Construction marketing for a small residential builder should start with what the business controls: asking past clients for referrals, a complete Google Business Profile, a simple site that answers the questions buyers ask, and a fast reply to every enquiry. Paid ads come after those. Often, when a builder says marketing “does not work”, the enquiries are being lost in the gap between the phone ringing and the quote going out.
This is an order of work, not a promise of results. Nobody can tell you in advance what a channel will return in your suburb. What you can do is spend in the order that costs least, teaches you most and leaves you owning the asset.
Referrals and repeat work first
Your last ten clients are the cheapest marketing you have. They have seen your work, they know what you are like when something goes wrong, and they know people who are about to build or renovate.
Make it a habit. Ring each client a few weeks after handover and ask two things: is everything still right, and do they know anyone about to build or renovate. Ask the architects, designers, certifiers and suppliers you already deal with the same question. Keep a list of who sent you what, because that list is how you find out which source actually pays.
The limit of referrals is volume. You cannot turn them up when the diary is thin. That is why you add the next layers.
A Google profile and reviews
When a homeowner hears your name, they search it. A Google Business Profile is often the first thing they see, and our Google Business Profile guide covers what to fill in. Google’s guidelines say a business needs either a place customers can visit or a way to travel to customers, that there should be only one profile per business, and that service-area businesses should hide their street address and set a service area. Most builders working from home or a yard fall into that last group.
Fill in the categories, the suburbs you work in, your licence details and photos of finished jobs. Then ask for reviews from real clients, at handover, while they are pleased. Do not buy them and do not write your own. The ACCC says it is against the law for a business to create fake or misleading reviews or to arrange for others to do so.
A simple website
You do not need a large site. You need one that says what you build, where you build it, roughly what a job involves, and how to contact you. Four things do most of the work:
- Your licence number and the areas you cover, on every page.
- Six to ten finished jobs with a few plain lines on each: what the client wanted, what was hard, what it was.
- A short enquiry form that asks for the address, the type of work and when they hope to start.
- A phone number that rings a person or gets a call back the same day.
The form questions matter more than the design. They are your first filter. If you want a site built around that, see websites for builders and trades.
Ads you own
Ads are the only channel you can switch up when the diary is thin. Run them in your own account, so the history, the audience and the data stay with you if you change who manages them.
Two kinds suit a building company. Search ads on Google catch people already looking for a builder in your area. Facebook and Instagram ads reach people who are not searching yet but fit the profile, such as owners of homes of a certain age in certain suburbs. Search tends to bring people who want a price soon. Social tends to bring a wider, earlier crowd you have to qualify harder.
Start small and name the one job type you want. An ad for “builders” attracts everything. An ad for “second-storey additions in the inner west” attracts fewer, better enquiries. The trade-offs against buying leads from others are laid out in Google Ads for tradies or buying leads, and how we run ads shows the account-ownership approach.
Any claim in an ad has to be true and provable. The ACCC says a business must be able to prove any claim it advertises, and that the fine print must not conflict with the overall message of the ad (ACCC, false or misleading claims). That applies to “fixed price”, “no hidden costs” and “on time” as much as to a price.
Answering and following up
This is the layer that decides whether the other four pay. Every channel above produces enquiries. If the first reply takes two days, the homeowner has already spoken to someone else. If the quote goes out and nobody follows it up, it goes quiet.
- Reply to every enquiry the same day, even if it is just to say when you will ring.
- Ask the qualifying questions on that first call: the address, whether they own it, the scope, the timing, and whether anyone else is involved in the decision.
- Follow up each quote with a call, then a short message, on a set schedule you stick to.
The full sequence, from first reply to signed contract, is in a construction sales process for a small builder.
How to tell which construction marketing is working
Many builders cannot say which source their last five jobs came from. Fix that first, because everything else depends on it. Ask every enquirer how they found you, and write the answer next to the job.
Then keep a simple table with one row per source: enquiries, quotes sent, jobs signed, and what you spent. Cost per enquiry is a weak measure. Cost per signed job is the one that matters, and it needs months of data. Here is an example only, with made-up numbers: if a channel cost you $3,000 in a quarter and produced one signed job, that job cost $3,000 to find. Whether that is good depends on the margin on the job.
What you cannot yet measure is also worth writing down. Word of mouth that starts with a Google search will show up as “Google”. A sign on a site may show up as “friend”. Treat the numbers as a guide only.
If you would rather have homeowners found, rung and checked for you, PreBuild Systems does that for builders. Either way, the order above still applies.
Common questions
What is the cheapest way to market a building company?
Asking past clients and trade contacts for referrals, a complete Google Business Profile, and replying to every enquiry on the same day. None of these needs an ad budget.
Should a small builder run ads?
Once the referral and reply habits are in place, yes, in your own account and for one job type. Ads let you add enquiries when the diary is thin.
Do builders need a website?
A simple one helps. Homeowners check a builder online before they ring. It should show your licence, your areas, finished jobs and a short enquiry form.
How do I know which marketing is working?
Ask every enquirer how they found you, record it, and count signed jobs per source over several months rather than enquiries per week.