How To Get More Construction Leads

There are a lot of different ways to get leads for your construction business. Some people will have better results with one form of lead generation, and others will have success with a different lead generation method.

If you don’t have a good method to generate leads for your construction business, then you are likely just starting out and asking how to get construction leads. If you have plenty of leads, but would like for more of them to come from referrals then you are likely at a different stage of your business and already have plenty of general contractor leads.

Construction Business Stages

Start Up – This is where you are just starting out. There are virtually no leads coming in, and you quickly realize that your biggest job as a business owner is to learn to market your business, the easiest way is with residential construction leads. 

In the slow season, your family may likely be encouraging you to go work for someone else, don’t let that happen. Learn to market your business.

In the start up phase, you have to try everything. You have to be everywhere. You have to talk to anyone and everyone, which is likely the best way to get construction leads.

Growth – This is the phase where you now have enough leads to keep yourself and your crews busy. The phones are ringing pretty regularly and you feel like your business is finally going to succeed. You likely have found at least one effective method of generating construction leads and things are going well. In this phase you should start raising your prices and looking at your profitability. After all, businesses are supposed to make money.

Expansion – This is where you may look to expand into other markets, either by offering different services to existing clients. Offering new services to everyone, or maybe opening new locations or expanding service into other locations.

Maturity – This is the phase where we all want to be. We are no longer coming to work every day thinking about where we are going to grow next. You have a great reputation, reliable source of leads, and most importantly enough money to be completely satisfied. Your business is now a well oiled machine that largely runs without you needing to be there for every emergency that comes up. Hopefully by this point, systems are in place that keep referrals coming in and you are no longer having to spend unnecessary money on advertising.

Ways to Generate Leads for Your Construction Business

Now, remember in the start up phase, you will want to try as many of these as possible. After you find a few that work for you, start doubling down on the ones that are working and cut back on the ones that don’t work. Every business is different, and every person is different, and every market is different. You need data, not advice. So track everything! Know your numbers!

Door to Door – Now this method may not be the most popular, but that is where you will have the advantage. Not everyone is doing this, and it works great. You are not going door to door to sell your services, you are going out to targeted neighborhoods to be seen in the area. Your vehicle is parked in the neighborhood, and you are knocking on doors handing out flyers.

Signs – Signs are an important part of lead generation, and they can be mostly passive. When you are on a job site, be sure that the home owner, or business is aware that you will be putting a sign in the yard while you are on the job site. Sometimes you can even offer a discount if they let the sign stay there for a few weeks after you are done. Just so everyone in the neighborhood can see your business name and have access to your contact information, whether it is your phone number or website.

Flyers – Much like door to door, flyers can be handed out most anywhere that you find your ideal clients congregating. One thing you can implement in your processes is to have people go door to door while you are on a job site handing out flyers. You are already in the neighborhood, why not make the most of it.

Vehicles – Now another great thing about having your business information on your trucks or vans is that people get to see them while you are working in neighborhoods that you want to do more business in. This is once again, a mostly passive way to do lead generation and once the work is done on the vehicles, no additional effort is required.

Organic Search – This is one of the most under utilized categories for most businesses, which makes it very easy for the people at the top to stay at the top. Since this will last a long time, and is essentially free after it is set up, this will be one of your long term advantages for building referral traffic from Google. Google is already someone that your potential clients know, like and trust. There are over 5 Billion searches a day on Google. If your business has or had a category in the Yellow Pages, then there are very likely people searching for your business every day on Google. Try to be the one on the top! It takes a while, but it is so worth it. Always set aside at least a portion of your marketing budget (time, energy or money) to get found on Google. If you do decide to pay for it, ensure that the people you pay are actually ranking for something that will benefit their own business. After all, if they can’t rank themselves, what makes you think they can rank your site?

