Lead Generation for Commercial Electricians: Power Up Sales With The Best Tactics and Tools to Drive New Business

Introduction

As the residential DIY market explodes, many electricians want to move to commercial jobs. Commercial electrical projects usually have larger contract values and bring in steadier work, which is why many electricians find them really appealing for growing their electrical business and their team.

However, one challenge many electricians venturing into the commercial market face is generating enough projects to cover overhead costs and sustain growth.

This is where lead generation tools come in.

In this article, we’re going to give you the tips, tricks, and strategies to begin growing the commercial side of your electrical business this quarter.

We’ll talk about how to generate electrical leads, what tools you need for efficient growth, and how to put them all together so that they nearly run on autopilot – saving you hours each day for tasks like closing deals and bidding jobs.

But before we “get into it”, let’s define what lead generation is so we’re all on the same page.

What is Lead Generation?

Lead generation is the art of identifying an ideal customer profile (ICP) (e.g., a property developer, retailer, or contractor) and converting it into a business opportunity. But this is where the “art” comes into play. Converting a random person who’s never heard of you into a paying customer is no easy feat. If you’re already in the commercial electrical business, you know that.

This is why there are two different types of lead generation campaigns: Inbound and Outbound:

Inbound Lead Generation

Inbound lead generation is the process of attracting leads to your products, services, and company. Inbound lead generation includes using strategies online like content marketing, social media, and SEO so that prospects come to you.

Outbound Lead Generation

On the other hand, outbound lead generation is more active. Outbound lead generation involves proactively and directly reaching out to potential customers through online and offline methods like advertising, calling, emailing, or direct mail.

Whether inbound or outbound, online or offline, the goal of lead generation for electricians is the same – engage your target market until they’re ready to take action. For many electricians, this might mean filling out a lead capture form, requesting a proposal or quote, or scheduling an appointment or bid.

To build a solid lead-gen system, you really want to strike a balance between both strategies. That way, you can keep the business flowing while also making sure people searching for commercial electricians can easily find you.

It sounds complicated, but don’t worry; we’re going to make it simple.

Why is Lead Generation Important for Electricians?

The single most important reason for building an effective lead generation system today is consistency. Growing a commercial electrical business requires the ability to float overhead for 30, 45, or even 60 days, depending on your client’s net payment schedule.

But that’s not the only reason; the electrical industry is facing the greatest workforce shortage we’ve seen in several generations, and the cost of hiring great electricians has skyrocketed over the past 4- 5 years, squeezing contractor’s margins.

We’re also seeing signs of “slowing” in the economy, and this could place pressure on electrical contractors who don’t have a full sales pipeline.

That’s why it’s so important to attract qualified leads that can turn into paying projects. It keeps the revenue coming in and helps you sustain hiring and growth!

Lead Generation Strategies for Electricians

Now, let’s dive into the core strategies to grow your electrical business. We’re going to start by focusing on outbound lead generation because these strategies are more predictable and consistent and then shift focus to inbound strategies.

First, you’re going to need a couple of tools to identify prospects and turn them into leads. This is where we recommend property intelligence software.

• Property Intelligence Solutions (e.g., Convex): Use property, account, and contact data to help you find and send personalized messages to decision-makers who are in your market and ready to buy.

A few years back, property intelligence solutions like LoopNet were mainly useful for property investors and tenants searching for space to lease or for banks and lenders needing comps for due diligence. But today, there’s a whole marketplace of property tools out there- one in particular that was specially built for selling commercial services like electrical projects – we’ll come back to which ones can have the biggest impact on lead generation in a moment.

• Pipeline Management Tools and CRM (e.g., Salesforce & Hubspot): These tools organize and automate the lead generation process, making it easier to track leads, follow up with prospects, and close deals.
• Sales Automation Tools (e.g., Zapier and Pipedrive): While there’s some overlap between the services that Pipedrive and Hubspot/Salesforce offer, sales automation tools focus more on the “how” of managing your leads – i.e., creating tasks, sending automated follow-ups, scheduling appointments.
• Ads (e.g., Google Local Services Ads): If you have the budget, setting up ads that direct people to your products and services can be hugely beneficial – but be careful, if ad platforms aren’t well managed, they get costly real quick!

Now, let’s shift our focus to inbound. Inbound marketing is about “being found.” In other words, how will people who are searching Google, LinkedIn, and other platforms for “commercial electricians in Indianapolis” find you?

This is where content is king!

