Judging by the fact that you clicked on this article, it stands to reason that you need some advice on how to market your paving company.

Lucky for you, you clicked on just the right article!

Did you know that your consumers’ needs are constantly changing?

If your paving company doesn’t adapt to these changes, you will lose customers left and right.

What you did, marketing-wise, in years past won’t cut it now or in the future.

You are probably thinking, “Well s**t! I don’t know how to come up with new marketing strategies.”

You don’t have to.

We did the work for you!

The team at One Thing Marketing has worked with many clients in the home trade and construction industry, including paving.

From our experience, we have put together a list of nine marketing strategies to help you grow and get more paving company leads.

We customized these same strategies for one of our own paving clients and just look at the results they saw in just four months!

We increased our paving client's Google traffic by 5x in 4 months.

Our paving client saw an increase in quote form leads by 3x.

With these marketing strategies, our paving client saw a 4x increase in phone call leads.

Keep on reading to learn just how you can get the same results using these very strategies!

Oh and real quick!

If you don’t want to mess with all this on your own, we would love to help! Schedule a strategy session to find out how we can help you get more leads and grow your business by creating custom marketing strategies just for you!

Too long, read later?

Download the guide to read these strategies
whenever & wherever you want!

1. What Are Your Marketing Goals?

First things first, you have to have a place to start.

And the starting point should be defining your paving company’s marketing goals for the year.

You can’t start creating and implementing marketing strategies if you don’t know what the purpose is!

When you clearly define what your marketing goals are, you achieve two things:

  1. You will have a better idea of what efforts need to be involved
  2. It will help you identify your return on investment in the end

For example, our asphalt paving client had a marketing goal of increasing traffic to their website. By increasing traffic, they increased their potential number of qualified leads.

It’s all related!

So how exactly do you determine your marketing goals?

Glad you asked!

1. Review: Take a look at last year’s books. Collect data on how many new customers you gained, how many phone calls you got, how much traffic your website saw, etc..

2. Ask: Ask yourself this question, “What do I want to increase in the new year?” And please don’t say “make more money!” because, well,

…duh.

Who doesn’t?

Instead, get in the mindset of “what aspects of my paving company can I improve to grow my business?”

For example, your goal could be to increase traffic to your website by 25%. More traffic means more potential customers and more customers means more money.

Remember?

It’s all related.

3. Track: Do you have a way to track your progress? If you don’t track your efforts, how will you know what is and is not working and when you actually hit your goal?

There are several ways to track your progress, which we will get into later on.

Once you have your marketing goals in hand, you need to map out a plan over the course of the year.

This helps you manage your efforts and progress while at the same time, allowing you to make tweaks along the way, if necessary.

Each goal needs to be broken down into four timeframes:

Let’s see an example:

  • Yearly: You want to see an increase of 100 customers in the new year. If last year’s customer count was 400, this would be a total of 500 customers.
  • Quarterly: This breaks down to 125 customers per quarter.
  • Monthly: Which breaks down to 42 customers per month.
  • Weekly: And finally breaks down to 9 customers a week.

By setting goals and breaking them down, they are easier to track and digest.

Grab the popcorn, because from now on is where the magic really happens.

2. Every Paving Company Needs a Website

If you don’t have a website or have a less than ideal one, you are REALLY stunting the success of your asphalt paving company.

94% of first impressions relate to your website’s design.

Holy crap, right?!

To your business, a website can be one of your biggest assets, if not the biggest.

The vast majority of paving companies don’t have customers walking into their shop. Instead, you go to the customer’s location. Thus, you can’t make an in-person first impression. You will have to rely on your website to do this for you.

A well-designed, functional, and user-friendly website can create that bridge between curious consumer and serious buyer.

If we haven’t convinced you by now how important having a website is, here are five more reasons your paving company should have a website.

Here are some of the basics of what your website needs to include:

  • Homepage: This is your website’s store front.

  • Service Pages: If you do asphalt, seal coating, striping, etc., each of your services needs to have its own service page.

  • Contact Page: How can potential new customers contact you if they can’t find your phone number or email address?

  • Gallery: As a paving company, it can be EXTREMELY beneficial to have images from past projects. They can help validate your credibility and give customers an idea of what to expect from you.

  • About Page: People are nosey. They want to see who you are before calling. Use this page to introduce yourself and your company.

Your website is too important for you to not give it its due diligence, so we recommend hiring a professional web design company.

Before our partnership, our paving client had multiple websites with conflicting information, messaging, and branding. And it wasn’t doing them any favors.

We made sure they had one website with consistent messaging that highlighted their services and showcased their skills.

