14 Contractor Lead Generation Strategies for Earning High-Value Leads

Do you want your contracting business to grow in 2024?

If you answered yes, then it’s time to invest in lead generation for contractors. A strong contractor lead generation strategy helps you put your business in front of people actively looking to hire a trustworthy contractor.

Getting leads for contractors requires more work than launching an ad campaign, and contrary to popular belief, paying for a spot on a billboard or local TV station won’t cause phone calls to come pouring in.

You need a lead generation strategy that helps you use multiple digital marketing channels to drive qualified traffic for your business.

Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about contractor lead generation, including:

• Why lead generation for contractors matters
• Top lead generation platforms to use
• Contractor lead generation strategies to try
• How to improve lead generation for contractors

If you’d like professional help launching your digital marketing strategy, contact us online or call us at 888-601-5359 to learn more. We bring decades of experience to lead generation, and we’ve helped our clients’ businesses earn more than 24 million leads in the past five years!

Why lead generation for contractors matters

If you’re skeptical about whether to invest in contractor lead generation, you’re not alone. Here’s how lead generation benefits your contracting company:

• You reach the right people: Billboards and flyers don’t have precise targeting capabilities — you’re just throwing the information out to everyone and hoping it sticks for some. With digital lead generation, you can specifically target people you know need a contractor, making you more likely to capture leads.
• You meet people where they are: A key component to successful lead generation is meeting people where they are. Instead of hoping someone driving on the highway likes your billboard, you’re running ads where people browse or creating content that your audience actively looks for.
• You tailor your approach to your business: One of the best things about contractor lead generation is that you can tailor it to your specific business’s needs and goals. It allows you to see more success because your strategy is built specificly to help you succeed.
• You earn more qualified leads: Lead generation for contractors helps you achieve a primary goal — earning qualified leads. Since you can precisely target prospects interested in what you offer, you earn leads that are more likely to turn into clients.

These are just a few of the many benefits you’ll reap from contractor lead generation.

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Top 8 contractor lead generation platforms to use

Looking for platforms that can help you generate qualified leads? Here are some of the top places for obtaining leads:

1. Google Business Profile
2. Angi
3. Houzz
4. Bing places
5. HomeAdvisor
6. BuildZoom
7. Google Local Services Ads
8. Thumbtack

We’ll dive into more detail about these mediums next, but these are generally some of the best places for contractors to obtain qualified leads.

14 contractor lead generation strategies to try

Ready to start generating leads for your contracting company? Here’s a list of 14 contractor lead gen strategies to try:

1. Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile
2. Get a profile on Angi
3. Offer premium content to educate your audience
4. Manage your online reputation
5.  Create a profile on Houzz
6.  Optimize for search engines
7.  Build a presence on social media
8.  Use Bing places for business to attract leads
9. Make a profile on HomeAdvisor
10. Launch a referral program to earn qualified leads
11. Connect with people looking for contractors through BuildZoom
12. Run Google Local Services ads
13. Try using Thumbtack to generate leads
14. Run PPC ads

1. Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile can help potential leads find your business via Google Search and Google Maps. Claim or create your Google Business Profile listing and optimize it to attract leads to your business. The best part is that it costs nothing to use Google Business Profile, which means you can get contractor leads for free from it!

2. Get a profile on Angi

Angi, formerly known as Angie’s List, helps homeowners connect with top-rated professionals for all their home project needs. It’s free to sign-up and use the platform.

Once you create your profile, you’ll want to optimize it by showcasing the work you’ve already done as a contractor. It helps people see your abilities and feel more confident about your services.

With many people relying on this platform to find home improvement professionals, it’s a great resource for you to find qualified leads.

3. Offer premium content to educate your audience

People have a lot of questions about contractors, construction, home improvement, and more. It creates a great opportunity for you to be a trusted source of information about these topics.

Create how-to guides, ebooks, and other freebies that provide valuable information to people interested in a repair or renovation. Offer as free downloads on your site, but only after the submission of a name and email address. This way, you’ll get the contact information of potential clients while simultaneously providing them with the information they want.

Content is important to consumers. When they have questions or want information, they turn to Google to find it. They seek out videos and blog posts that will provide the information they need.

By creating content, you will be an authority in your field. When your information is helpful, consumers remember your business. Even if they don’t need your services at the moment, they will remember your business when they do need your services.

Something as simple as this can be what makes you stand out from the competition. You can gain more valuable leads because you provided them with helpful information.

4. Manage your online reputation

The success of contractors relies heavily on your reputation. If you have a poor reputation, people won’t trust you to manage their projects. That’s why it’s crucial to manage your online reputation, so people pick you over your competition.

Two key platforms you’ll want to watch are Google and Yelp. Your Google Business Profile and your Yelp profile are two places where people can freely review your company and the experiences they had with your project management.

