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As a contractor, should you be advertising on Nextdoor? That question can be phrased in a different way: “Is local advertising important to your contracting business? The answer then becomes an emphatic, yes! Local advertising is absolutely critical to your contracting business because contracting is a local profession.

The people in your city need to know about your company and your services. Take the following statistic into consideration: over 46% of all Google searches performed have local intent. That’s quite a revelation for those interested in online promotion.

But what is local intent? Local intent refers to searches that specify an area in direct proximity to the searcher. For example, “plumbers near me” is an example of a search with local intent. But what does any of this have to do with Nextdoor?

In today’s post, we are going to show you why you need to utilize Nextdoor advertising in 2023.

What is Nextdoor?

At its heart, Nextdoor is a social media platform. But it isn’t like Facebook and Twitter. It is a locally-focused social media network on which members need to be verified as to their home addresses. Once someone verifies that they actually live in the area they claim to, they have access to a wealth of neighborhood resources such as message boards, community news, local business directories, and more.

But one of the most useful features of Nextdoor is the Local Recommendations page, wherein real members of the community can review and highlight their favorite local businesses. There is also a forum on which members of the neighborhood can ask other members for recommendations for virtually any kind of service…including reliable contractors.

Why is Nextdoor Important for Advertising?

Nextdoor is very stringent with its verification process. They make it virtually impossible for people who don’t live in your area to infiltrate their online community. That means that all your advertising efforts on Nextdoor will go to the right people. 

The problem with careless ad campaigns is that money gets wasted on targeting the wrong market. The reason why Nexdoor advertising is so important for contractors is that all of your advertising dollars will be spent targeting people in your area. But you may be asking yourself a very important question at this point…

How Popular is Nextdoor?

Advertising on a platform that no one uses is pointless. But the numbers about Nextdoor don’t lie. According to Scripps News, Nextdoor is now used in 1 of every 3 households. To put that figure into a more tangible form, the same article reports that about 36 million people actively use Nextdoor.

There are also 260,000 active neighborhoods on Nextdoor and growing. That is a lot of people using Nextdoor every day. There is no question about Nextdoor’s popularity and its viability as an advertising platform, but what else does it have to offer?

Nextdoor Reviews

Nextdoor allows its verified users to leave reviews of local businesses. And local reviews carry a lot of weight with consumers. According to a PR Newswire report, a colossal 97% of consumers will read reviews of a local business before making a purchasing decision.

And according to Bright Local, 91% of the all-important millennial market trusts online reviews as much as a word of mouth recommendations. And all the more if those reviews come from someone in their neighborhood.

And if you are worried about how active users are on Nextdoor in terms of giving recommendations, Business Wire reports that as of 2017, there were more than 17 million unique, user-generated local recommendations made. And the community has only become more active since then. 

The Big Caveat with Nextdoor

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the benefits of advertising on Nextdoor, but these benefits come with a sizeable caveat: you have to have the money. If you are a local contractor, you will be required to spend a minimum of $15,000 per month in advertising billings with Nextdoor. 

The reason for this is that most local businesses cannot generate the ad revenue that a social media platform as large as Nextdoor would need to cover costs. It is kind of ironic, then, that a locally focused network, by and large, cannot be sustained with the ad revenue of small local businesses.

The Bottom Line

The good news is that you don’t have to necessarily advertise in the traditional sense on Nextdoor to get seen by locals. By simply claiming your business on Nextdoor, you can put your business in front of the eyes of the people in your community. And if you treat your customers right and offer quality service, you will earn more recommendations and positive reviews. 

For more information on how you can advertise your business, contact us here at Contractor’s Society of America. 

You might wonder, “can I repair asphalt roads during cold weather?” Whether you are a paving contractor just getting into the game or simply a concerned homeowner, you may have asked yourself at one point or another, “Can you patch asphalt in the winter?”

In fact, as a contractor, this is an extremely important question. After all, you may want to shy away from a trade that you can’t work in when the temperature drops – especially if you live in the Northern climates. 

So right off the bat, to allay your fears and concerns, we here at Contractor’s Society of America want to say yes, you can repair asphalt roads during cold weather. But there are a few caveats that go along with this answer. Like many aspects of the trades, answers aren’t always as simple as “yes” or “no.”

To help you better understand Winter asphalt repair and the questions that surround it, we have drawn from the vast pool of knowledge of our own members here at Contractor’s Society of America.

Can Winter Weather Damage Roads?

It’s important to first understand why asphalt roads and driveways seem to incur the most damage during the winter months. The science behind this phenomenon is actually very simple, actually. It has to do with the freezing and thawing cycles of winter.

As precipitation ramps up during the winter months and rain soaks asphalt surfaces, the low temperatures freeze the rain. When water freezes, it expands. This expansion is what makes asphalt uneven and cracks it.

The problem gets worse when the frozen water thaws and re-freezes in the same spot. When the expansion and contraction process is allowed to occur multiple times in the same area of pavement, the damage gets worse.

And even when asphalt is able to avoid cracking due to freezing and thawing, the low winter temperatures can make it brittle. At that point, all that is needed to create a pothole or crack is a heavy vehicle to drive over it. 

Asphalt damage in the winter months is almost unavoidable, but there is good news; asphalt damage can be repaired as soon as it occurs – even in the winter months.

Hot Mix and Cold Mix

“Can I repair asphalt roads during cold weather?” Yes and no. You can make patches and fix individual potholes in roads and driveways during cold weather. But if you are trying to repave an entire road in winter, good luck. To understand how you can repair asphalt damage in cold weather, you need to understand the difference between cold mix and hot mix asphalt.