3. Every Website Needs SEO

Let’s set the stage here…

You are the owner of an asphalt paving company who dreams of a steadily increasing flow of new paving leads.

The reality is, you are struggling to get the phone to ring.

So you ask, “Now that I have a great website, how do I get potential customers to find my paving company?”

The answer is SEO.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of optimizing a website to increase its visibility in search engines.

Implementing proper SEO strategies into your paving company’s marketing plan ensures your website can be found on search engines for words and phrases your potential customers are actively searching for.

If you increase your site’s visibility, that leads to more site visitors, which turns your website in a lead generation machine that can be working for you 24/7.

So how does SEO work?

The video does a good job of explaining how SEO works, but basically, there are over 200 factors Google uses to rank your site in the organic search results (the listings underneath the advertisements).

With proper SEO, your paving company can increase your rankings in the search results.

Some of those factors you have control over and some you don’t.

For example, you can’t control how old your website is, but you can control the quality of the content on your site.

At One Thing Marketing, we took all the ranking factors and categorized them into three simple ones.

There are over 200 ranking factors Google uses to rank your paving company's website.

  1. Relevance: The content on your website has to tell Google what your site is about.
  2. Trust: Some of the factors like the age of your website, the number and quality of inbound links, and your website’s content can increase or decrease the level of trust Google has in your brand and website.
  3. Competition: How competitive the paving industry is and where you are located in relation to your target customers can also affect how well Google ranks your site.

You or your marketing company need to devote time and effort into these factors in order to see the best possible ranking results for your paving company.

What exactly do you need to do?

With SEO there are different areas you need to work on:

Initial Website SEO

Do keyword research in order to find relevant keywords and phrases to include on your pages, including the title tag and meta description.

After doing keyword research for your paving company, put those words in your title tags and meta descriptions.

Make sure your website can be easily viewed on mobile devices. 80% of users use a mobile device to search online so your site better be mobile-friendly.

It also needs to load in 2 to 3 seconds or less. 40% of users will leave a site if it does not load within three seconds.

Easy to use navigation and a positive user experience, although not ranking factors, are also a must.

Initial Service Page Optimization

Like we mentioned before, each of your services needs to have its own page. Don’t just have a list of your services crammed on one page.

When each service has its own page, you can correctly optimize that page and its content for keywords and phrases specific to that service.

Ongoing Content Marketing

Once you get your website up and optimized, the work doesn’t stop there. In order to maintain and ideally increase your ranking, you will need to invest in content marketing.

Content Marketing is a strategy focused on creating and publishing valuable, relevant, and fresh content on a continual basis.

You should write about industry-specific topics or answer the questions you get most often from customers.

Link Building

With a well-optimized website and fresh, relevant content, you can obtain quality links, or “mentions,” on other websites that link back to your website.

This signals to Google that your site is trustworthy and knowledgeable and will help your site rank higher in the search results.

Link Building is a great way to increase the leads for your paving company.

SEO is a complex process, with many different variables involved along with many different strategies needed to get results.

It is also something that does not happen overnight. It takes time to see the results of SEO. But trust us…

…it is well worth the wait.

If you’re too busy running your business, but still want to see results from SEO, the team at One Thing Marketing can do all of this for you!

Contact us to schedule a FREE 30 minutes strategy session to see how we can increase your paving leads!

Too long, read later?

Download the guide to read these strategies
whenever & wherever you want!

4. Does Google, or Your Customers, Know Where You Are Located?

Okay, so we just talked about SEO in regards to your website, but now we are going to switch to another branch of SEO – Local SEO.

Local Search Engine Optimization is a branch of SEO that focuses on optimizing a website to be found in relation to your physical location.

So when someone goes to Google and types in search terms like;

  • Paving contractors in [City Name]
  • Paving company near me
  • [City] paving services

They are conducting a “local search.”

In fact,

90% of all consumers researching local products or services start by looking online.

When you utilize Local SEO, you are engaging in the practice of building signals, like trust, relevance, and proximity, so that Google knows that your business is relevant to a specific location.

If done correctly, you increase the chances of your paving company showing up in the “map” or “local” section on a Google search results page.

Local SEO can help your paving company show up in the map section and get more leads.

Snagging one of these three highly coveted spots gives you a 100% chance of increasing your paving leads.

What can you do to optimize your paving company for local search?

We’ll show ya!

Create, Claim, & Optimize a Google My Business Listing

Having a Google My Business (GMB) listing allows you to display your address, hours of operation, website link, and other important information to online searchers.

Your paving company needs a GMB listing to attract more leads.