The first step is to encourage people to leave reviews about their experience with you. Whenever your team finishes a project, encourage your client to share their thoughts and opinions on platforms like Google or Yelp.

Once you have reviews on these platforms, you can start managing them.

If someone leaves a positive review about their experience, take the time to thank them for leaving the review. If there are negative reviews, take time to acknowledge the problems and provide a resolution for the client.

Keep in mind that 88% of people are likely to use a business if they see an owner responds to all reviews — it shows people you care and actively listen to what they say.

Taking the time to manage your reputation can help you earn more leads in the future.

5. Create a profile on Houzz

Angi isn’t the only platform that helps homeowners connect with contractors. Houzz serves as a go-to lead generation resource for contractors that specialize in the residential sector.

Build a free profile on Houzz or pay a monthly fee for a Houzz Pro+ profile, which improves your rankings or visibility in the site’s search results and directories. Advertising options are also available.

Houzz will screen your leads for you to help you focus on the leads most likely to hire your contracting company.

6. Optimize for search engines

Search engine optimization(SEO) is a great strategy to use to drive qualified traffic to your website.

With SEO, you can optimize your website to rank better for queries relevant to your business. It requires optimizing for relevant keywords to help drive relevant traffic to your website, which ultimately leads to obtaining more qualified leads.

You can improve your performance in search engines by:

• Creating a well-designed and functional website that keeps users engaged
• Improving your website’s load time to provide information faster
• Optimizing your webpages for relevant keywords
• Earning backlinks to your website

7.  Build a presence on social media

Social media is a great way to connect with potential customers. There are numerous platforms you can use to reach these people including Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Your target market will determine which platforms you use. Think about which platforms your audience is likely to use and create a profile on those profiles to connect with them.

Social media offers many opportunities to share content. You can share your blog posts, videos, and updates on these pages. People can read them and engage with them.

Videos and infographics are great for sharing. These are easy for users to share on to their own pages to friends and family. You can circulate these better and entice people to check out your content.

There are also opportunities to create paid ads to reach even more people on social media.

When you create your social media presence, you can gain more leads. You’ll connect directly with interested parties and be able to reach them. These platforms are great for drawing more leads in to learn about your business and services.

8. Use Bing places for business to attract leads

If you find that a lot of your audience uses Bing to find local contractors, consider claiming your Bing places profile. This profile is similar to your Google Business Profile — it appears in local queries on Bing and helps searchers connect with your business.

After you claim your Bing places listing, you’ll want to complete your profile by adding your services, hours of operation, and other important information. Once you complete your profile, you’ll verify the listing is correct and then it can go live.

Bing places for business is a great option if you want to reach local leads searching on Microsoft’s search engine.

9. Make a profile on HomeAdvisor

There’s no shortage of third-party websites where people can find a professional contractor, which means you’ll want to have a hand in each to maximize your reach.

HomeAdvisor, powered by Angi, offers access to a sizeable audience looking for a contractor. With this website, you pay a fee when HomeAdvisor sends you a lead — that cost varies based on project type and location. These leads are not a guarantee, though, so you have to put in work to turn them into customers.

If you want to get leads that are qualified and vetted, HomeAdvisor is a good platform to consider.

10. Launch a referral program to earn qualified leads

Word of mouth has always helped people find service providers because they trust their friends and family. Formalize the process with a referral program, and allow satisfied customers to benefit from spreading the word about your business.

Add a referral page to your website and add the link to your email footer. When someone sends a name, send an email inviting the lead to contact you with questions or details about potential projects.

When you create a referral program, keep in mind that there should always be a reward for both parties. Both parties should only get the reward if it results in a job for your business. That ensures people actually refer qualified leads.

11. Connect with people looking for contractors through BuildZoom

If you’re looking for a contractor-specific website to do contractor lead generation, try BuildZoom. With BuildZoom, you only pay for a lead (via a referral fee) when hired by that lead, which means you can technically generate contractor leads for free with BuildZoom.

This lead generation website also aims to act as a mediator between you and leads. It offers intelligent matching to help you get the most qualified leads for your contracting business.

12. Run Google Local Services ads

One of the best strategies to include in your contractor lead generation plan is running Google Local Services ads. These ads appear at the top of local search results when someone wants to find a professional in their area.

Running Google Local Services ads is a great way for you to reach people that need to hire a general contractor. Earning the Google Guaranteed badge serves as a vote of confidence that you’re a reliable contractor.

With these ads, you only pay when someone contacts your business — you don’t pay if they click on your ad to learn more about you. It makes Local Services Ads a good option for earning qualified leads interested in hiring you.

13. Try using Thumbtack to generate leads

If you want to try another third-party website for contractor lead generation, consider making a Thumbtack profile. Thumbtack enables you to set targeting preferences so you can get jobs that fit your business the best.

