5 types of effective content marketing for construction brands

The average internet user spends 37 seconds consuming content, so you need to make sure your construction brand is only creating content that counts.

Interestingly, 50% of marketers surveyed said that if they were creating a content marketing strategy from scratch, they would prioritise writing blog articles.

While blogging is important, it only works if you choose the right types and topics – and disregard the other types of content that are so often overlooked.

To make content work for your construction company, you need to create a strategy that ties into the marketing funnel:

• Discovery
• Consideration
• Conversion
• Retention

Here, we’ll discuss the five types of effective content marketing for construction brands – ranging from builders, to interior designers, DIY and support services – that will help you to drive your target market from the initial discovery stage, right through to the retention stage.

Cornerstone content

Cornerstone content is defined as the highest quality, most important information that you want your audience to see and read – be that articles, white papers, reports or key website landing pages. These are the pages or articles that you want to rank the highest in search engines, and contain detailed and relevant content in one handy place for your customers or industry peers.

71% of buyers engage with blog content, but with so many articles out there, you need to give your articles the competitive edge. The shift from shorter blog articles to cornerstone content – i.e. long, informative articles that rank highly for some of your most important keywords – is obvious.

While we’re not saying to give up the latest industry news pieces which perform well on social, we do recommend you prioritise the longer content pieces. The average blog post with a number one organic ranking is typically over 2,450 words, so keep this number in mind when crafting content.

Cornerstone content can be created whether you’re a B2B or B2C construction brand – you just need to ensure that the topics are relevant, and target identified keywords.

Ebooks, PDFs and how-to guides all perform well as larger content pieces. The key is to stop churning articles out for the sake of it, and instead, to spend your time crafting longer, SEO-optimised articles that your readers will find interesting and useful.

Thought leadership pieces

While cornerstone content is one aspect that falls into the discovery stage, by reaching potential customers organically, your construction brand should also be creating regular thought leadership pieces.

Create these articles to showcase your opinion on an important topic in the industry. You can even develop content that not only appeals to your end users, but also targets industry peers and trade bodies. One example would be ideas on resolving the communication issues commonly found within construction, whether it’s through misused terms and languages, or cultural confusions.

Articles that are outspoken, and directly tackle current issues work well for outreaching to the media – and will help to position you as an authority in your industry, whilst driving links back to your site.

Case studies

Move your readers from the discovery stage of the marketing funnel to the consideration and conversion stages with case studies.

Whether you’re a B2B or B2C company within the construction sector, case studies can be very effective at generating leads. After all, the people who read them are the ones who are most likely to convert.

Of course, a successful case study is ultimately down to the content you include. Highlight your customer’s objectives, any challenges or risks you faced, how you overcame them, and the positive results you achieved. Including a testimonial obviously further strengthens your case study, and is a great way to highlight the work your construction brand does. Stuck for inspiration as to what to include in your case study? Take a look at ours!

Product specifications

To keep customers in the conversion and retention sections of the funnel, construction companies should look no further than product specifications.

Providing detailed descriptions of the work about to be undertaken highlights your expertise and knowledge – and if you can convey this in a simple way to avoid common communication issues, then that’s even better.

Whilst product specifications may be more crucial to building, DIY and construction companies, compared to energy providers or furnishing companies, they really are crucial content marketing for construction brands, as a successful build can help to retain customers.

Videos

5 billion videos are watched every day on YouTube, and 100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook daily. Companies in the construction sector – much like other sectors – shouldn’t ignore this.

If you haven’t yet included video in your content strategy, then now’s the time – especially as research from Social Media Today found that businesses who incorporate video into their marketing strategy grew their revenue 49% faster than brands that don’t.

From short, snappy videos for social, to customer testimonials, project completions (e.g. before and afters such as a refurbished kitchen or bathroom work great!), and how-to’s, video essentially compasses the four content examples above, and can be incorporated on both your website and social media channels.

Final thoughts

Statistics show that content can generate three times as many leads than traditional marketing, despite costing 62% less. Whilst we’d argue that that statistic sounds ambitious, ultimately the success of your content strategy depends on the type of content your construction brand opts for.

While there’s often some doubt as to whether content works well for B2B companies, the fact is, that you just need to ensure your content is relevant to your audience. So, whether your company manufactures and sells paint, construction materials, or offers building support services to house building companies; your content can still work just as hard as your B2C construction counterparts.

Find out how to create content marketing that works for your brand, or for the latest news in branding and digital marketing, either get in touch with us or head on over to our Articles page.