If you are a player in the B2B field, you know how crucial first impressions are to your target prospects. Your construction brand communicates precisely who you are and what your business is all about. That is why it is a good idea to spend some time internalizing and assessing what exactly your online “welcoming hello” looks like to the outside world.
If you are launching a start-up construction business and building your company’s online identity, you should better align with your business growth. So today, we are breaking down the steps you should take during the branding process, starting from conception to launch.
What is Brand Building?
Brand building is defined as generating awareness about your construction business using campaigns and strategies to create a unique and long-lasting image in the marketplace.
Positive Image + Standing Out = Construction Brand Success
Branding can be broken down into three high-level stages:
1. Brand Strategy
This will show you different, reliable, likable, and memorable you are to your ideal customers. It conveys your promises, purpose, and how you provide solutions for your customers. This is the first step you have to take when crafting your construction brand, starting from the bottom to up, whether you are just starting or established already.
A practical and detailed brand strategy must include the following aspects as part of the branding process:
- Competitor Research
- Brand discovery
- Target Audience
- Brand Voice
- Brand message and stories
2. Brand Identity
Brand identity is a way to deliver your messaging, experience, and visuals to your audience. Your brand strategy greatly influences how you present your brand identity and align it with your primary purpose for the most part.
The elements of brand identity must be applied across all channels constantly. It is the way your construction business becomes recognizable. This includes your:
- Colors
- Logo
- Patterns and Icons
- Website design
- Blog content and messaging
- Collateral
- Print and Packaging
3. Brand Marketing
Brand marketing in construction is how your business highlights and brings awareness to services and products by connecting voice and values to the right audience through strategic communication. This 2022, the amplification of your construction brand image can be done effectively thru different digital marketing activities:
- SEO, Keyword Research, and Content Marketing
- User Experience
- Social Media Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Paid Advertising (PPC)
Charting Your Course for Your Construction Brand
We simplified below the path you should take for a comprehensive branding process. This will help your construction brand gain a more loyal following. Are you wondering where to start? Read on below:
1. Discover the purpose behind your construction brand
Every successful brand has a unique and powerful purpose behind it. And so should you, too! These are the four main questions you must ask yourself when defining your brand purpose:
- Why do you exist?
- What differentiates you from the rest?
- What kind of problems do you solve?
- Why should people care?
2. Perform Internal Brainstorming
The internal brainstorming process is by far one of the essential steps during the branding process. You have to work closely with your members as a team to focus more on all aspects of your brand and put your heads altogether to deliver the best possible strategic suggestions. Doing so allows you to cover all bases and ensure there is no possibility of overlooking these areas.
Partner with a trusted digital marketing agency like ConstructionMarketing.io. We begin by creating different first-round drafts for your logo concepts. And our ideas come from the information you give to us. We often take advantage of everything we have to explore visual elements and idea maps that are fitting to your business.
We do our best to represent your brand in the most impactful way truly. That’s our goal for you.
3. Research competitor brands within the industry
You must never imitate what the big brands are doing within your industry. However, you must be aware of what they do well or where they fail. The very goal here is to differentiate from the competition. Make sure to convince your target client to avail yourself of services from you over your competitors!
Always think about making your construction brand stand out from what is there already. Never skip this particular step in the construction brand building process. And make sure to research your current competitors and benchmark brands. The following are some essential questions you need to answer:
- Is your competitor consistent with visual identity and messaging across different channels?
- Does your competitor have social mentions and customer reviews you can read about them?
- What is the quality of your competitor’s services and products?
- In what ways do your competitors market their online and offline businesses?
For your competition chart, choose two to four competitors. Remember that competitor research is one of the main components in discovering and defining your brand positioning.
4. Determine your brand’s target audience
Determine the target audience you will be focusing on is the main foundation in building your brand. You cannot be everything to everyone, right? So, when making your brand, keep in mind who exactly you’re trying to reach. You will tailor your brand’s mission and message to meet your needs.
The key is to become more specific. Try to figure out detailed preferences and behaviors of your clients. You should also target a particular niche and commit to hyper-focus. You will then realize that the competitive advantage of branding your construction business is narrowing your target audience’s primary focus. This helps you make sure your brand message comes in a crystal clear to your target recipients.
5. Establish brand mission and vision statements
Have you started thinking about your brand vision and mission? At the core, you need to craft a more precise expression of what your construction company is most passionate about. Before building the construction brand your target customers trust, you have to know what value your construction business provides.
Envision a clear projection of where your construction brand aspires to go, what it aspires to be, and how significant it will be to your construction business.
6. Develop Your Content Marketing Strategy
We could have called this particular step “develop the marketing strategy”. But we choose not to. Instead, we prefer a content marketing strategy. But why? Content marketing is specifically suited to professional services firms, especially in today’s modern Internet age. It does many things related to marketing, and it does them more effectively. It uses valuable blog content to nurture, attract, and qualify prospects.
Remember that your visibility and reputation drive your construction brand strength. Increasing your visibility alone, without reinforcing your importance, is rarely successful. That is why you have to go for content marketing because it guarantees an increase in visibility and reputation at the same time. It is also a perfect way to make your construction brand relevant to your target audience.
7. Develop your Construction Website
Your website is your most important brand development tool. It is where your target audience turns to discover what you do or offer, how you do it, and more. Your prospective clients will not likely pick your firm solely based on your construction website. However, they might rule you out if your construction website sends the wrong message.
Furthermore, your construction website will be the central home of your valuable blog content. That content will eventually become the main focus of your SEO efforts sot that your prospective clients and referral sources can find you and learn about your firm.
Web Development and Design are two of the most important things you should invest in to discover your target audience and convey your brand message. A well-functioned and appealing website can tell more of your story and share who you are, what you do, and who you serve.
8. Implement, Track, and Adjust
This will be the final step in the branding process and is considered the most important. So, a winning brand development strategy does not do much better if the implementation is never performed. You may be surprised at how often this occurs. Have you been in a situation where you already developed a solid strategy and planned to put it all up? Then it did not happen because it is forgotten?
This is why tracking has become so important. We highly recommend tracking both the implementation of your solid plan and the results. Did the said strategy get implemented as planned? What happened with your objective measures, like web visitors and search traffic? How many leads are generated? Only by regular tracking the whole process can you make sure you are drawing the correct conclusions as well as making the proper adjustments.
So, there you have it, eight tips in charting your course for your brand, helping you to drive profitability and growth for your construction firm.
ConstructinMarketing.io Can Help You with your Branding Process
The branding process is one of the most exciting parts of improving and evolving your construction business. However, you know that this process can be daunting and laborious for a business owner like you who has never had any knowledge and experience about branding. You can collaborate with us. ConstructionMarketing.io is the best partner you will ever have.
If you are ready to start your branding project, we encourage you to talk to us. Allow us to get to know your construction business. Expect that you and we will have high-level conversations about what you are looking for and what areas you expect us to support you.
Talk to us for a FREE Assessment. We always got you covered!