Create, Claim, & Optimize Online Directory Listings

There are literally hundreds of online local directories you can list your paving company on. Yelp, Yellowpages, Apple Maps, Angie’s List, Thumbtack, Home Advisor, Porch, Houzz, and BBB are just a tiny fraction of directories your paving company should be listed on.

Optimize Your Website

Make sure your website has relevant terms and phrases that are most commonly searched for so you stand a better chance of showing up in the search results.

For example, “paver” “pavers” “paving contractor” “paving company” and so on.

You can also link to your Google Map on your contact page or in the footer of your website.

For those paving contractors who have customers come to their shop, include driving directions to your location.

Encourage Reviews

Make sure you and your employees are encouraging customers to leave a review of your paving company on your GMB listing.

The more positive reviews you have, the more likely potential customers will choose you over your competitors who have less or poor reviews.

Having reviews of your paving company can help attract new leads.

So there you have it – Local SEO!

Pretty neat, right?!

We think so.

We encourage you to get started on these marketing ideas sooner rather than later.

If you need some help or would like to pass the burden to someone else, give our team a shout!

With our FREE 30 minutes strategy session, we can help you get your paving company in front of more potential customers!

5. You Better Be Tracking Those Leads

Let us ask you a question…

As the owner of your paving company, how do you know how much money you make each year?

You track it with some program or another, right?

Well, the same concept applies to your marketing.

The purpose of lead tracking is to see which marketing efforts are successful and which ones are not doing you any favors.

Your paving leads many come from various sources, so it’s important to track each one.

Tracking ALL marketing efforts will help you make informed decisions moving forward with your paving company marketing.

Let’s talk about the different types of lead tracking.

Call Tracking

Fun fact for ya…

65% of Fortune 500 Companies say phone calls are their highest quality lead source.

By tracking the calls to your paving company, you can understand how customers reach you, whether they’re calling from your website, radio commercial, or print ads. Then, you can see on a recurring basis, which marketing methods bring in the most calls.

In order to be the most effective, each of your marketing campaigns needs to have a unique tracking number that forwards to your main business line.

All marketing for your paving company needs to have a specific call tracking number to track leads.

You can even set up a Whisper Message that will tell you where the call is coming from when you first pick up the phone.

For example, you might hear something like “Call from website.”

Isn’t that awesome!?

Form Tracking

We encourage you to have at least one form on your website. Some consumers prefer to submit a form over talking on the phone.

It also allows potential paving leads to submit their info or ask a question outside of your business hours.

The peak time for form conversions is 9pm, signaling people prefer to finish completing forms from the comfort of their own home.

By tracking form submissions, you can get a more detailed look into the actions of website visitors.

You can track things like:

    • How they got to your website
    • What pages they visited before filling out the form
    • How long it took them to fill the form out
    • Field Drop-Off Percentages (which fields have the highest percentage of people not filling it out and subsequently not submitting the form)
    • Field Completion Time (how long it takes someone to fill out each field)

With this data, you can optimize your forms to have the highest completion rate and submission rate. And all this will help you get more leads for your paving company.

Website Tracking

How do you know how your website is performing if you don’t track its progress?

We recommend that you connect your website to Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

Use Google Analytics and Google Search Console on your website to track leads to your paving company.

The different kinds of data you receive with these two tools are ASTOUNDING.

You will get data on:

    • Amount of website traffic
    • Number of new visitors
    • Pages with the most visits
    • Location where your traffic is coming from
    • Number of times your site appears in the search results

And the list just keeps on going!

With this data, you will be able to make informed decisions regarding your website and online marketing efforts.

So it’s clear to see (or we hope it is) that lead tracking is pretty important.

Without proper lead tracking, we would have never been able to quantify these results for our paving client:

And remember…these AMAZING results came after only four months!

6. Manage Your Online Reputation

How important is your personal reputation?

Probably pretty important.

Everyone wants their reputation to be positive, accurate, and be associated with their hard work.

It works the same for the online reputation of your paving company.

If no one writes online reviews about your paving company, then your good reputation is not being seen by potential customers.

Reputation Management is the name for the effort of influencing what, and how, people think of a brand, person, or company when viewed online.

In simple terms, it means managing your online reputation by getting more reviews on Google. It can also be beneficial to get reviews on Facebook, Yelp, or any industry-relevant sites where your customers might be looking for quality providers.

And obviously you want as many of these reviews as possible to be positive.

82% of consumers read local business reviews as part of their online searching.

If you have none or few reviews, but your competitor has 50, then you can bet that prospective customers are going to call your competitor over you (even if you are ranking higher on the search results page).

The more reviews your paving company has the more likely customers will choose you over your competitors.

