As a contractor, you likely have a lot of experience working in your industry. However, this experience may not include much marketing expertise. Many contractors make the mistake of overlooking the importance of marketing, but without the ability to market yourself to the right audience you can run into many problems getting your business off the ground.
You don’t need to be a marketing master to start marketing yourself or your business. With a few simple tips and tools under your belt, you’ll be well on your way to promoting your services and drawing more customers to your business!
Brand Yourself
Whether you’re an independent contractor working on your own, or leading a dedicated team of employees, your first step should be to nail down your business’s branding.
Developing your brand isn’t as difficult as it may sound; developing a brand is simply about creating your image. You should start by identifying what makes your business distinct. Then, you need to build on those unique characteristics and determine how that could appeal to potential customers. To successfully market yourself as a contractor, your branding should be consistent, and this consistency should be reflected in your logo, slogan, website design, and more.
Leverage the Internet to Market Yourself
Everyone is online these days, which means you should be as well. Consider investing in a professionally designed website, and create a business page on Google so you can actively monitor reviews and comments that people leave on your online portals. When marketing yourself as a contractor, you should focus on cultivating an online image that matches your personal brand.
Invest in Social Media Marketing
You should also consider engaging with social media. Provide links to your social media on your emails, business cards and store receipts. Then, keep your accounts active with regular updates, fresh content and good link shares. Also, work on making connections with others in your community. The more you interact on social media, the more likely you are to get followers who will refer customers to you.
Encourage Referrals and Maintain Leads
Word of mouth is critical for marketing yourself as an independent contractor, but it does not happen by accident. Do not be afraid to ask your customers to make referrals. In fact, by setting up rewards for referrals you can encourage a steady supply of leads and draw more business for your company.
When it comes to confirming leads, don’t be afraid to follow up with potential customers. Whenever you get a lead, possibly through a referral, follow up with the lead. Then, follow up again. Good marketing requires multiple points of contact before a potential client becomes a paying customer—and if you hope to market yourself successfully, you’re going to have to be persistent.
Create a Guarantee
Unfortunately, it’s likely that there are contractors in your area that have a bad reputation for being unreliable. While this doesn’t necessarily reflect on your work, it does affect how readily potential customers will trust you. A guarantee statement can show that you are not that type of contractor. The guarantee can be related to the quality of your work, the cost of the labor or event the timeline of the project. It is up to you and decided primarily by your capabilities.
Connect to your Community
The community is full of potential customers, and if you can build bonds with the community, those potential customers are more likely to contract your services. Therefore, spend some of your marketing budget by investing in your community. Here are some great examples of how you can give back to your community while promoting your brand and services:
Event sponsorship
Sponsoring youth sports
Donating to community projects
Volunteer work
Establishing Trusted Partnerships
While you manage the finer details of marketing, you can also build up secure partnerships with trusted suppliers like Doug Ashy Building Materials. At Doug Ashy, we are proud of our selection in terms of scale and quality. To learn more about how we can help you out as a contractor, visit our website today.