• SEO and Content Marketing (e.g., Hubspot, Contently, WordPress): Writing blog posts that answer common electrical issues and optimize your website with relevant keywords to attract website visitors who may need your services.
• Social Media Marketing (e.g., LinkedIn): Posting content that resonates with your audience and using targeted social ads to generate leads can also be a big help. This means establishing a presence on platforms like LinkedIn and other sites specifically created as “marketplaces” to find electricians.
• Referral Marketing: Encourage your satisfied clients to refer others by offering discounts or special offers.
• Reviews Sites: Make sure you have a presence on review sites like Yelp and Google My Business. Positive reviews can go a long way in building trust with potential clients.

So now that you have an overview of inbound and outbound methods, how do you put it all together?

Lead Generation Software: The Magic Bullet

As a business owner or sales manager, having the right lead generation tool or software to find customers, streamline the sales cycle, and generate bids makes all the difference- especially if you’re building a sales team and they need to hit quarterly goals.

Let’s talk about building a “stack” of tools for your sales team! These tools help you find prospects, manage lead data, nurture relationships, and close deals. Plus, they make it easy to track your sales pipeline and enhance customer relationship management.

Here’s a list of key lead generation tools for electricians:

Property Intelligence Software

The first tool you need is a property intelligence solution, but not just any solution- you need Convex. (We’re Convex, so we might be a little biased, but here’s why!) Convex’s primary tool, Atlas, was built specifically for commercial services sales and marketing teams, and it’s the only tool on the market that includes both sales intelligence and property intelligence data.

Sales Intelligence is important because it tells you who to contact- the properties’ accounts and decision-makers needing your services! Property Intelligence helps you understand which specific properties need your services through permit histories and other data. When combined, sales and property intelligence make a powerful tool for lead generation.

Here’s how it works:

1. Log in to Convex and check the “Signals” category (our proprietary lead scoring system) to see who’s ready to buy in your market.
2. Then, search for any commercial property type, even multiple types, and access contact information, job titles, account names, property addresses, or tenants to identify which decision-makers to contact, bringing up a list of prospects to pursue.
3. With just two clicks, you can use Generative AI trained on their buying signals and your own company and contact data to send them an email or draft a script for phone calls.
4. Once you’ve sent the message, set up an automated follow-up (or) reminder and add them to your pipeline in Salesforce, Hubspot, or another CRM of your choice.

Simple!

CRM & Pipeline Management Tools

Next, you’ll need a CRM like Salesforce or Hubspot to manage and organize your leads. This is where all the data from Convex will go so you can track your pipeline and follow up with prospects.

If you have the budget, Salesforce is a great tool to help you manage the sales pipeline, but Hubspot offers the best free tools to get you started!

Marketing Automation Software

Hubspot also helps support your inbound marketing efforts by automating tasks like email follow-ups and content scheduling. Zapier automates your marketing tasks across multiple platforms, so you don’t have to remember to follow up with every single lead.

Social Media Management Tools

Once you have the outbound aspect of your business working well, having a strong presence on social media platforms can also help generate more leads and increase the domain authority of your website. Tools like Hootsuite or Buffer make it easier to manage and schedule posts across multiple platforms so you can create content once and share it in many locations.

Content Creation & Publishing Platforms

As an electrician, writing may not be your “strong suit,” but you’ll still want to create and publish content for your inbound marketing strategy – in which case you’ll need a platform like WordPress or Contently. Hubspot also offers a great option for content creation, and you can include lead capture forms and downloadable resources so potential customers can see your previous work.

These tools make it easy to write blog posts, optimize them for SEO, and share them with your audience.

Reviews & Referral Software

Finally, don’t forget about reviews and referral software! Services like Yelp and Google My Business make it easy for clients to leave reviews and refer others to your business. Make sure you have a presence on these platforms and encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews.

To summarize this section, Convex finds you qualified prospects and manages them through the early stages of the sales process; once they convert into leads and enter the sales funnel or pipeline, Hubspot can help you manage each stage in the sales cycle and automate tasks while Salesforce can provide a more robust CRM solution for larger sales teams.

Building this type of lead generation solution eliminates long prospecting and lead research times, provides valuable insights into prospects, and helps you generate more qualified leads to hopefully become sales.

This is the shortest path from total “stranger” to “buyer.” However, there are special circumstances where other tools can also be extremely valuable. For instance:

Website Visitor Identification and Email Address Lookup Tools

• Leadfeeder: Track visitors to your website in real-time and gain insights into their behavior.
• Hunter.io: Easily find and verify emails by typing in a name and company.
• Datanyze: A tool offering contact details, company insights, and personalized “icebreakers” for outbound sales and cold calling.Side note: Convex offers contact enrichment, which allows you to find decision-maker contact data built into our Atlas and Engage tools. So, if you’re already considering our solution, it may be worth demoing the platform to find out which tools will be most beneficial to your team before you pay for an additional tool.