And we don’t want that to happen to you!

The benefits of review management will blow your mind.

  • Reviews Build Credibility: The more reviews you have, and ideally more positive reviews, the better your business will look in the eyes of consumers.

The more postive reviews your paving company has the more potential leads will trust your company.

  • Reviews Help You Connect With Your Customers: When your customers leave reviews, this gives you the chance to interact with them – be social. By responding to reviews, you build trust among your customers and it gives you a chance to see any flaws and kinks in your business.
  • Reviews Can Help Your SEO: When you have many reviews, especially positive ones, people are more likely to click on your listing in the search results. This tells Google that people trust your business.

Here is what you need to do to start managing the reputation of your paving company.

Reach Out and Get Reviews

Engage with your customer with proactive requests, via in-person, text messages, and emails, to generate feedback and new reviews.

Use email or text messages to ask customers to leave reviews of your paving company to help attract more leads.

Monitor, Listen, and Respond

Monitor all incoming reviews, both good and bad, and respond to each one. If someone leaves a positive review, thank them for their business and the review.

If someone leaves a negative review, let them know you are sorry they had a less than ideal experience and that you are open to talk to them to resolve any issues.

Responding to your reviews is pure gold.

In fact,

89% of consumers read business’ responses to online reviews.

The more responsive you are, the better your reputation will be.

Market Your Customer’s Experience

Show off your reviews on your website and on your social profiles. Marketing reviews of current customers will help bring in new customers.

Here is an example of a social post of a recent review you could publish.

Market current reviews of your paving company on social media to attract new leads.

Grow Your Paving Business Through Customers

You will need to continually reach out and ask for reviews and feedback, which you can use to convert even more customers.

Reputation Management is EXTREMELY beneficial to your paving company, but if this all seems a little overwhelming or you don’t have the time to devote to it, no worries!

One Thing Marketing has a Reputation Management service that can automate the whole process!

Interested?

Drop us a line and schedule a strategy session to learn more!

7. Email Marketing: Yeah, It Works

Do you like making cold calls?

No.

Do you like receiving cold calls?

No.

That’s the beauty of email marketing. You can quickly reach out to all your customers without ever having to pick up the phone.

Email Marketing is the act of targeting consumers with a commercial message through email with the goal of driving sales, increasing customer loyalty, or communicating important information.

And no, are not talking about spam.

A successful email marketing campaign is one that provides unique, coordinating messages that engage your audience, rather than annoy them.

99% of consumers check their email every single day.

The customers of your paving company receive tons of emails. It’s important to find a way to stand out from the crowd.

The benefits of email marketing are hard to argue with:

  • Stronger Customer Relationships: You can’t reach out and call every one of your customers or see them in person. Email Marketing campaigns allow you to communicate with your customer base on a regular basis.
  • Increased Traffic To Your Website: Emails are a great way to get customers to visit your website. You can include relevant links to your site in the email or highlight a new piece of content you just wrote.
  • Establish Authority in the Paving Industry: When you send your customers emails with updates, reminders, or promotions, you’re staying relevant. This allows you to build authority and keep your paving company in front of consumers.
  • Better Brand Recognition and Awareness: Email Marketing that is fun and engaging catches the attention of viewers. They will associate your brand with the awesome emails and this can lead to increased brand awareness.

Now let’s dip into the different types of Email Marketing.

  • Promotional Emails: These are sent out as needed. Examples include:
    • Newsletters: They are sent to present news related to your paving company like a milestone reached, a large project being completed (with pictures), or a new service added like striping.

Use email marketing to tell customers about a new service you added to your paving company.

    • Email Campaigns: These are focused on more sales and marketing. They have a specific purpose like signing up for a special offer.
  • Automated Emails: These can be as simple as a “Thank You” email when someone signs up to receive your newsletter. You could even set up automated reminder emails when homeowners or business owners should schedule work or maintenance on their driveway or parking lot.

So…

Has Email Marketing peaked your interest?

Great!

When implemented correctly, Email Marketing can really spread the word about your company and drum up some paving leads.

8. Ever Tried Pay-Per-Click Advertising?

At this point, you know having an online web presence is key.

You have taken our paving marketing strategies to heart and now have an optimized website, optimized Google My Business Listing, and are actively investing in Content Marketing.

We mentioned earlier that it takes time to see the results of SEO. So what do you do if you need to see results right away?

Investing in Pay-Per-Click Advertising might just be the short-term answer you are looking for!

Pay-Per-Click, or PPC, is a type of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked.

Essentially, it’s a way of buying your way to the top of the search results page via paid ads.

