A New Era Of Marketing For Contractors
By James Olak
For decades the way for contractors to acquire new customers was relatively the same: referrals and yellow pages listings. Referrals usually came from past clients as well as friends and relatives. As for the listings, contractors usually paid an annual fee to be included and would get calls from potential customers who are searching the yellow pages.

The growth of internet has brought both multiple new marketing and advertisement opportunities as well as new expenses.

Today, customers are more likely to search for a contractor online than to open a directory book. Obviously, in order to keep getting phone calls, contractors now have to establish their presence on the internet.

The first thing that a contractor should do is to establish a website. A website will enable potential customers to get initial information about the contractor, the work he/she does, see pictures of previous jobs, as well as get the contact information to set up an estimate. Once a website is established, a contractor should look into various marketing methods.

One of the leading methods of marketing for contractors is lead service. The way it works is as follows: a customer enters his/her project and contract on a lead service website. The company then sells the information to 3-5 contractors who then call the customer and try to win the job. Such a method has its pluses and minuses. While it may seem that contractors aren’t wasting money on monthly fees and pay only for real leads, many of them often find it impossible to acquire a job this way, since customers usually choose based on price instead of quality and putting contractors to bid against each other results in the price to go down.

Pay per click service is also popular among contractors. Contractors that use this service can write an ad that looks like a classified. When customers looking for their service and click on the ad, it takes them straight to the contractor’s website. The price of each click is based on competition, but for contractor terms it can often be few dollars per click. Such methods are probably more efficient for contractors that work on big, expensive projects.

Yellow Pages online are yet another popular way of advertising. Online Yellow Pages usually cost much less than its print version and the amount of people that use it is constantly growing.

The other method of getting business that was discussed earlier is referrals. The internet changed the was contractors get referred as well. Referral is when one person recommends a contractor to another. The referral system as we used to it usually involved word of mouth between close people. Wow it’s done nationwide through internet. Today, multiple sites offer contractor review options and people and read opinions about contractors from people that they never knew.

Internet has evolved and forever changed the way contractors market their business. However, it also brought them many new opportunities. Contractors who are the fastest to adopt to these changes will likely benefit in the long run.

James Olak is an owner of