Construction Marketing

Construction marketing tracking of lead generation and sales

With over 40 construction clients under my belt, I have often been asked about construction marketing tracking and how to evaluate the results versus the investment. I think the real question needs to be how to assess your total lead generation and sales program. After all, tracking isn’t necessarily revealing the full impact the program has on your business. To truly evaluate the program, you have to consider the past, present, and future. In this article, I will look at:

• Why history is critical in construction marketing tracking
• How to judge the present in construction marketing tracking
• What does the future mean to construction marketing tracking
• What are the essential points of construction marketing tracking

Reviewing the past in construction marketing tracking

When considering the success of your current lead generation and sales efforts, you need to establish a baseline. Your baseline is the results you were achieving before you implemented the lead generation and sales campaign. After all, if you don’t know where you started, how can you judge how far you’ve come?

For example, the number of prospects you reached each month might have been meager before starting the lead generation campaign. With even a conservative campaign in place, that number could be dozens of leads you didn’t have in the past. To fairly and accurately evaluate results, you must establish the historical baseline for specific areas. Review these metrics monthly and yearly. The following are the metrics I recommend:

• Number of prospects reached
• Number of times prospects are exposed to your message
• The number of leads
• If the leads are for new builds, repairs, renovations or additions
• The way the lead was acquired (referral, lead generation channel or member of the sales team)
• Number of requests for information from prospects
• The number of leads that are new prospects or past customers
• Amount of appointments with prospects
• Number of bids submitted
• How many of signed contracts
• Annual sales growth

As a result of using these metrics, you will have a baseline to accurately evaluate present lead generation and sales activity versus your past numbers.

Evaluating the present in construction marketing tracking

Often, the success of a program is based solely on short-term results when tracking construction marketing. While keeping track of immediate results is undoubtedly important, they do not show the entire picture. All construction marketing programs yield both short-term and long-term results. It is important to realize that you need a scheduled review process and establish short and long-term goals.

Metrics should be reviewed monthly, quarterly, biannually, yearly, or all of the above. Many factors can affect the effectiveness of lead generation and sales for a short period, causing knee-jerk reactions. If you are shortsighted in this regard, you can make tactical changes that hinder the campaign or worse, halt it entirely and stalling growth. By setting up a year-long construction marketing tracking schedule, you see how the program is doing over time. Because of this approach, you will view sales and marketing as a long-term investment, which is exactly what it is.

In addition, a long-term review schedule allows you to adjust your advertising and manage sales efforts. Comparing advertising channels and individual advertisements periodically tell you what is working and where to adjust the campaign. In the case of sales metrics, results are often reviewed more frequently to determine the activities of the sales team. While this might be more of a job performance review, but it obviously has a direct effect on the return on your marketing investment.

Looking to the future in construction marketing tracking

You set up your baseline and a schedule to review current construction marketing tracking, but what about the future? Most companies set up a marketing budget yearly. However, leads coming in that year may not yield a contract until the following year. Unless you have a tracking mechanism in place that looks beyond one year, you cannot judge the effectiveness of your program. You need to consider factors that affect long-term ROI, such as:

• Sales cycles that may extend longer than a year
• Repeat sales from prospects that become long-term customers
• Referrals from new customers brought in by the program
• Leads that come in after the annual campaign that lead to future sales
• Brand awareness built with prospects during the campaign

Like any investment, a well-conceived marketing plan produces sales for years. Another key point is the momentum your marketing gains as time goes on. The growth of your brand recognition, goodwill, and reputation will help bring in new and repeat business for years.

Future or ancillary sales need to be part of the tracking mix to determine the real value of a program. Therefore, your review schedule needs to be longer than one fiscal year. Evaluate your sales cycle and create a workable schedule that captures both short and long-term results.

The key points of construction marketing tracking

While tracking construction marketing can be somewhat complicated, keep in mind these basic points. First, establish an accurate baseline to compare past results with your current program. Second, set a realistic schedule to review metrics over a period that makes sense for your business. Third, be aware that leads from one year may turn into sales in the next. These contracts need to be attributed to the lead generation and sales efforts of the appropriate year.

Finally, pay attention to short-term metrics to makes tweaks where needed, but remember good things come to those who wait. I equate a lead generation and sales program to a snowball rolling downhill – it grows and gains speed the longer it keeps moving. This process will produce results now and in the future.

Pappy

Paul Kowalski (or Pappy as he is called around the office) spent over two decades working at other agencies before opening Conach Marketing Group in 2008. The early part of his career was working with Fortune 500 clients at different agencies. However, working with smaller clients was his preference. This choice was because of the impact on a client’s business growth and forming closer, personal relationships.

When he was creating Conach, his goal was to bring those Fortune 500 strategies along with years of B2B marketing experience to small business marketing clients. As a result of focusing on business to business marketing, Conach specializes in construction marketing, financial marketing, and industrial marketing. Even though we are in Mid-Michigan, Conach provides marketing services to clients across the country. 

For more information visit conachmarketing.com or contact us or call 989.401.3202.