Having a list of prospective customers is only the first step in generating solid construction lead generation. It doesn’t mean you’re going to get business from all of them. And unless you have a good lead follow-up process or the time and resources to spend following up with every single one, your conversion rate is likely to be low. Few customers come to you by themselves, without any help from your team. So what do you do if you’re a home contractor with few laborers and even fewer admin and sales staff? Automate your follow-ups.

What Is Marketing Automation

Automated lead nurturing is more than just sending out marketing emails and newsletters every month. Sure, that’s a useful way to drive traffic to your website and get people to read your content if they missed it at the time of publishing, but it can do much more than that. By using software developed specifically for managing customer relationships, you can maintain regular communications with your prospective clients, send them special offers and promotions and track what they’re interested in and what they’re ignoring. The video below defines marketing automation and how it can help generate leads. 

[Related: Website Lead Generation for Remodelers]

Why Marketing Automation Is Important

Marketing automation is important for home builders, contractors, and remodelers because long lead cycles need nurturing. Unlike a product you would buy on Amazon, or a service that can be performed in a quick amount of time, like a car-wash or a haircut, the construction industry is inherently rooted in a long sales cycle. Home building, contracting, and remodeling require a considerable amount of research. Potential clients are pouring over your photographs, Googling your business, reading reviews, and analyzing your website for clues on how you conduct your company. Home building, contracting, and remodeling are extremely personal and a decision to start construction on ones' home is not taken lightly. Use marketing automation to stay engaged with your prospects during their long lead cycles. 

How Marketing Automation Works

Marketing automation works to boost home building, contracting, and remodeling leads by:

• Integrating email marketing with website lead generation offers,
• Collecting information from prospective clients using landing pages and online forms
• Scoring leads based on the various criteria so you know which ones are “hotter” than others
• Tracking the activity of your prospects so you know who to follow up with and when
• Freeing up your time to focus on warm leads while you nurture cooler ones through email
• Generating reports that help you to analyze which marketing efforts are delivering the best results in terms of new business.

Ways that Marketing Automation Can Save You Time and Money

If you ever get the feeling that marketing your home building, contracting, or remodeling business is a never-ending process, you’re right! It never really stops. You’re always trying to fill up your sales funnel and move prospects farther down the line. The good news is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. You can use marketing automation! As a matter of fact, with the right marketing tools you can even automate some processes so that they happen without you having to do anything. Sure, it involves some thinking and work up-front—but that can take the load off of you for months and years down the line. Here are a few “trigger” events that can automatically begin a marketing activity for you and your prospects:

• Notify Your Sales Team When "Warm Leads" are Identified
• Send Segmented Emails to Customers Based on Interests Reported in Forms
• Sending Alerts After Customers Download eBooks
• Checking in with Customers After Completing a Project

Implementing a Marketing Automation Program

Setting up a marketing automation program to deliver home building, remodeling, or contracting leads for your company can be done in several ways. You can use CRM software available from companies such as HubSpot or Salesforce, but you’ll need to undergo some training in how to set it up and work with it. You can use free programs such as Leadsius or Sales Autopilot, but if you want the advanced functionality you’ll be required to upgrade to the paid version. You can DIY, which usually means a manual system involving creating emails and maintaining spreadsheets. It’s doable, but labor- and admin-intensive, and the reporting might not be perfect. Or you can outsource to a marketing agency that offers comprehensive inbound marketing services. For more information about the best marketing and CRM software, check out the video below. 

Results You Can Expect From Marketing Automation

So, what results are you likely to see and how long will they take? That depends on issues such as:

• How often you post fresh content on your website
• Whether you maintain active social media profiles
• If you come up with enticing offers to send out with your marketing communications
• Whether you monitor your sales funnel and follow up on your warm leads

Watch the video below to better understand the different types of leads you'll find in your business and how you can best nurture each lead to become customers.

Marketing automation can help you to generate and even nurture solid home building, remodeling, and contracting leads, but it can’t provide estimates and proposals for you. Only you can do that part. You have to utilize your tools, including marketing automation if you're going to get the most out of them and land the most deals.