Paid Advertising – This is a big one, and I am lumping it all into one category, as the purpose for this is essentially paying someone to advertise your business with the hope that you will get results. Under this category, there are many different ways to get leads, here are several:

Now, of all those, one of the most cost effective ways is retargeting, which is available on many large advertising platforms . With retargeting, you are only showing your ads to people that have already visited your website. The problem with that is that they had to have already visited your website, so retargeting essentially has to be done in conjunction with other forms of advertising, or just having a site that gets organic traffic from Google, which is commonly known as the free traffic from Google, or perhaps another way of getting free construction leads, that of course aren’t really free as you have to do some sort of work to get good rankings.

Events – Events can be either ones you attend like a Home Show or Trade Show, or an event that you hold yourself, which can be a great way to earn the trust of people you want to work with.

Networking – Networking is likely the oldest form of advertising, everyone likes doing business with people they know, like and trust. You have to get out there and meet people. 

BNI – Professional networking group designed specifically to pass referrals (if you join BNI, tell them that Bill Cook from the Oklahoma Sooner Networking Group sent you!)

Chamber of Commerce – this is available in most cities across the country, and there are national versions as well. In many bigger cities, there are many that you can join.

Meetups – There are many groups here where you may find like minded people to network with. Usually free and much more casual, which can be a bad thing.

Volunteer organizations – Habitat for Humanity is a great example where anyone in the construction business can get their name out

Tracking Your Construction Leads

Tracking is one of the most important things you can do with your leads. If you don’t know what is working, how can you know where to focus your efforts?

Track Everything!

This doesn’t have to be complicated. When you are talking to a potential client, ask them how they found you. 

Keep it simple. A pen and a piece of paper can be your tracking system when you are getting started. It can be a spreadsheet, there are many free options. It can be a notebook. Just track where your leads are coming from.

Track at least the following:

Lead Source
Value of Project
Profit of Project
Close Percentage
Cost of Lead

​
With all that information, it will become apparent over time that some of your lead sources are more effective than others. If you spend $1,000 on Google Ads, and take in $10,000 worth of business, then that is a 10X return. Spend more money on Google Ads! If you spend a couple thousand dollars on a particular source and you don’t get anything in return. Cut back on those expenses, or eliminate them entirely. 

Your business depends on you strategically controlling your resources. Your resources are limited, focus on what is working. Double down on anything that is showing promise. One way to do this is try 10 different things. Of those, maybe double down on the three that are returning the most profit to your business.

More Construction Leads from Your Website

A lot of people will be researching your company before they call you. They will likely visit your website. In some of the advertising, you will be sending them to your website before you have contact with them. There are things you can do that will help you not drop the ball when they get to your site.

Make it Clear the Types of Construction Services You Offer

The first thing you want to do is to make sure that when someone visits your site, they know they are in the right place. Don’t confuse them. Your logo and the words at the top of the page should reassure them that they are in the right place.

Easy to Call

Having your phone number displayed prominently in the top of the page will help your potential clients know how to contact you. Don’t make them search for the number, by clicking to your contact page. Have it on the first page they see.

Pictures of Your Crew

People want to trust you, and seeing pictures of you and your crews will help build that trust. There is not much worse than visiting a site with stock images, there is something about them that you can tell a mile away that it is a stock photo.

Call To Action

People are surprisingly good at being told what to do. And they will often do it. So be sure you have a clear call to action on every page. Every page should have a purpose. If you want them to call, have a big button that says Call Now. If you want them to fill out a form, have a big button that says Fill Out the Form! Don’t leave them guessing on what you want them to do, a confused mind will always say no.

Video Testimonials

There is something about a video of one of your happy customers talking about how happy they are with your results that will connect with your potential clients. Images are great, but seeing the person actually talk about your results is something that is hard to fake. If you don’t have videos, use a testimonial with an image, if you don’t have an image, use text if that is all you have.

Trust Badges

There are things that real businesses do that people are familiar with. Real companies are members of the Better Business Bureau. Real companies are members of the Chamber of Commerce. Real businesses have certifications. Real members are part of professional organizations. Be sure to include these trust badges on your site if you are members of any, or have any professional certifications. Without these, people may wonder if this is a real business, or just a website someone put up to make some money. Look like a real business.

