Start With the Work You Want to Win

Most construction firms I speak to will take any job that comes in. I understand why, but it means nobody can say who the marketing is for.

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Pick one or two types of work you want more of, usually the jobs with the best margin and the clients who pay on time. Then write down who decides on that work. A main contractor's buyer and a homeowner look for suppliers in completely different places.

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Then put a number on it. If an average job is worth £60,000 and you win one in four of the jobs you price, ten new jobs means pricing around 40. That is the number the marketing has to deliver.

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Fix the Basics Before Spending on Ads

Before any campaign goes live, check what a buyer sees when they look you up. Your website needs a page for each service you want more of, naming the areas you cover, with a recent finished project on each.

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This is where I see the most money wasted. Firms switch on Google Ads and send people to a homepage that says very little about what they do. In my experience, fixing the website costs less than a few months of the ad spend it would otherwise waste.

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Buyers in construction want to see finished work. Eden, a commercial interiors firm we work with at Solvi Digital, had a website with no proper way to show its projects. We rebuilt it with a case study system the team can update themselves, so every finished fit-out becomes something a prospect or framework partner can check.

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If main contractors are your buyers, find out which accreditations they ask for, such as CHAS or Constructionline, and put them in the plan with a date. A missing accreditation can rule you out before anyone reads your website.

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Choose Channels That Match How Your Buyers Find You

The right channels depend on who you want to work for.

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If homeowners or small commercial clients are your buyers, local SEO and Google Ads come first. A complete Google Business Profile, with reviews and project photos, helps you appear in local map results when someone searches for your service and town. Ask every happy client for a review in the week you hand the job over, while it's fresh.

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If you want work from main contractors or public bodies, LinkedIn and email matter more. A short email to the estimator or buyer at a contractor you'd like to work for, with a relevant project and your accreditations, helps get your name onto their supply chain list before the next job comes up. Retargeting on LinkedIn and Meta then shows your name again to anyone who has visited your site.

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Most firms need some of both, weighted towards whichever brings in the work you chose at the start.

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Decide who answers new enquiries, and how fast. A quote request that waits three days for a reply often goes to the firm that called back the same afternoon.

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Set a Budget for Your Construction Marketing Plan

A construction marketing plan needs a budget you can hold for at least six months. SEO takes that long to show results, and paid search needs a few rounds of cutting wasted spend before the cost per enquiry stabilises.

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Set the budget against the margin on the extra jobs you want. If ten more jobs at a 15% margin bring in £90,000, you know what each new job can afford to cost to win.

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Measure it against the number you set at the start: how many jobs you priced from marketing, and how many you won. Ask every new enquiry how they found you and record the answer.

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After a quarter, you'll know which channels bring in work you want and which bring in calls that never turn into a quote. Move the budget to the ones that work.

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Write the whole plan on one page, with a name next to each task, and look at it once a month. A plan nobody has written down tends to stop the first time the site team gets busy.

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Where I Would Start

If I had one afternoon with a construction business owner, I'd spend it on the first section: deciding which work they want more of and how many jobs they need to price to get it. Everything else in the plan follows from that.

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Price and delivery will always win or lose the job itself. A plan makes sure you're asked to price the jobs you want, often enough to hit your numbers.

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If you'd like a second opinion on your plan, see how Solvi Digital approaches construction marketing strategy.

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