Construction marketing articles
Below are a selection of articles that offer advice, recommendations and comment on promoting to Architects, Engineers, Contractors and other specifiers:
How often have you been paying at the till in a shop when the assistant is talking to their friend and ignoring you? Or been made to feel foolish in a mobile phone shop because you don’t fully understand all of the technology? It’s annoying isn’t it? Do you ever promise yourself not to use the shop again?
First Published April 2012, AIS Interior Insight
When they hear marketing most people think of promotion – advertising, brochures, websites and even business cards. This is only a small part of marketing and it is important to develop your strategy first so that you have a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve. The ground work for that was covered in my previous two articles. Having a strategy means you will have some direction when you start to promote your business.
First Published January 2012, ECA Today
How often have you been paying at the till in a shop when the assistant is talking to their friend and ignoring you? Or been made to feel foolish in a mobile phone shop because you don’t fully understand all of the technology? It’s annoying isn’t it? Do you ever promise yourself not to use the shop again?
And have you ever behaved the same way to your customers? Be honest, can you really say that every time you provide a service the customer has had a pleasant experience?
My preferred definition of customer service is "Customer service is about treating others as you would like to be treated yourself". What I want from a service provider is for them to understand my needs and deliver value.
First Published January 2012, ECA Today
"If I'd wanted to be in marketing I wouldn't have trained as an electrician." It's an understandable sentiment but these days everyone has to do a bit of marketing and sales. It is the way a market driven economy works. But Marketing is not about pressurising people to buy things. It's about issues like customer satisfaction, identifying opportunities, understanding customer needs and as a result being better than your competitors. All of these skills can help reduce business risk and improve profitability, important at any time, but particularly when there is talk of double dip recession and not only electricians but other trades are looking at how they can take away your business.
In this article and a few to follow I will introduce some of the marketing concepts and suggest how you can use them to make your business better.
First Published October 2011, ECA Today
When I was first introduced to specification selling in the mid 1980’s it was a very simple process; you visited an architect or engineer, told him what to put on his drawings and in the fullness of time the product would be purchased and installed. Then along came the recession of the late 1980’s/early 1990’s and things started to change, with the increasing occurrence of spec switching by the sub-contractor to save money.
First Published August 2011, SalesAchiever blog
Today, delivering high levels of customer service has become a key objective for most successful businesses, and quite right to. But do you remind your customers about the level of service they receive from you? Perhaps they just take the service they receive for granted and view you as the same as all of the others.
First published 27 April 2011, SalesAchiever blog
Competitive Advantage has recently completed impartial research into architect communication channels, updating their report from 2008 which points to the best channels to use when communicating with architects. Here Chris Ashworth previews some of the findings.
First Published January 2011, RIBA Insights
For many years there has been discussion about the increasing influence of the contractor and if it is worth bothering with specification selling.
Firat Published 17 December 2010, SalesAchiever blog
When specification selling, there is the tendency to focus on just the architect or engineer, forgetting about the contractor. Perhaps this is because when we think contractor, it is often the Buyer, Estimator or Project Manager of a Sub-contractor. But an often forgotten specifier works for the Main Contractor and will be responsible for many product decisions.
First Published November 2010, by RIBA Insights
Delivering a CPD seminar is one of the most effective means of introducing your company and the sales contact, to an architects’ practice. But as the choice of CPD seminars available increases, it becomes much harder to get a booking. To be effective, companies need to sell-in their CPD seminars.
First Published July 2010, RIBA Insight Monthly Bulletin
Did you see the recent article in Building Magazine, by the RIBA CPD Providers Network, suggesting ways that specifiers could earn their CPD? It made some good points, but also reminded me that if you use CPD seminars to sell, there is more to it than just writing and delivering a seminar.
First Published 17th February 2010, Competitive Advantage newsletter
Advice for building product manufacturers and suppliers on how to use CPD seminars to their advantage.
First Published: December 2009, RIBA Enterprises Bulletin
When we talk of specification selling there is a tendency to think of just the architect, but the engineer is an equally important specifier who’s role is increasing in importance. This is because of the growing complexity of the legislation which is pushing almost every aspect of a building’s design, causing the architects to rely even more on the engineer.
First published: October 2009, RIBA Enterprises Bulletin
For all of us, marketing to architects is a key business strategy. We want to create awareness of our products so that they will become included in designs, creating “demand pull” through the supply chain and eventually sales.
First Published: 4th August 2009, RIBA Enterprises Monthly Briefing
With the pressure to cut marketing budgets only likely to increase, now is the time to take a fresh look at where your money might best be spent.
First Published: 7th May 2009, RIBA Enterprises Monthly Briefing
With the pressure on budgets, now is the ideal time to take a fresh look at where money should be spent. In the past there have been a number of reports on communicating with specifiers, mostly published by RIBA and CMP International (publishers of Building and the Barbour Compendium). More recently there has been a report on the use of the internet by another directory publisher, ESI and Competitive Advantage recently published our own impartial report “Specifier Communication Channels”.
First Published: February 2009, AIS Interiors Insight