These ads show up at the top of the Google search results for specific keywords and phrases you want to target.

For example, you might want to target the phrases “local paving company,” or “driveway paving.” So when someone in your target area types those phrases in, your paving company’s website appears at the top of the search results page.

We recommend combining SEO and PPC together to reap the benefits of both.

Start with SEO to begin the process of getting effective, long-term results. In the meantime, use Pay-Per-Click Advertising to boost your paving business and get immediate top-of-the-page listings when launching a new website, product, or service.

Here is what you need to do to kick start your paid search marketing campaign:

A Pay Per Click campaign is a great way to quickly increase leads for your paving company.

  • Keyword Research: Make sure you are targeting the right keywords for your audience so you get the best results.
  • Campaign Setup: Setup your campaign with Google Ads – including ad creation.
  • Landing Page Creation: It’s best to set up a landing page specific to the service you are promoting to send the traffic from ads. This will dramatically increase your conversion rate – versus sending traffic just to your homepage.
  • Tracking: It’s important to integrate both Google Analytics and Call Tracking. This ensures you have as much click and call data as possible so you can see which results are coming from your SEO efforts and which are coming from your paid search marketing (ads).
  • Campaign Management: On a regular basis, review your campaigns and make any necessary tweaks. Like removing keywords that aren’t producing results, updating bid amounts, etc.

PPC can be a little tricky at times and getting just the right combination of keywords and bid amounts can be a game of cat and mouse.

And remember, unlike SEO, you have to pay for every click so it’s important to know what you are doing.

If all this seems a little intimidating, then don’t hesitate to reach out to a PPC professional.

9. Social Media Is NOT Just For Millenials

Part of managing your online presence is making sure you have one.

What else can you do besides have an awesome website full of SEO, writing stellar content, and investing in Local SEO?

Jump on the social media bandwagon.

As of the end of 2019,

72% of adults use at least one social media channel.

You can build a community on social media platforms for yet another way to interact with your customers.

Like it or not, social media can be a powerful asset to your paving company.

With a quality social media marketing strategy in place, your online profiles will be full of engaging and up to date content, like posts, videos, pictures, and more.

Social media is also a great way to promote custom offers and build relationships with your customers.

Here are some promotional ideas to get you started!

  • Coupons: 20% off for first time customers.
  • Giveaways: Run a contest where the winner receives a free iPad or giftcard. This is a great way to drive engagement and brand awareness.
  • Referral Bonuses: Incentivize referrals with one discount per referral.
  • Seasonal Discounts: Agree to waive one of your additional fees in honor of the season.

For your paving company, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Houzz are all valuable social media channels.

Your paving company should use social media marketing to engage with current and potential customers.

Be sure to keep all your profiles up to date with your business information, like your company name, phone number, website URL, and business hours. In addition, make sure you follow these best practices for creating an outstanding profile:

  • Upload high-quality photos only. Don’t risk uploading a photo that might be blurry or less than amazing.
  • Follow other professionals to create a network and gain credibility.

We talked about Reputation Management earlier, but being on social media is also another way to respond to reviews or recommendations that customers leave for your business.

It’s All About Those Leads!

Well, there you have it!

Nine delicious, hot out of the oven paving marketing ideas.

One Thing Marketing wants every business to be successful, big and small. If getting more leads and increasing revenue is on your todo list, then now is as good a time as any to buckle down and implement these strategies.

Check out this case study of our paving client where we used these same marketing tactics!

Local Paving Company Case Study

Problem

Before working with our team, our paving client had multiple sub-par websites from various online marketing agencies. Nothing was consistent and the lack of coordination was not driving any business.

They were not tracking their marketing efforts, so they couldn’t see what was and was not working.

They were not invested in SEO and relied heavily on Pay-Per-Click Advertising, which can be a good short-term strategy, but really shouldn’t be used for the long-term.

Solution

Our team started with building a solid foundation.

We built them an entirely new website that highlighted their services and their expertise. Call tracking was set up and we connected their website to tracking programs (Google Analytics and Google Search Console) so we could easily evaluate their site traffic and number of leads coming in.

Next, we optimized the website with SEO and Local SEO. And the work didn’t stop there.

From then on out, we completed ongoing work like Content Marketing, Link Building, and website maintenance.

Results

In just four months, they saw:

After the first year, the results grew even more:

Using these paving marketing strategies, you can increase traffic to your website which will increase the amount of leads.

The team at One Thing Marketing would love the chance to sit down with you and discuss how we can take your paving company to the next level. Jump on board with us and schedule a no-obligation, 100% free strategy session today.

This could be the “one thing” your paving business needs.