How to Market Your Construction Business and Fund It Strategically

The construction industry is a highly competitive place, where brand awareness of your company is key to winning new contracts. Advertising your construction business and having an effective marketing strategy are now vital parts of your overall business plan. But what kind of promotion works best? And how do you fund your campaigns?

Let’s look at some core ways to market your brand, and the options you have for financing the promotion of your construction business.

Why marketing matters more than ever for construction companies

Traditionally, much of the marketing of a construction business has been through word-of-mouth recommendations from satisfied customers, and referrals from other contractors and sub-contractors in your sector.

But in 2025, with so many online and digital channels available for targeted marketing, relying purely on recommendations could be doing you a disservice. 

• The construction market is increasingly competitive, especially in the residential/domestic markets. Homeowners are more informed, more selective and more aware of the broad range of contractors they can choose from.
• Customers are researching trades online, getting a detailed overview of the market and construction businesses. In this online space, first impressions count, so it’s vital to have an up-to-date online and social media presence.
• An online and offline marketing presence builds credibility, helping you to raise awareness of your brand, recent projects and your people. This is vital for engaging with prospective customers and building trust with your audience. 

Top marketing strategies for construction businesses today

Updating your approach to advertising and marketing is critical. Targeted promotion is how you find new customers, expand your audience and bring in higher sales revenue – a real necessity in the current unstable market, where cash flow is so tight.

But what are the main steps to take when evolving your construction business marketing to make it fit for purpose in the modern, digital world?

Here are seven techniques for making your marketing more effective: 

1. Build a simple but professional website: 

Your website is your online shopfront. It’s the place where prospective customers will go to check out your business, and the place that Google searches point towards. 

Make sure your services are clear, put your people up front and make the site as simple to navigate and use as possible. This is the central hub for your marketing!

2. Get listed on directories: 

Prospects will look for contractors through the growing number of trade review sites. Platforms like Checkatrade and TrustATrader etc. are valuable places to have a presence and a regularly updated profile. 

Your directory entry should summarise the construction services you offer, with links to your homepage and contact details. Attaining a high rating score is vital, so make sure your customer service is top notch and that you’re putting plenty of effort into building excellent customer relationships. 

3. Use local SEO and update your Google Business Profile: 

Claim your Google Business Profile and check that the location, business details and contact information are correct and up to date. 

Coming up as the first result in a Google search, or when potential customers look online for local trades, is crucial to your sales and marketing success. Add location-specific SEO keywords and terms to your digital marketing and Google profile – for example ‘Builder Chelmsford’ if you’re targeting the Essex market. 

4. Run targeted Meta or Google Ads

Targeted digital advertising is a hugely important tool for your marketing team. 

Platforms like Meta Business Ads and Google Ads make it easy to create highly focused online adverts, allowing you to target potential customers by age, profession, income bracket and a myriad of other factors. This allows you to get truly forensic with your marketing, running campaigns for different tailored audiences, and analysing the results, engagement and conversion to refine your promotion.

5. Share before-and-after project photos on social media

Social media platforms can be excellent places to engage with customers and prospects, and to build a following for your construction brand.

Platforms to consider include Facebook and Instagram for a domestic consumer audience, and LinkedIn for business-to-business (B2B) posts. Post regularly and share progress on your latest construction projects, with before-and-after photos to demonstrate the end results of the job. TikTok videos, Instagram reels and vlogs are also useful tools, allowing you to ‘speak’ directly to your followers.

6. Ask for reviews and testimonials

First-hand online reviews by satisfied clients are incredibly valuable. Always follow up with customers after a project is completed to ask for feedback and reviews. 

A testimonial from a happy client can be worth its weight in gold when it comes to marketing and social media posts. And asking customers to leave a rating on sites like Checkatrade can also be valuable, helping to attract more customers.

7. Use email marketing to stay in touch with leads and past customers

Email marketing is a highly flexible tool for maintaining engagement with leads, existing and past customers. 

A bespoke email marketing campaign, with a specified cadence of emails, helps to drive customers old and new to your site, generating leads, enquiries and potential conversation starters for your sales and marketing teams. 

How to budget for marketing your construction business

Upping the breadth and frequency of your marketing activity will lead to improved brand recognition, sales enquiries, contracts and revenue for the business.

But increasing your advertising activity also increases sales and marketing spending, and the overall operational expenses for the business. So, how do you finance this uplift in promotional campaigns without impacting your cash flow?

The answer is to have a defined marketing budget and to manage your budget, spending and ongoing return-on-investment (ROI) carefully. 

Let’s look at some tips on how to manage your marketing spend:

• Apply common benchmarks to your marketing spend: Typically, you’ll want to spend 3% of your company revenue on marketing advertising and promotion, according to the Association of Professional Builders. Stick within these parameters to keep spending under control.
• Understand the cost expectations: There are various expenses to plan for when increasing your marketing. These may include the costs of developing and designing your website, creating digital ads, producing and printing flyers, and putting a CRM (customer relationship management) system in place. 
• Be realistic with your campaigns: Start small with your marketing campaigns, to keep costs to a minimum. Track the results of each campaign, refine your strategy and scale what works to improve your overall results and ROI.
• Balance DIY marketing with professional agency help: There’s a trade-off between time and money to consider. You could go DIY with your marketing and do everything in-house to reduce costs. But this takes time. Or you could engage an agency to get professional marketing support. But this costs big bucks. Balancing those two approaches will deliver the best results. 

What marketing ROI looks like in the construction industry

Getting more marketing out there into the world is your initial goal. But you also need to quantify the additional time and expense and deliver a meaningful ROI.

