There’s a lot of competition for today’s trade businesses. With a father/son duo offering skilled hands on every street corner, trying to get your brand noticed is challenging.
Gone are the days where a Yellow Pages listing and ad in the local classifieds is enough to guarantee a steady stream of paying customers.
A strong online presence can boost businesses of all descriptions, but knowing where to begin can be confusing. Before you can get stuck into marketing your business online, you have to decide on a name, logo and colour that will follow your brand wherever it goes.
After all, these three aspects alone can speak volumes about your service.
Below we outline the fundamentals of branding your building business, getting noticed and attracting more customers.
Ask yourself, what are the main concerns potential customers have about hiring a building business? That the work won’t be completed on time? To a poor quality?
Construction businesses should communicate strength, reliability and trust across all aspects of their branding. Their company name should be no different.
When deciding on a brand name for your building business, think about where your specialities lie and how you want your customers to think about you. Aim to be specific enough that potential customers will understand your service at a glance.
What colour do you think of when you hear the names CAT machinery and Bunnings Warehouse?
While it may seem unimportant, colour plays a significant role in forming the perceptions of your brand and business. Your brand colour says a lot about your service - it even helps shape how your potential customers think about you.
Hospitals, for example, use colour schemes to calm their patients, stimulate their creativity and even their appetite.
Think about the message you want to send your customers. Is your business conservative, or do you employ young staff who’ll do the job with energy and enthusiasm? Fluorescent oranges will send a different message than pastel blues.
The colour you select can also be an easy way to stand out from the crowd.
Jake Stutzman of design company Elevate recommends putting all of your competitors’ logos on the wall and avoiding every colour you see there.
River Birg of computing company Zivelo agrees. “Go bold or go home. Go with colours that set you apart,” he says.
Like your brand name, your logo needs to be clear, relevant and easy to understand for potential customers. Web users searching for ‘building contractor Sydney’ are looking for specific answers to their problems, and a logo and brand name that are ambiguous won’t appear relevant to them.
Logos featuring hard hats, nails and hammers might be effective visual cues for potential customers, but they’re overused and generic.
Your logo is an opportunity to stand out from the crowd, but be careful that it doesn’t send the wrong message. A bent nail, for example, won’t convey the construction expertise you offer.
For more marketing tips for builders, enrol in our free Building a Better Trade Business eCourse today.
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