The 5 Most Effective Marketing Strategies for Electrical Contracting

Running an electrical contracting business is tough, especially when you add the challenge of marketing and generating new leads. Earning leads is a constant challenge, and many businesses end up paying far too much for low-quality leads.

The good news is that there are plenty of helpful marketing strategies for electrical contracting companies to find high-quality leads without breaking the bank. Today, we’ll be revealing our top strategies to find quality electrical service leads. Keep reading to learn more.

First, What Are Qualified Leads?

Before we dive into lead generation, we have to understand what a lead is. Leads are any potential customers who express interest in your electrical contracting services. Here are some ways leads may express interest:

• Signing up for your email list or newsletter
• Attending a webinar
• Downloading a free resource you’ve provided
• Setting up a discovery call
• Requesting a free quote
• Filling out a form on your website

The key to generating leads for your business is that you want to collect their information so you can continue to nurture the relationship. They may not be ready to buy today, but if you continue to build upon their initial interest, your lead might be ready in a month or two.

That’s why creating opportunities for your target audience to submit their personal information to you is key. That way, you can stay on their radar, through ongoing email marketing, for example.

To sum it up, lead generation is the process of getting potential customers to provide you with contact information, which you can then use to reach out and market your electrical contractors. The more high-quality leads you can generate, the more business you can do.

Avoiding Marketing and Lead Gen Misconceptions

Before we dive into our top marketing strategies to generate leads for your business, we want to first address any misconceptions you should avoid:

• “Lead generation is supposed to be quick and easy.” While sometimes results might come quickly, generating leads requires long-term strategies and ongoing marketing work.
• “Marketing costs aren’t worth paying.” Rather than just focusing on the costs you’ll pay and set up fees, focus on your potential return on investment (ROI).
• “I can do all the marketing myself.” Sometimes, partnering with lead generation companies is your best bet, so you can focus on what you do best: running your business.
• “I only need one lead generation strategy.” To truly benefit from marketing, you need to take a holistic approach to generate new customers.

Now that you understand what misconceptions to avoid, here’s how we recommend finding new clients.

Electrical Contractor Marketing Ideas to Generate Leads

1) Invest in Branding

When you take a holistic approach to marketing and put yourself out there on a variety of platforms, invest in branding. Branding helps your potential customers recognize your brand whenever they see it. That means making sure your tone, voice, and design are all cohesive and easily recognizable.

Here’s how we recommend building a brand: think about your target audience. Build your ideal customer persona by asking yourself:

• What kind of person is my target audience? (Age, location, needs, hobbies)
• What kind of people do we most often do business with? (Look through your contact base to find this information)
• What questions can we ask in our online forms to help us understand our leads better?
• What type of customer does our sales team most often convert?
• What do our customers love about our product? (Interview them)

When you understand the customers you’re targeting, you’ll then be able to move forward to use lead generation strategies to accurately target them. Remember, you can always work with a company that specializes in branding services.

2) SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Think about it: if no one is visiting your website, then it’s really a waste of all the efforts and costs you’ve put into creating it. It’s really important to rank in search engines, like Google and Bing, to bring more traffic to your website. You want to show up in the search results, as high up as you can, so you can benefit from more website visitors.

The process of ranking higher in search engines is called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. If done correctly, it will also make it easier for potential customers to find you online, which could lead them to become a customer of yours. Here are some ways to rank higher and increase website visitors:

• Find specific keywords that your audience is searching for, using tools like Semrush.
• Target those keywords by creating high-quality content to satisfy user intent and the search engine.
• Create a blog to answer specific questions your potential clients have.
• Explore different SEO techniques. There’s no “one right way” to do it, meaning you’ll have to get comfortable trying new techniques.
• Outsource SEO responsibilities. It’s a full-time role in and of itself, and giving the duties to the experts helps you focus on running your business.

The key to ranking high in search engines is having a lot of high-quality content. Most businesses outsource these tasks to experts who live, breathe, and sleep SEO (like us!).

3) Advertising

You might be thinking, “advertising isn’t free.” And you’d be right. But here’s the thing: great ads can actually increase revenue. It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s true. When you advertise, even if you’re paying for it out of pocket, your business gets more exposure and attracts more customers.

Here are some ways you can advertise your company:

• Post flyers and business cards in strategic locations like grocery stores, gas stations, and restaurants.
• Advertise on TV or radio
• Think about where your target audience hangs out online, and invest in online advertising there. This may mean social media sites (Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook) or Google.
• Pay per click (PPC): With PPC, you’ll only pay for each click that you get on your ads. This can help you make sure every dollar spent is actually capturing leads.
• Advertise on popular sites: For example, if you know your ideal client loves certain blogs about electrical work, you can pay to advertise on their site to get exclusive leads.
  Advertising is an investment in your business. It’s a way to get your name out into the world and let people know who you are and what you do.

4) Use Organic Social Media

Organic social media can help you grow your business for a lower price. “Organic” means you’re creating regular posts, not ads. Generally, social media marketing will be free, except for any content marketing services you purchase. Social media is a great way to create quality leads, and you can show off your brand’s personality while you do it.

Here are some ways to use social media for electrical contractor lead generation:

• Post informational and engaging photos, videos, and infographics
• Create polls to interact with your audience
• Share content that makes your audience want to share it on their own profiles
• Post funny, industry-specific, relevant memes
  Remember, with social media marketing, the goal is to capture emails. Include irresistible Call to Actions (CTAs) that require your electrical contractor leads to give you their personal information, such as:
• Encouraging them to sign up for your weekly newsletters
• Offering a free downloadable resource to be sent to their email
• Providing a free quote if they fill in their information
• Urging your audience to set up a discovery call

5) Nurture Leads With Emails and Newsletters

After you’ve captured your leads, you have to nurture them! That’s why we get leads in the first place. Not all electrical contractor leads will convert right away, so you have to keep building those relationships.

A great way to cultivate electrical service leads is by sending emails and newsletters. These can include:

• Industry updates
• Helpful information
• Any deals or promos
• What makes your company unique
• Answers to common questions
• Responses to any buyer objections
• Sharing your new blog posts
• Newsjacking (sharing other blog posts you didn’t write but your audience will find helpful)
• Encouraging subscribers to request a quote or set up a discovery call

The best thing about emails and newsletters is that they’re typically very low cost. You’ll only need to invest in an email platform, like Mailchimp, which are generally affordable. You can either write the emails yourself or turn to other contracts to manage your email campaigns for you.

Rely on a Company That Gets You Quality Leads

Generating exclusive electrical contractor leads is a full-time job. Outsourcing the marketing work means better results and less time wasted on your behalf. Lead generation services or companies can deliver new clients to your (virtual) doorstep while you focus on running your business.

At Hook Agency, we are dedicated to helping you rank higher on Google and hook more and better leads. We turn your website into a traffic and lead magnet, so it serves your business for years to come. We also help with paid ads, so you can make sure every dollar spent is bringing results. You’ll receive a monthly report to make sure we’re delivering the results you need.