Build your Business: Find new customers
Digital marketing can transform lead generation for contractor rental companies.
by Chemene Phillips
The contractor rental industry can be a tough nut to crack. Not only do you have to keep up with offering the most cutting-edge equipment available, but you’ve got to deliver a second-to-none rental service and competitive prices if you want to make any sort of splash in the market.
Rental centers need to have all that and more under their hats. And yet, rental centers may continue to struggle to attract more customers to their websites – and more importantly – the right kind of customers.
Magic of lead generation
Don’t be put off by the buzzy marketing term! It’s actually very straightforward. Lead generation is the process of attracting online users to your website and converting them into leads – meaning people who might become potential customers, or better yet, loyal customers.
As a contractor rental company, you might be looking to attract construction firms, independent contractors or even individuals embarking on large-scale projects. Through strategic digital marketing efforts, you can zero in on your target audience and guide them through the sales funnel, turning them into leads and ultimately into clients.
Transforming how you reach your ideal clients
If you’re looking to attract, engage, and convert your target audience, then digital marketing is your secret weapon. Here’s how an effective digital marketing strategy can help you reel in the right kinds of clients to your contractor rental website:
A digital marketing strategy levels up traditional lead gen tactics. Now that we’re living in the digital age, the way we do business has naturally changed along with the times.
Where most deals used to be done by word of mouth, digital marketing has opened up a whole new realm of possibility in terms of accessing and gaining the attention of prospective customers.
Traditional lead generation efforts like cold calls and trade shows are still a goldmine for opportunity in terms of making connections and solidifying your brand’s place in the market, but when it comes down to it, having a solid, strategic online presence will give your brand a competitive edge.
With an existing digital lead generation strategy, potential leads are much more likely to be familiar with your business. This makes it easier for them to trust your brand and check out what you have to offer. That way, you can skip trying to talk them into being on your side and get straight to the selling part!
Online lead generation widens your potential audience. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website to make it rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs), boosting your brand’s online visibility.
It’s all about infusing your website content with SEO-targeted keywords that relate directly to your niche. When you do that, you greatly increase the likelihood of reaching your target audience in those crucial moments when they’re actively searching for your products and services online.
Together with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you can crack your target market wide open and tap into pockets of potential clients you wouldn't be able to access otherwise. But it’s worth noting that these two methods have very different timeframes; a PPC campaign is a fast track to leads; but with SEO, it takes six to nine months to build authority and improve rankings. If you want to generate qualified leads instead of wasting your time advertising to the wrong crowds, you’ve got to get super specific and focused in your targeted marketing.
It deepens the client-brand relationship. Your brand is your company’s personality. It’s how you show the world who you are and what you stand for. When it comes to relating to your audience, it makes all the difference.
Your company website should be infused with your distinct brand visuals, identity and messaging to help you connect with your ideal clients and generate leads in a meaningful way and it goes beyond your primary website. Social media marketing is another great way to build relationships and authority with potential and existing clients. In fact, 68 percent of marketers believe social media is a highly effective lead generation tool.
You can build a strong presence across social media platforms with a personalized content marketing strategy that engages your audience and positions your brand as industry experts.
Many platforms now have lead generation tools built in, making it super easy for you to zero in on your niche when creating and publishing content.
Nurture leads with email marketing. Just like any good relationship, you need to nurture your relationships with your leads if you want to turn them into customers.
Email marketing is an incredibly effective way to nurture leads. Through personalized, segmented email campaigns, you can deliver content that’s interesting and genuinely valuable to the reader and you spare them the spam. Think about it from your own perspective – it’s super annoying when your inbox is flooded with marketing emails that only serve to clog your storage and waste your time, isn’t it?
Segmented email campaigns allow you to analyze your audience’s data, so you can send them emails that relate to their needs at any given time based on their interaction with your website.
This way, you can showcase to your readers just how personalized your contractor rental services are and how your expertise and attention to detail can make their lives easier. With 87 percent of marketers increasing their email marketing budget to facilitate lead generation, why not invest in a professional email marketing strategy if you haven’t yet?
Chemene Phillips is the founder and president of BRIXbranding. She has more than two decades of experience of brand transformations in the built environment and can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chemenephillips/ or www.brixbranding.com.
PRO CONTRACTOR RENTALS MAGAZINE
Pro Contractor Rentals provides information of value to rental centers who focus time, resources and attention on meeting the demands of construction contractors and other equipment rental customers.