More Referrals for Your Construction Business

The easiest person to close is the person that asks someone for recommendations and that someone recommends that they call you. This is as close to a free construction lead as you are going to get. Your ultimate goal should be to get as many of these as you can.

Start thinking about how to get more referrals right now, and always have that question open so you can get more ideas on how to increase your referrals. One day, your company will be fueled with referrals, so be thinking of this often.

Here are some ways to get the process started

Current Customers – As soon as you see that the customer is happy with the work you have done. Ask them if they know anyone else that you can help. Don’t do this too early, you want to make sure they are happy before you ask for referrals.

Past Customers – A few times each year you should reach out to previous customers and let them know that you are looking for more people to help. Maybe you could do this with a card in the mail, an email or even a call.

Past Leads – These are great for two reasons. One they may still be looking to have the work done and your prompt could get an immediate response. The other is that you will stay top of mind for them to refer you if they hear of someone looking, or maybe just call you when they are ready.

Give Incentives – Referrals are as close to free leads as you can get. Make it worth their while to send you new customers. Offer them something of value if they send anyone that becomes a customer. If cash incentives work for you, that’s great. Maybe a nice steak dinner would be enough incentive to get people to talk about your business to their friends. You can get creative here.

The Biggest Referral Partner Ever

Google is by far the biggest referral partner the world has ever seen. 5 Billion searches are done every day on Google, and the reason is apparent. Google gives great answers. People know, like and trust Google for just about everything.

Organic Construction Leads from Google

People expect good answers from Google.

​
Business owners can benefit greatly from this psychological edge that is given to Google’s recommendations. While Google isn’t necessarily recommending your business when it shows you at the top of the search results, people actually believe that Google is recommending they visit your site to get the answers they are looking for.

Google My Business

Every local business can have a Google My Business page, that enables them to show up in the Maps. Now, of course depending on how many other businesses like yours there are in the area, the more competitive it may be to show up on the first page in the maps. There are things you can do to optimize your Google My Business page to increase the odds of being at the top.

Reviews – Make it easy for people to give you reviews. Once again, this is something you can put right into your processes. If you or anyone in your company sees a customer having a great experience, ask them to give you a review. This also helps with rankings for your maps listing, which increases the odds that they will call you.

Photos – Add images, people love to interact with images and Google loves interaction. If people can see the images, and they like what they see, they will be more likely to give you a call.

360 Photos – These are actually what you see in the Google Maps Street View. You can do these for your business as well, although it takes special cameras, or at least some special skills to get a normal camera to take them. These are great for interaction, and will help you rank higher as well.

A Google Maps Street View Trusted Photographer can actually take these pictures for you, and can get them to connect to the street view, which can serve as a virtual tour for your business if you have a nice showroom to show off.

What Potential Construction Clients Search For

There are ways to find out what your potential clients are searching for, and sometimes they include the city name, and sometimes they don’t. The good news is that for many construction related terms, Google is smart enough to know that people are looking for something local and will show the maps listings for local searches. 

There are studies done regularly, and the most clicked position on most any Google search results, whether there are ads or not, whether there are maps listings or not, is the number one organic listing. And it isn’t even close, the number one organic listing is the most trusted spot on the page, and will get most of the potential clients to your site.

Here is a list of some terms that people search for when searching for construction companies, you can add city names to the front or back of these in most cases. Additionally, if your city is called by more than one thing, like New York City is also NYC, you can be sure that people are searching for those variations too:

contractor
general contractor
construction management
construction companies in CITY
general contractors
construction companies
design build construction
find a contractor
construction engineering
construction companies near me
local general contractors
find general contractor
construction bids
design build firms

Now, this is what I do. All day, every day. I help people get top results in Google’s organic listings. I do have many training videos that I have in my LinkedIn group that you can find by connecting with me on LinkedIn. Additionally you can see my latest training here where I talk about things in a little more big picture sense with the goal of building a 100% referral business.

Please let me know in the comments below your favorite methods for getting more construction leads, and any tips you may have for getting more referrals.