Creating a Construction Marketing Plan

I bet you hate to make cold calls. Over the last ten years or more, you didn't need to cold call, market or sell much to win your share of contracts. The phone kept ringing, and you stayed busy. I'm sure you also like it when potential customers call you with jobs on which to bid or propose. This "old school" marketing plan-letting your reputation speak for itself and waiting for referrals to grow your business-used to work. But now it doesn't.

In today's tough work environment of less work and more competition, you need to make outbound sales calls and implement a marketing system to keep your pipeline full of potential projects to bid. The following is my simple marketing system that doesn't require cold calls. Instead, it's more like a form of that Chinese water torture you saw in the old movies-Drip! Drip! Drip! I call it: "Bug 'Em 'Til They Buy or Die!"

The "Bug 'Em 'Til They Buy Or Die" Marketing System:

1. Create awareness of your company

2. Pique the potential customer's interest

3. Stay at the top of the customer's mind

4. Generate inquiry

5. Get face-to-face interaction

6. Convert a bid or proposal into a contract

7. Develop customer relationships

8. Get referrals

This eight step marketing system is designed to move the prospective customer through all eight marketing steps without a single cold call. The goal of this system is to get potential customers to call you versus you calling them.

This system builds an awareness of your company and what you can do for customers over a period of time.

Create Awareness Using the Rule of Seven

You must have at least seven contacts with a potential customer before he/she:

• Remembers your name
• Feels he/she knows you
• Trusts you
• Will take any action toward you

To grow both our construction and speaking businesses, we use the trusted U.S. postal service to build customer awareness. We mail something to everyone on our mailing list at least four times per year. Once is not enough, and we don't just mail any old boring piece of mail. We send creative, unique, fun, factual, caring and informative articles, photos, postcards, white papers, mini-brochures, checklists and guides. We use a professional design firm to keep our image consistent. Orange and blue are our colors. Everyone recognizes our orange hardhat or our blueprint background on every piece of mail we send out.

Everything you send out must do one of three things to create and build awareness:

• Pique customer interest
• Create a perception of value
• Reinforce customer relationship

Pique Customer Interest

You must send out something crazy, funny, eye-catching, bold or unique. You want to stand out from the crowd and make a statement. Try to be clever, creative and fun enough to create the "WOW" factor. Never send those throw-away pens, ball caps and notepads like everyone else. If you send out cheap stuff or tacky giveaways, your potential customers will think you're cheap and not financially strong enough to handle their work. Send professionally created materials that consistently reflect your image. Quality counts.

Match your mail-outs to your customer targets. We use a newsletter that looks like a blueprint for our construction customers. But to attract bank investors, we use traditional white stationary with blue ink. On a mailing to lawyers, we sent out messages on legal pads. When we mail to meeting planners, we use a theme based on helping them make their meeting a success. To attract investors for real estate development projects, we send out aerial photos of the neighborhood along with pictures and renderings packaged in typical real estate folders. Potential customers respond to the familiar.

To pique interest, we also rotate mailing out cartoons, jokes, small hardhats, mini CDs or DVDs, estimating grid notepads, paper clip holders, coffee cups with hammer handles, business card holders, Post-it notes, golf tees, golf ball markers and American flags on the Fourth of July. Once we mailed envelopes full of nails with the banner: "When can we nail down your next job?" Last year, I sent postcards from Maui, HI, with the note: "Thanks to my loyal customers for sending me skiing. I appreciate your business!" The best things to mail are items that pack flat, play big and will not be thrown away. Don't forget to put your name and logo on all of your "Bug 'Em 'Til They  Buy Or Die" mailings.

Only send what your customer:

1.  Will read

2.  Needs to know

3.  Wants

4.  Will keep

Remember, your goal is not only to create interest, but to create the right kind of interest in you. Be sure that your mailing creates the right perception of value about your company and how it does business. To show potential customer targets that we were more than a small "local" company, we sent out maps indicating our project locations covering a 100-mile radius. To show we were qualified in a new business market, we sent out photos and resumes of key managers with years of experience in this "new" area. To create the perception of fast service, we mailed out "on-time schedulers" and photos of projects with the headline: "Another Successful Fast-Track Project." Decide what perception of value you want to present to your customers, and tell them about it.