Construction marketing
What does work is having the right marketing materials and understanding how to use them.
As well as being on the committee of the Chartered Institute of Marketing Construction Industry Group and judging at the Construction Marketing Awards Highwire is regularly asked to contribute articles for construction magazines and websites such as RIBA, Building and Construction News. We also speak at seminars and conferences as well as tweeting to construction marketers most Tuesdays and some Thursdays. You can also subscribe to our occasional newsletter.
We write about practical things that construction marketers can apply straightway to improve their marketing. Here are just a few of those articles.
Five fundamentals of marketing communications
Marketing is essentially a simple exercise and five fundamentals apply regardless of whether you are using PowerPoint, Twitter, exhibitions or CPD.
Would the TX-1090 smell as sweet?
Historically technical products were not named; they were created by technical departments who generally work with project numbers, so when the TX-1000 is developed and improved it became the TX-1001 and so on. But the memory and retrieval processes central to studies such as cognitive psychology and neuropsychology are equally important in construction marketing.
Any colour you like as long as it's not blue (or yellow)
One of the principal purposes of marketing is to differentiate your company or brand or products from those of your rivals. Which is why it is not a good idea to use blue.
Your marketing material is your product
A visit to an exhibition and a trip to an award-winning swimming pool made it clear why, online or in print, to a specifier your marketing material is your product.
Really bad product literature
Poor product literature says more about your products than rivals ever can. A colleague returned from a trade show promoting hotel design and development, raving about the positive implications for the construction industry, however a look through some literature collected at the show revealed some glaring deficiencies.
You need to tell people when things are going well
Most of the time, most construction projects go pretty well, the trouble is that the construction industry rarely lets the rest of the world or even the rest of the construction industry know about it, you need make the most of your wins.
Don't follow the crowd
Sometimes accepted custom and practice may not be the best guidance, sometimes they might even trip you up so it's wise to sit back and have a little think before you do what everyone else is doing.
You need to encourage the unsubscribers
If your newsletter looks the least bit dodgy or unreliable then it won't be read or even worse your email address will be tagged as a spammer. That's why you should help those who want to unsubscribe.
Selling to specifiers
Although successful construction product suppliers acknowledge the architect's key role, the growing influence of contractors and others in the specification process reinforces the need to communicate with a broad range of influencers. So it is vital to consider the roles of different groups in the specification process.
A prediction from 2010 about construction advertising in 2012
Finally way back in 2010 we wrote an article for Building magazine about construction advertising in 2012, have a look and see if we were right.