Have you ever wondered how to grow your fencing business? If so, this article is what you need because marketing for fence contractors is effective. The only catch is that fence contractor marketing ideas can vary business-to-business, but the good news is that the general outline is still the same. It’s a playbook that works great for fence contractor marketing; however, the hard part is adjusting and tweaking these ideas to your particular market and brand.
Every market is unique, and knowing the nuances is how you spot opportunities to grow a fencing business. Let’s start with a few basic definitions before taking a deeper dive into each idea.
Branding for fence contractors – Does it really matter at the end of the day?
First, you must create a unique business concept to attract customers. In the fencing business, that means you have to communicate to potential clients why they should choose your company instead of a competitor’s services. Not only that, but the differentiation has to be clear, cut, and dry, with no room for ambiguity. You should be able to explain what your business is all about to a total stranger in less than two minutes, the good old-fashioned “elevator pitch.”
If you’ve never thought about a business this way, ask yourself these questions:
⦁ What is the unique value that my company can provide customers?
⦁ When customers are comparing companies, what makes yours different from everyone else?
⦁ What values and messages do you want to communicate to customers?
⦁ How do I want customers to perceive my business after finishing a job?
⦁ Will customers recommend me to others if they are satisfied with the work?
⦁ And what will I say to customers who aren’t happy with the job?
Fill out the form below to learn more about fence builder marketing strategies.
It’s okay to take your time to go through these questions one by one because it’s something that contractors don’t usually have time to think about. After all, you’re probably booked for weeks on end because homeowners and businesses need fencing services ASAP, especially if it’s a repair job. Still, you might be overlooking the exact reason why. Why do customers reach out to you instead of another contractor?
Is it the fact that you offer better craftsmanship? Do you offer a broader service area than most? Do you hire tall, handsome workers with dashing good looks? Or, do you genuinely make an effort to wow customers with low prices that no other contractor can match? The answers matter tremendously when it comes to marketing for fencing contractors because that’s your brand identity. It’s the culmination of everything that makes your business unique and stand apart!
Nowadays, it’s not enough to promote a vague value like “I make better fences because I care about customer service.” There needs to be more meat on the bones, so a better angle would be something like, “I’ve been building fences since childhood with my grandfather, so I can show you how to make a fence last longer than most.” Notice the difference?
The first proposition is a basic statement; the better one expresses precisely what benefits the customer – lifelong expertise and old-school craftsmanship handed down from generation to generation. You’re asking customers to trust your word in the first statement, but you’re showing them exactly why they should trust you with the other.
5 marketing ideas for fencing contractors – The basic playbook for growing a business online
One of the most significant benefits of bringing a fence contractor marketing agency on board is that they can help you build out a marketing plan for your particular business. There’s always a basic playbook once you get familiar with your brand. In the online world, the general flow is to grow a business with:
⦁ Website design
⦁ SEO (search engine optimization)
⦁ Business tools
⦁ Ads
⦁ Social media
We understand that’s a lot to take in if you’re not a tech guy per se, so let’s go through them one at a time to show you why they’re important and how they ultimately tie together to form a marketing strategy that works great.
1 – Website design
Ideally, fence company website design should be simple, approachable, and put customers at ease. The hard part is translating those concepts into engaging online content – all the videos, images, polls, and blog posts that’ll eventually go on your company’s website. Indeed, every graphic, page, logo, or banner should have one purpose: growing the business.
But how? How does every design element help a business attract and retain customers? Everything needs to tie together, from the colors of your logo to the bottom of the webpage, where people will find your basic contact information. A marketing agency will have the expertise to decide what may work best, but always remember that you are also an active participant. As a successful contractor, you know fencing better than anyone else, so when making a marketing plan, it’s vital to communicate that expertise on a website.
For instance, you could try something like posting a series of how-to videos about replacing a single fence board, which is an excellent idea because it really is something a homeowner can perform on their own. The flip side is when a homeowner needs fence repairs that are more complex than replacing a single board. Since your website has already established that you’re happy and willing to offer free advice, you’re cooking with gas when you add a call to action for people to learn more about fencing. The missing piece of the puzzle is how people find you online in the first place.
2 – SEO
Customers need to be able to find you online, and SEO is how you position your business to show up in Google’s search results first. You may not know that the top three ranks in Google receive the most clicks and exposure, so that’s where you want to be. But how does Google decide which websites to show people?
