For General Contractors
Marketing for general contractors.
Built for project-based revenue, long sales cycles, and the trust signals that close $50k-500k engagements.
GC marketing is not HVAC marketing. The sales cycle is months, the ticket is $50k-500k, and trust is everything. We build the content, social proof, and process transparency that get the call from the homeowner who is ready to commit.
What GC marketing actually looks like
Selling a $200k remodel is not selling a $400 service call.
A homeowner researches a kitchen remodel for four to nine months before they sign a contract. They look at Houzz, they save Pinterest boards, they argue with their spouse over an island layout, they get three estimates that are all wildly different, and somewhere in month six they pick a contractor. The marketing that works for HVAC — capture the call, dispatch the truck, close the ticket — does not work here. By the time the homeowner lands on your site, they have already read a dozen others, talked to a designer or two, and built a mental scoring sheet you cannot see. Your job is not to capture them in week one. It is to stay in their inbox, on their retargeting feed, and at the top of their mental shortlist for the next six months until the call is yours to lose.
Portfolio architecture is the second reality. Most GC sites have a "gallery" — thirty thumbnail photos of finished kitchens with no scope, no timeline, no budget range, no client story. That is not a portfolio; it is a screensaver. A real portfolio is structured like case studies: dedicated project pages with the original problem, the design conversation, the timeline, the budget range, the unexpected challenges, the final walk-through. Six well-built project pages outperform sixty thumbnail photos because the homeowner deciding between you and two competitors needs to imagine themselves inside one of those projects, and a thumbnail will not let them.
Then there is the qualification problem. The 9pm form-fill from someone wanting a $200k remodel on a $50k budget is not a marketing failure — it is the lack of upfront filtering. The GCs who scale do not chase volume; they chase fit. Lead forms that ask for budget range as a drop-down (not a text field), project scope, timeline, and address pre-qualify everything that lands in your inbox. Production tools like Buildertrend, CoConstruct, and JobTread already track this downstream — the marketing has to feed them clean data, not garbage. Done right, your sales calendar is full of in-budget homeowners who already saw your portfolio and already know your timeline.
The pattern
If you run a general contractors business, you have hit one of these.
Long sales cycles, leaky funnels
A homeowner researches a kitchen remodel for 4-9 months before signing. Without a nurture sequence (email, retargeting, content), most leads disappear into the void. You only see the ones who actively re-surface — which is a fraction of the funnel.
Bad-fit leads burn time and money
Tire-kickers asking for $200,000 remodels with $50,000 budgets. Without qualification at the lead-form level, your sales process spends weeks on prospects who will never sign. Better filtering = better margins.
No portfolio architecture
Most GC sites have a generic "gallery" of 30 photos with no story. A real portfolio architecture (project pages with before/after, scope, timeline, budget range, client quote) builds the credibility that closes high-ticket work.
Our GC playbook
Four moves built around the six-month decision arc.
Real portfolio architecture
Six to twelve dedicated project pages built in the first 90 days, each with full storytelling: original problem (cabinets too tight, no flow to dining), design conversation, scope and budget range, timeline, what changed mid-project, finished walk-through, client quote on the experience. Each page is its own SEO asset and ranks for niche queries like "kitchen remodel [neighborhood] $80k budget." Replaces the thumbnail gallery with something that actually closes deals.
Six-month nurture sequence
Top-of-funnel leads (early researchers, cost-curious homeowners) drop into a 90-day email plus SMS sequence pacing one touch per week. Cost guides, decision-tree articles ("should you add or remodel?"), client interviews, common-mistake breakdowns. Retargeting on Meta and Google reinforces the email cadence. The lead that goes silent in week three resurfaces in week sixteen with the budget approved and a question about kitchen pulls — and you are still on their list because you stayed.
Buildertrend / CoConstruct handoff
Lead form qualifies hard upfront: project scope (kitchen, bath, addition, whole-home), budget range as a drop-down ($30k-50k, $50k-100k, $100k-200k, $200k+), timeline, address. Qualified leads route directly into your production software — Buildertrend, CoConstruct, JobTread — with the right project tags so your PM does not re-key the data. Tire-kickers self-screen; in-budget leads land warm.
Service-line money pages
Year one focuses on your highest-margin service line: usually kitchens or whole-home for residential, tenant improvements for commercial. We build the flagship money page (1,800+ words, schema-tagged, internally linked to portfolio projects, wired to call tracking) and let SEO compound for nine to twelve months. Years two and three expand into adjacent lines (ADUs, baths, second-story additions, commercial buildouts) with the same architecture.
Avg project value
$85,000
Net new projects / yr (target)
+4
GC margin (industry)
~22%
Annual retainer
$23,964
+4 projects × $85,000 × 22% margin ≈ $74,800/yr of net new gross profit. 3.1× return on the annual Growth retainer at conservative assumptions. One incremental whole-home or commercial buildout pays for years of retainer.
Conservative model. Numbers above are illustrative and not a guarantee — GC project mix and margins vary widely. We do this same math for your business in your free strategy call.
The stack for general contractors
The services that move the needle for your business.
Website Design
Conversion-built, mobile-first, sub-2-second load times.
Learn moreSEO
Compounding inbound traffic, ranked for buyer intent.
Learn moreLead Generation
Forms, missed-call text-back, AI receptionist, and tracked attribution end-to-end.
Learn moreEmail + SMS
Automated follow-up, win-back campaigns, post-job review requests, dormant database wake-ups.
Learn moreReview Management
Automated request, response, and showcase — built into every job you complete.
Learn moreContent Marketing
Money pages, niche pages, location pages — written for the searches that actually book jobs.
Learn moreFAQ
Common questions from general contractors.
How do you handle the months-long sales cycle?
Email + SMS nurture sequences (not just lead capture and hope) keep your name in front of the homeowner during their research phase. Retargeting on Meta keeps you visible. Content (cost guides, decision-tree articles, project breakdowns) gets shared as they involve their spouse, contractor friend, etc. The funnel is long; the nurture has to match.
Do you specialize in kitchens, baths, or whole-home?
We specialize in your specialty. The marketing playbook is similar across service lines — what changes is the keyword targeting, the portfolio architecture, the content angle. If you do mostly kitchens, we go deep on kitchen-specific SEO. If whole-home is your bread and butter, that becomes the primary money page.
How do you qualify leads before they reach me?
Lead form asks for project scope (specific service line), budget range (drop-down), timeline (drop-down), and ZIP code. Tire-kickers screen themselves out at the form. The leads that come through are pre-qualified for budget + intent before you ever read them.
What about commercial GC work?
Commercial buildouts have a different funnel — RFP-driven, longer cycles, B2B social proof matters more. We build dedicated commercial pages and a separate intake flow. Many residential GCs add commercial as a 20-30% revenue line over time; the marketing supports that expansion.
Do you build the portfolio architecture from scratch or work with what I have?
Both. If you have decent project documentation (photos, scope, customer feedback), we structure it into a real portfolio. If you do not, we build a project-documentation process you can run going forward (15 minutes per project, captured by your project manager). Either way, by month 3 you have a portfolio that closes deals.
Built for general contractors. Built to compound.
Free 30-minute strategy call. We will run your booked-job math live and show you exactly which levers move first.