The Construction Industry has remained resilient throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, however restrictions and disruptions have prompted Business owners to adopt Digital Marketing strategies.
The COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably affected each of our lives in different ways – no one was really prepared for what 2020 had in store. To identify how we can best help our clients operating in the construction industry, and better understand what they need from a Digital Marketing agency we created a research poll.
Owners and department managers of Australian owned and operated trades businesses responded to our queries, offering valuable insights of the changes they have noticed in their respective company since the outbreak of COVID-19. The survey consisted of 8 short answers, multiple choice and linear scale questions to evaluate the pandemic’s impact on certain business operations.
50% of respondents said that it is ‘very important’ to have a user-friendly website to create leads or book jobs.
Unmistakably there has been a major shift towards customers choosing to purchase through e-commerce and consume online resources during the pandemic. The prediction made by experts that Digital Advertising will only continue to grow, demonstrated it’s significance through the record numbers set by 2020’s Black Friday and Christmas online shopping results,
Lightspeed wrote in MarketingLand, “In order to remain competitive, online and offline experiences must “wow” the consumer.”
Consumers respond to user-friendly integrations, and conversions are more likely when call-to-actions, interactive media and easy to read copy are implemented. Although Digital Marketing may not have been a focus for many construction businesses, statistics prove that it’s imperative that all businesses in 2021 are collecting data to ensure their online presence is enriching to the consumer experience.
The effects of COVID-19 have seen 33% of construction businesses have to cut pays for workers. Other responses taken from the survey included cuts to employee numbers, addition of new employees, and no change to budget allocation.
These varied responses could be for a number of reasons including the support of government supplements for businesses during the pandemic, and coincidingly the inability for some businesses to be eligible for funding.
Recently Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Housing Minister Michael Sukkar announced a three-month extension to the Home Builder program. It’s said that this will support the construction or rebuilding of 15,000 more homes, bringing the total to 42,000 homes across Australia. As “Housing and construction contribute 750,000 direct and indirect jobs to the nation”, government support has been essential to keep businesses operating [quote taken from Sydney Morning Herald, Hall 2020].
33.3% of responders feel that the business’ ‘Ability to perform the actual service or job role’ was most affected since the COVID-19 outbreak
As discussed, a user-friendly website, which incorporates SEO, informative content and a hyper-targeted PPC campaign is key in supporting a changed construction industry. No longer can owners communicate or reach prospects as they did before. Additionally, with more and more people relying on search engines to find service providers, construction companies need a strong online presence.
At Digital Presence we understand in the current landscape our clients are being affected differently monetarily, and that’s why we value open communication to develop a campaign that suits the business’ present needs. We believe in proactively managing a digital marketing campaign to take advantage of trends and adjust costs accordingly. In unprecedented times we need to ‘unlearn’, as many experts are repeating, and adapt so that we can drive towards success no matter the obstacles ahead!