Basically, think of search engines like Google and Bing as massive indexes of information that you can scour using keywords and phrases. A quick example for the fencing business would be the keyword phrase “best types of fencing wood for summer” or “best fencing contractors near me.” You want Google to direct customers to your website’s content for phrases like those and other fencing-related words. The hardest part is deciding what those keywords should and shouldn’t be.
Yet, there’s a quick low-hanging fruit you can pluck: locally focused keywords! It’s something that any contractor can overlook because locality is part and parcel of the business. You have to stay local to make those genuine connections with customers, and that’s how contractors make a difference.
So, a great SEO phrase would be something like “find the best fencing business in Houston” or “best reviews for fencing contractors in Dallas.” Proper SEO can make sure that the people who type in those keywords see your website recommended first, not competitors. Think of SEO for fencing contractors and website design as a one-two punch to help customers find your business online.
3 – Business tools
At this point, you should have a website with content up and running. If not, you’ll have a much harder time deciding on which online business tools you need. They tend to lean a bit towards the operations side of the equation, but they still matter with respect to marketing. For instance, how will you take payment? Will you manually cash checks and deposit money? Or, will you use an online payment platform of some kind, similar to an eCommerce business? You may not realize that making it easier for customers to order services is a significant value proposition, but you can’t figure that out without a great website and SEO to set the stage.
Also, you don’t want to become a victim of your own success if you do start receiving more inquiries than you can handle manually. That’s where automation comes into play, and if configured well, it can make your life much easier when managing dozens of jobs at once. You can try using marketing tools on your website’s backend to collect leads and store contact information. The trick is that your chosen solutions need to coincide with your core business.
For example, making an email newsletter list works well for some industries, but are those principles still applicable to fencing contractors? The answer is maybe. They may or may not because it depends on the brand you want to build. You may not want to promote yourself as a one-stop shop; instead, promote yourself as a quick, on-call handyman. If so, your website will basically have to send you leads directly once someone reaches out for services. You may not know that the business tools you choose can make your life a lot easier or actually get in the way if you choose the wrong ones.
4 – Ads
Technically, SEO isn’t free advertising because it takes a lot of effort to get content off the ground, but natural SEO results can be just as effective. Still, you’ll need some kind of ad campaign to stay ahead of the competition, and the good news is that it’s much more down-to-earth and approachable than you might assume. Nowadays, Google makes it much simpler to buy certain types of ads and put them on your website. The only catch is that you don’t want your advertising budget to get away from you and go haywire if your website starts getting a lot of traffic.
Ideally, you want website traffic to translate into paying customers, so once again, it all circles back around to where we started: website design, SEO, and the business tools that will support your operations. But never make the mistake of assuming ad content is the same as web content because they’re distinct disciplines. For example, humorous advertisements are fantastic at keeping people engaged and increase the likelihood that they’ll remember your company.
Any fence company advertising should seek out those human touch points with potential customers, and making them laugh is a time-honored tactic in the marketing world. The catch is that it’s also the hardest to pull off well because it still must correlate to your overall brand. Without a doubt, on-brand advertising – working together with a great website – is how you attract the best customers online.
5 – Social media
Lastly, we come to social media. Usually, this point is where entrepreneurs start because it’s the most accessible technology for them. The problem is that if you start with social media, it’s like kayaking through white-water rapids without the right paddles. You might eventually have some semblance of success, but how difficult was it to stay afloat? Was it worth the effort to hurry and rush instead of doing things methodically?
Business owners usually find out the hard way that they could’ve made much more headway by waiting for social media. Really, you can put it off altogether while you make a website because you may make the mistake of relying too heavily on social media platforms. Some fencing contractors manage their entire business through social media, and that’s simply a mistake.
The best way to use social media in the fencing business is to amplify and magnify outreach, not publish important content. As a quick example, you can actively participate in social media discussions to promote your expertise – by sending them to your website, that is.
Always remember that social media works best in context, and creative social content can go a long, long way, but it has to come last once everything else is ready. Otherwise, you’re putting all of your marketing eggs in one basket, which ironically limits what you can do marketing-wise.
At the end of the day, you could approach marketing in many ways in the fencing business, yet if you follow this basic playbook, you’ll be up and running faster than you think. Marketing for fence contractors is readily available if you need more help getting started.
Fill out the form below to connect with our team of fence builder marketing experts today.