Email Marketing and Follow-up Tools

Email marketing is one of the most effective channels for generating and nurturing qualified leads. Here are some tools to get the most out of your email marketing campaigns:

• ActiveCampaign: Automate email campaigns and use lead assignment features to assign leads to team members.
• MailChimp: User-friendly software for designing, scheduling, and sending emails.
• Boomerang for Gmail: Schedule emails and set follow-up reminders to ensure timely responses.

Landing Page Creation and Lead Capture Tools

To capture leads effectively, you need well-designed landing pages. The best landing page builder tools include:

• Unbounce: Create custom landing pages with a drag-and-drop editor. This tool is perfect for electricians looking for flexibility in design.
• Instapage: Integrates seamlessly with CRM tools like HubSpot and Salesforce, making it ideal for tracking contact data.
• Leadpages: Known for its ease of use and Facebook Ads integration, it’s a top choice for generating leads from paid ads.

Side note: If you’re considering Hubspot, their free tools include certain landing page tools, pages, and lead capture forms, but once you start mixing the CRM, pipeline management tools, content management, and lead capture, you’ll be paying a monthly subscription.

So, now that you have a list of tools, how do you choose the right ones for your business and goals?

Choosing the Right Lead Generation Tools for Your Electrical Business

Before choosing a top lead generation platform or tool, you need to decide whether to use a marketing/ lead generation agency or manage lead generation platforms yourself. Each has its pros and cons.

• Agencies: These save time but tend to cost significantly more, and you have less control over the process and the outcomes.
• Lead Generation Platforms: These are often cheaper to operate but require an investment of your time and effort (or that of your team).

If you decide to do lead-gen yourself, selecting the right lead-generation software is critical so you don’t get bogged down in “minutia.” Contractors who use these tools to streamline and automate customer acquisition will have an obvious competitive advantage over those who don’t.

Here’s how to assess your needs before choosing lead-generation tools:

1. Assess Your Current Tech Stack:

• Do you need lead generation, CRM software, or email marketing tools?
• Do you need better data or analytics to provide valuable insights on website visitors or prospects?
• Are you looking for marketing automation to streamline your sales process?

These will all be determining factors in selecting the best platform to drive leads to your business.

2 .Determine Your Lead Generation Goals:

• Are you looking to increase the number of qualified leads that turn into sales?
• Improve lead conversion rates and enhance lead nurturing.
• Drive customer engagement and retention.

Consider factors like lead management features, pipeline management, and ease of use when choosing a platform.

3. Assess Your Budget:

Find a tool that fits your budget, needs, and expected return on investment (ROI).

For example, teams using Convex see an impressive 9x median ROI.

4. Research Top Lead Generation Tools

Here’s a quick overview of the top platforms we mentioned throughout the article and how they fit into your sales strategy:

1. Convex: Specifically designed for contractors selling to commercial and industrial buildings, offering property intelligence, buyer signals, and AI-powered outreach.
2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Leverages professional network data for B2B lead generation, with customizable pricing based on usage.
3. HubSpot CRM: Offers a comprehensive set of sales automation features with email marketing, contact and customer relationship management tools, and pipeline management.
4. Salesforce: A powerful, customizable CRM with extensive features for larger businesses.
5. Zapier: A popular lead gen tool that integrates with many other platforms, allowing for streamlined lead capture and automation.

Once you’ve chosen your tools, focus on integrating and automating your lead generation processes.

Remember: platforms like Zapier can help connect your software, allowing you to automate workflows, assign scores to leads, and implement email marketing campaigns to nurture prospects, leads, and business opportunities.

Measuring and Optimizing Lead Generation

Tracking and optimizing your lead generation efforts is key to growth. Monitor these KPIs to measure performance:

• Website traffic: Track the number of visitors to your site to gauge interest.
• Lead generation rate: Monitor how many visitors are turning into leads.
• Conversion rate: Measure how many leads are converting into paying customers.
• Revenue per platform: See which platforms are generating the most revenue for your business.

These metrics will help you see whether or not you’re getting your “money’s worth” from each tool. Also, using tools like Google Analytics will help you track these metrics and refine your lead-generation strategy over time.

Conclusion

Remember, lead generation is an ongoing process that requires consistent effort, analysis, and adaptation. Use these tools to streamline and automate your processes, freeing up time to focus on bidding projects and closing deals.

Whatever tools you choose, generating new leads is vital for sustainable growth. With the right mix of lead generation tools, such as property intelligence software, email marketing, and landing page builders, you can ensure a steady flow of customers and future-proof your business. Ready to supercharge your lead generation efforts?

Schedule a demo of Convex today to see how we can help you take your electrical sales to the next level.