to come up with marketing goals for your digital marketing strategy. These goals need to be specific and motivating as that will aid in deciding what actions need to be taken to achieve them.

It would be useful to look into the company’s mission, vision, and values to ensure the goals you set to align with how the company intends to be portrayed. The objectives should include attraction, conversion, and loyalty.

One of the best ways to set marketing goals would be using the SMART goals framework. This acronym stands for:

• Smart
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

It is also useful to have both short-term, and long-term goals.

Short-term goals (0-6 months):

• 3 months, gain 100 Facebook page likes
• 3 months, gain 50 Instagram followers
• 5 months, increase website traffic by 5%
• 6months, increase sales by 10%

Long-term goals (6 months+):

• 7 months, gain 200+ Facebook page likes
• 7 months, gain 150+ Instagram followers
• 9 months, increase website traffic by 10%
• 10 months, increase sales by 15%

The abovementioned goals would be achieved by narrowing the target audience to a very specific group of people who would most likely be interested in the service provided. This will increase the chances of persuading them to the action of buying the service via specific communication strategies.

3. Identify target audience

It is important to know your audience, to be able to determine what types of marketing will be most effective. Identify the client you wish to serve and where to find them. This can be determined by asking a few questions. 

For example: Who needs your service or product? How do these people go about buying? Are you communicating with small or large businesses? The answers to these types of questions will provide data to be able to communicate most effectively.

Based on research figure out the channels where your audience is present (social media, blogs, email, etc.). In addition, use your channels to communicate your proposition. The key is to put your business in their space and convince your demographic that they like your brand and what it stands for.

4. Create buyer personas

A good approach is to create a buyer persona. This will be like creating the ideal person who would be interested in your service or product. When creating this persona, consider age range, income, location, job title, interests, social media platforms, industry, etc.

There are a few different types of brand personas like sincerity, sophistication, excitement, ruggedness, competence, etc.

In this example, I would be looking at communicating with both men and women aged between 25 – 60 in the Gauteng region who works in construction, specifically property development on a large scale. 

The more specific your buyer persona can be the bigger your chances will be to reach an audience that would be interested in your service and in return the bigger your chances are to convince them to take action in terms of buying your service.

5. Content Strategy

This is important for creating, distributing, and managing original content that attracts users and positions the brand as preferred in the user’s mind. The content strategy goes hand in hand with the buyer persona you created for your company. The more information you gather to determine your buyer persona the closer you will be to creating the perfect content.

Some tools that can be used to create a content strategy include the following.

Content calendar: In a content calendar, you should include the date of publication, author, post topic, keyword, the tags to use, where to post, etc. This ensures that you hit deadlines and ensures accountability in the execution of your content strategy.

Keyword research: This involves identifying the right keywords to use in the content you post to organically improve SEO positioning. This is imperative if you want users to find you on search engines.

Social posting: Planning out what and when you are going to publish on every social media platform your business uses is important. Take into consideration the best copies suited for each platform, while having the ideal number of characters, links, hashtags, etc. 

A content hub: This is a centralized online destination that contains curated content about a specific topic. There are many SEO benefits to creating a content hub, including backlinks, search traffic, and leads, along with increased believability and a stronger brand.

When creating a content strategy it is critical to take into account consistency, value, communication, engagement, and patience

6. Measure results and KPI’s

After implementing your digital marketing strategy it is important to analyze your results and key performance indicators (KPIs). Analytics is critical in successfully optimizing your digital marketing performance and measuring the success of your goals. 

It is advised to measure each channel so that you can identify what works best for your brand and where you will be able to cut or adjust. After adjusting, measure again and repeat this process until you obtained the most effective approach for your business.

There are tools like Google Analytics and Google Ads that serve as an aid in measuring your business’s online presence. 

Salesforce, allows you to measure all actions that are carried out and see how the user reacts and behaves at each step of the process.

Measuring the effectiveness of the strategies and activities that were implemented will help in correcting what doesn’t work as well as achieving the goals that were set.

Conclusion

Customers can’t ignore your brand if you deliver constant trustworthy content that communicates to their needs and interests. Your digital marketing strategy should cover every channel your brand uses to ensure an effective outcome.

For more Digital Marketing blogs: https://blog.abacusdigital.org

In an ever-growing digital world, it is critical to create a unique digital footprint by use of a digital marketing strategy

In an ever-growing digital world, it is critical to create a unique digital footprint by use of a digital marketing strategy