Ultimately, the main returns you want are new customers and new revenue streams coming into the business. That’s how you justify your increased marketing spend to yourself, the board and your finance director. 

But what does good marketing ROI really look like?

In an ideal world, your marketing should deliver:

• Increased engagement and lead conversion: This means more leads being generated for your sales team, more jobs being booked, and a greater customer lifetime value from your long-standing clients.
• Higher brand awareness: Not all marketing ROI comes down to profits. Good marketing should also raise awareness of your company brand, your key people and the specific services you offer. 
• Vital intelligence and data: Digital marketing delivers a host of customer data for you to analyse. Track your sources of enquiries, your most popular services and which areas of the business are most profitable, to drive ROI. 
• Marketing success that doesn’t impact cash flow: Marketing spending must be managed carefully, so you’re getting a meaningful ROI in your Google Ads spend, without paying over the odds. Marketing activity has to align with the available cash flow and funding in the business, at the current time. 

Some results are tangible, like your sales revenue and annual profits. Others, like brand awareness, are more intangible. But in the digital world, all of these results can be tracked, analysed and evolved over time to improve your ROI.

How do I know if my construction marketing is working?

Start by tracking where each enquiry comes from. Over time, compare what you spend with the value of work generated to judge the effectiveness of your campaigns. You can also track and analyse your marketing spending, customer engagement, conversion and ROI of specific campaigns, to refine your strategy. 

Funding your marketing: when a business loan makes sense

Sensible use of marketing helps to grow the business and deliver profits. But marketing is also a key operational expense, requiring a budget and core funding to keep your campaigns alive and delivering ROI.

During cash flow dips, marketing is often one of the operational areas where cuts are made. But this can be counterproductive – reducing your ability to find leads, reach customers and turn prospects into revenue-generating clients.

So, should you consider applying for a business loan to fund your marketing?

• Strategic use of finance: taking out additional finance helps you continue your marketing activity and keeps your customer pipeline full.
• Short-term loans add flexibility: iwoca’s small business loans for construction provide funding of up to £1 million for short-term marketing boosts, and can be repaid early with no fees or penalties. 
• A boost to your promotion: A short-term loan gives you the capital to launch a new website, fund an online ad campaign, or pay for a stand and signage at the next construction industry conference.

Can I use a business loan to fund marketing efforts?

Yes, flexible loans are available that can be used to finance your marketing activity. These short-term loans are an investment in your marketing, growth and future prosperity, and most lenders will see the long-term benefit to the business.

The key is to apply for a loan that matches the current financial circumstances of the business, allowing you to utilise the funding while also covering the repayments. 

Aligning marketing with your business goals and capacity

Marketing doesn’t take place in isolation. Your advertising and promotional activities must be aligned to your wider business strategy and the goals of the company. 

For example:

• Don’t over-market and under-deliver: Marketing too aggressively when you can’t fulfil the increased workload is counterproductive. Failing to deliver damages your reputation and can undermine your efforts to grow.
• Match campaign size with delivery ability: Ensure the scope of your marketing campaign is realistic if you were to get the desired level of customer conversion. There’s no point running a national campaign if you can only offer services within a hundred-mile radius, for example.
• Focus efforts where you want to grow: Marketing shouldn’t take a scattergun approach. Be highly targeted and focus your marketing at specific targets, such as domestic or commercial markets, or house renovations etc.
• Marketing exists to support the aims of your business strategy – not to dictate it: It’s important that your marketing is carefully planned to drive your company goals and is strategic in its implementation.

How to scale your construction marketing as your business grows

The construction industry can be a volatile market. Contracts can come and go, the costs of raw materials can skyrocket and late payments from work on completed projects can be a challenge to your cash flow and growth strategy. 

But with access to flexible funding, like bank loans, invoice finance or asset finance, your marketing can be expanded as the business grows and scales up. 

Foundational steps for upping your marketing activity include:

• Moving from reactive to proactive marketing: This means aligning your marketing to your core business strategy with planned activity, like scheduled blog content, retargeting of ads and SEO-driven articles. 
• Invest in CRM tools: An up-to-date CRM system can transform the effectiveness of your marketing by helping you to track, analyse and use the insights from your customer data. This improves the ROI for your campaigns.
• Make the most of marketing automation: Many marketing platforms, such as Hubspot, have AI tools to automate basic elements of a campaign, including writing and posting automated social content. 
• Hire a freelancer or agency: As the volume of your marketing grows, think about engaging external help from freelance marketers and content specialists, or working with end-to-end marketing agencies to boost your capabilities.
• Expand targeting to new areas or services: Learning to diversify is a vital part of growth. Try untested waters by targeting new customer locations, or advertising new building services that the company is developing. 

What’s the best way to market a construction business on a budget?

Marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. It’s possible to set up a free Google Business Profile and to use targeted SEO to reach a wider local audience for your construction business. Ask customers for reviews, use directories like Checkatrade and build a solid following through inventive free posts on your social media platforms. 

You could even go old-school and print hard copy flyers, or look for other complimentary contractors to partner and network with. 

iwoca: short-term loans to fund the next stage in your marketing

At iwoca, we know the benefits of boosting your construction business marketing. And we’re here to give you a flexible route to the funding you need.

Don’t worry if your marketing budget isn’t stretching as far as you want. Take out a short-term iwoca small business loan and get the capital to promote your services.

• Borrow from £1,000 to £1 million
• 24 hours to get a decision
• Repay early with no fees
• Repayment terms from 1 day to 60 months

Apply for an construction loan