How Contractors and Dealers Can Generate Local Leads With Effective Marketing
January 10th, 2024
Whether you’re a homebuilder, remodeler, or LBM dealer, your customers are likely using the internet as one of their first steps in shopping for a new vendor or service provider. Unfortunately, many contractors and small dealers don’t have a well-established online presence to generate local leads like larger chain brands.
So how can you go about competing for customers in your area? Below, we’ll explore effective strategies on how to generate local leads for contractors and dealers, focusing on the importance of local marketing.
Leveraging Marketing to Generate Local Leads
Without an established online presence, it can be hard to rank organically in customer searches. Even if you develop a website and start contributing heavily to content and organic SEO, it’s a long-term investment. Investing in paid advertising like Google ads can help you get in front of an audience through strategies like geotargeting.
Optimizing your Google Business (previously “Google My Business”) is a crucial step in local marketing for contractors and dealers, ensuring that potential customers can easily find your services and learn how to generate local leads. Make sure you own your brand’s Google Business and update it with all the correct information, including your business address, phone number, and hours of operation. Customers will often ask questions here, and providing answers can act as an easy-to-find FAQ page.
Tools for Contractors to Generate Local Leads
Google offers local service ads that businesses can take advantage of. Unlike Google Ads, you don’t need a wealth of knowledge to use the service, which means even those with basic tech skills can use it. With this service, contractors can highlight their services, garner customer reviews, and receive the “Google Guaranteed” badge for further credibility. Pairing this with strategic sponsored ads (think “contractors near me” results) can create a dual approach to sustained presence in search results.
These tools play a vital role in the local marketing strategy for contractors, providing an avenue to generate local leads effectively and set up a strong online presence.
Tools for Dealers to Generate Local Leads
Dealers can enhance their local outreach through digital co-op programs with manufacturers. These programs offer dealers a unique opportunity to boost local marketing and generate local leads through collaborative efforts and shared resources. The manufacturer provides financial support or resources for advertising and activities while the dealers can use this support and the dealer’s name to appeal to local buyers. The shared investment between the two businesses can help ensure a robust marketing strategy.
Start by reaching out to ask about being listed on their website or sponsoring a limited sales event. Sometimes manufacturers will also grant dealers the rights to specific regions, so once a solid relationship has been established, this can be a lucrative request.
Local Digital Advertising Mistakes to Avoid
When implementing these local marketing strategies, avoid these common pitfalls:
- Forgoing geotargeting: Targeting local buyers is of the utmost importance, so ads should be specific to the area. If a contractor is in Dallas, there is no need to spend on clicks in Chicago.
- Not putting the phone number front and center: Having your phone number in an easy-to-locate place affects visibility.
- Directing all ad links to your home page: Each ad should link to a specific landing page relevant to the subject matter of the ad. If there are multiple services to choose from, having a roofing ad link directly to the roofing service page or form ensures the customer journey is more direct than making the visitor navigate to the correct place from the company’s home page.
What Local Ad Success Looks Like
Success looks different for every brand and the effort it puts in. But there are a couple of ways to mark growth. First, be sure to track what matters. If the goal is to drive contact form submissions, pay attention to submissions that arrived from ad efforts, not organic reach. Or perhaps a brand is more concerned about service visits, in which case impressions aren’t as relevant. Also, pay attention to year-over-year and month-over-month growth or when traffic begins to decline.
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Top image: iStock.com/ThinkNeo