Hot mix asphalt has been around for ages. How mix is what is used to pave and repave entire roads because, quite simply, it can be paved. As the name suggests, hot mix is transported and applied hot. Then, it Is paved over to a smooth finish. But when you try to apply hot mix in temperatures below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, it will not bond properly.

Cold mix was introduced in 1995 and revolutionized the paving industry. Cold mix performs well in cold temperatures, but it cannot be paved. It is usually used straight out of the bag or container and tamped down with hand tools. Because of this, it is ideal for spot asphalt repairs in the winter but not for paving entire roads.

So you can make individual spot repairs of potholes and cracks during cold weather so long as you use cold mix asphalt.

Other Caveats

As you may have guessed by now, there are certain circumstances that would allow you to use hot mix asphalt (and therefore perform entire paving and re-paving jobs) in the winter. Hot mix asphalt will still adhere and pave correctly so long as the ambient temperature is 55 degrees Fahrenheit and rising.

So if you do plan to do some repairs in January, you will have to plan the day very carefully. Not all the days in winter will be freezing cold, but you have to make sure the day you plan your repairs is set to be 55 degrees or above for at least half the day. As such, the best time to start these projects will be just before noon.

Ask a Professional

You may have other questions about asphalt paving, such as how to clean asphalt and other tips. While research is always helpful, sometimes you need the help of a professional to make the right call. Here at Contractor’s Society of America, we have the expertise and a brimming directory of professional contractors. We can help you answer any question and complete any project.

Contact us today. CSOA aims to provide contractors with the most relevant and up-to-date information in the industry.

It should go without saying that contractor safety is important at all times. But seemingly menial considerations are being swept under the rug these days. This fact is demonstrated by the following statistic: the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there are roughly 150,000 job site injuries that occur every year. So, as you can see, we are not the safety-conscious workforce that many people believe us to be. 

And while most contractors take the necessary safety precautions for themselves and their crews, there are certain things that you simply cannot anticipate. Evens still, there are a minority of contractors that actually don’t make safety a top priority. And here at Contractors Society of America, we consider it our duty to inform the contractors of this nation and bring to the forefront of their minds the top industry issues of the day. We offer a plethora of resources that are geared towards helping contracting business in the United States run more effectively, win more bids, do better work and stay safer.

So with today’s post, we thought we would reiterate why contractor safety is so important in the workplace. Contractor safety goes well beyond keeping your crew healthy and active; it’s about maintaining a profitable business as well. Take a look at just a few of the reasons why contractor safety is important in the workplace.

Customer Assurance

Having the faith of your customers can make or break your contracting business. In a report conducted by Marketing Charts, it was found that 8 in 10 consumers will patronize a business that they trust and that brand trust affects their patronage habits. One of the most effective ways to instill trust in the minds of your clients is by running a safe work site. No one wants to hire a company they think might cause an accident on the job. Likewise, the way a company treats its employees says a lot about trustworthiness in the mind of a customer. 

Therefore building trust through contractor safety is important to retaining customers, winning new bids and earning repeat business.

Compliance with Employee Safety

As a contractor, you will probably have to work in tandem with owner-employees at some point. We had an electrical contractor tell us a story about one such situation. This contractor company operates in the heart of California’s wine country. They were hired to run electricity about a mile and a half from the main facility to a field house. The client was a multi-national winery and it was a huge contract.

The job needed to be done in very short order and as such, the contractor’s employees were not briefed on the safety regulations of the winery. They were working side by side with winery employees who were wearing more safety gear and following stricter safety practices than that contracting team. This did not reflect well on the electrical contractor. Once the job was done, the winery did not work with the electrical contractor again even though the winery needed much more electrical work done.

The contractor lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in projects; all because he did not make sure his team was complying with company safety policies. This happens a lot with contractors. You will have to work in tandem with owner employees at some point and you will have to adhere to their regulations if you want to keep contracts.

Cost Control

When an owner undergoes a construction, renovation, or expansion project there is a lot that goes into cost calculation. One of those things is contractor safety. When an accident occurs on the worksite, the money to address it will not always come out of the pocket or from the insurance of the contractor. 

So when an owner s looking for a contracting company to help them complete their project, they will look at the safety record of the contractor to help them calculate costs. This is what is sometimes referred to as the cost of doing business. If your contracting company is perceived as “high risk,” even if an owner hires you, you may not make as much as you would on the project as if you were perceived as “low risk.”

Cost calculations take into account what is likely to happen throughout the course of the project since no one can tell the future. Therefore, the safety record of your contracting company could be the difference between a fatter bottom line and being paid pennies on the dollar for a project.

Maintaining A Quality Work Force

Finally, contractor safety is important to maintaining a skilled workforce that can go on to prevent worksite accidents. The truth is that it is already hard enough for contractors to keep a skilled and experienced work staff these days as interest in the trades is waning. In a recent study, 2,500 contractors were surveyed and 80% of them reported difficulty filling open skilled labor positions. 

There is already a shortage of experienced workers on the job market, so why take the risk of having one of yours injured and incapacitated? By ensuring safety for yourself and your team, you are ensuring continued quality. Your foremen will also be more experienced with safety regulations so keeping them healthy and on the job site will make every project they are a part of that much safer. In this sense, contractor safety perpetuates itself when it is maintained properly.

Your Safety is our Priority

And of course, contractor safety is important in the workplace because, well, it keeps you safe. The health, productivity, and prosperity of you, your crew, and your company is the greater good here. And we can help provide you with the resources you need as a contractor to maintain a high level of safety on the job site. 

Here at the Contractors Society of America, your safety and prosperity is our priority. Find out more about how we can help you today.