With Thumbtack, your company pays when a lead contacts your business. You can also find lead opportunities and pay to message customers you think would be interested in what you offer — for this model, you only pay if the lead responds.

Thumbtack enables you to have a direct connection with leads that are most interested in hiring a contractor.

14. Run PPC ads

Leveraging PPC services is one of the best ways to earn leads for your contracting business.

If you’ve conducted a search on Google, you’ve seen these paid advertisements at the top of the search results. These results appear before the organic listings.

How does PPC work?

This form of advertising works on a bidding system. You select the keywords you want to trigger your ads and set a max bid. Your maximum bid and other factors, like Ad Rank, will determine the placement of your advertisements.

PPC is a great strategy for contractors because you can regulate your budget. You will never pay more than your maximum bid for each click, making it a targeted and budget-friendly option for contractors.

How to improve lead generation for contractors

If you start with lead generation for contractors and find it’s not generating the results you desire, here are some ways to improve your lead gen efforts:

1. Make sure your target audience is right

One of the most important aspects of your contractor lead generation strategy is getting your target audience right. If you find you aren’t generating qualified leads, it may be that you’re targeting the wrong people.

The best way to figure out who to target is to look at your current client base. Where do you find overlap with your current clinet base? Look at demographics, socio-economic status, and other determining factors to see where similarities lie.

Refining your target audience to reach the right people can help you improve your lead generation efforts and get more qualified leads.

2. Focus on qualified leads

One of the biggest mistakes contractors make is taking any and all leads they get, regardless of how qualified they are. Just because you’re generating leads doesn’t mean they’re good leads. It’s important to set standards and guidelines for your leads, so you’re only pursuing leads worth your time.

If you primarily serve clients who are upper-middle class, for example, it wouldn’t make sense to pursue a lead that’s in the lower-middle class.  Your services would likely be beyond their budget, and it would be a waste of your time.

So, if you want to get the most from your contractor lead generation strategies, vet your leads. Platforms like Angi and BuildZoom will do this for you, but for other strategies, you’ll want to do the vetting yourself. It ensures you only spend time trying to win leads that are likely to hire you.

Additionally, using a customer relationship management (CRM) platform like Nutshell can help you with the vetting process. This software will automatically score leads for you, so you can focus your time on the most valuable leads.

Still selling out of spreadsheets?

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3. Track your lead gen strategies to see how they perform

To know if your contractor lead generation strategies are working, you need to track their performance. Keeping track of your campaigns enable you to  see what strategies drive leads for your business.

If you find some strategies aren’t driving the results you desire, you may need to revamp your strategy. The adjustments you make will depend upon your strategy. With PPC, for example, you may need to adjust your keyword targeting or your ad copy to see better results.

Tracking your lead generation strategies will help you find opportunities to improve your marketing and drive better leads for your business.

4. Ditch platforms that aren’t working

There are a lot of third-party platforms you can use to generate qualified leads, but they don’t always work for everyone. Some contractors will see great success on platforms like Houzz and Angi, while others will only see a few leads.

It’s important that you monitor your business’s performance on these platforms and determine if it’s worth the continued time and investment. If it’s not, you can put your time and money towards strategies you know are driving qualified leads for your contracting company.

Is lead generation for contractors different than marketing?

One of the most common misconceptions about lead generation is that it’s an entirely separate concept from contractor marketing. On the contrary, it’s actually a part of marketing—you could even say the entire marketing process is based around the concept of lead generation.

Start with your efforts to raise awareness about your business. Potential clients can’t consider you if they don’t even know you exist, but once they do, they’ll be in a position to ask for more information about your services and experience. If they’re really interested, they’ll take steps to stay in touch, either by signing up for future communications or requesting more information.

Next comes the back-and-forth where your prospects decide if they want to hire you. Some will ask directly for details, while others will learn more about your business through your blog or social media. They may not always ask how you can meet their needs, but they’re looking for cues in content, case studies, or testimonials.

Next comes the decision to invest. Some leads are ready to convert quickly and will reach out for more details on what you can do for them. Others may be interested, but an incentive such as a free estimate or other premium will tip the scales. If the offer is compelling enough, you get a new project and a new client.

As you can see, lead generation isn’t so different from marketing. Using lead generation sites (even the best lead generation websites for contractors), though can lessen your ability to market to leads.

Make lead generation for contractors hassle-free

There are a lot of steps between initial interest and closing the deal, and it’s up to you to take prospective clients through those steps. When you develop a process for generating contractor leads, you can turn be more successful at converting casual site visitors into valuable customers.

If you’d like to improve your lead generation strategy, WebFX can help. Contact us today to speak to a strategist about how our team can improve your online presence and start generating more leads for your business.

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