Ainhoa Rodriguez-Muguruza
The average percentage of the revenue spent on marketing is 11%. Yes, that is right! Companies are spending £1 out of every £10 that they earn on keeping the ball rolling.
And, for 44% of the companies spending that percentage of their revenue on marketing activities, the clear goal is lead generation. The main areas of investment lay within digital and online marketing, particularly focusing on paid search, SEO, and content marketing.
Marketing plans are, however, particularly specific. There is no one size fits all! Depending on the resources at hand, your marketing efforts might look differently and, most importantly, perform differently. The people available to conduct a plan, the technology used to leverage said the campaign and the budget invested into it will impact the overall result. With that, there are some essential steps that you will need to consider if you want to deliver a successful construction marketing plan.
#1 Do Your Research
Get to know your audience, genuinely.
A particularly clever way of doing this is by interviewing your customers. Specifiers are often happy to offer insights into what they look for when searching for product solutions like your own. You can ask them about their position or work sector, about what attracted them to you, or even the keywords they used when browsing!
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#2 Define Your Targeted Persona
Not all specifiers look for the same element in a construction solution and, consequently, they do not want to be told about your products in the same way.
It is essential for your marketing strategy to be deeply rooted in data-driven insights that help you understand the core challenges architects and specifiers might be experiencing. Whilst you should be looking at reflecting the richness of your audience, it is important not to go overboard and define a maximum of 5 personas to cater for.
#3 Segment Your Audience
The more research you devote to developing your specifier personas, the more accurate your marketing efforts will be.
With a clear preference for quality over quantity, specifiers will be put off from researching your brand if they do not resonate with your message. For that, it is imperative that your database is properly segmented, not only following your carefully researched specifier personas, but also taking into account demographic, behavioural, and sales-specific traits.
#4 Adapt Your Message
Once the segmentation is done, it is time to personalise your message.
Content personalisation, in fact, has been highlighted in the last years, with 94% of customers across industries considering it “important,” “very important,” or “extremely important”. According to Demand Gen, 53% of marketers believe that ongoing, personalised communication with existing customers impacts revenue, with Campaign Monitor estimating that revenue increases by a remarkable 760%.
#5 Focus on Educating About Your Product
You are an expert in your field and, more importantly, when it comes to your building products!
It is important that you communicate this, without falling into a sales pitch. Rather than selling, your message should be focusing on educating about your product, its story, and the impact it brings to the world. Leave industry-specific jargon behind and make sure your message is clear, concise, and accessible to your audience.
#6 Create Content
It sounds simple, doesn’t it? And it truly isn’t.
Creating content is the perfect way in which to get your message to a wider audience, showcasing your expertise on a particular topic and increasing the chances that search engines will feature your content. Any content you create should keep the previous steps of this blog in mind, making sure that speaks to a particular persona, that it is adapted to a specific audience, and that it educates that audience about your construction solution.
#7 Publish On Multiple Channels
It might seem intuitive but posting content consistently is as important as writing it coherently!
Over half of social browsers use social media exclusively to research products. According to the Sprout Social Index, after finding a brand on social media, 91% will feel drawn to visit their website, 89% will make a purchase, and 85% will feel encouraged to recommend the brand. Whilst LinkedIn has been the main social media platform recommended for B2B outreach, keep it versatile.
#8 Constantly Optimise Your Assets
Whilst good content should be your main aim, knowing how to make that content good for Google is also important, particularly if you want that content to rank high on Google.
To increase your organic traffic, you will need to target specific keywords on your content. Together with using the right keywords, you might want to invest some time in other effective SEO tactics, such as local SEO and backlinks. This will increase the number of visitors consistently accessing your content.
#9 Use The Right Tech Stack
In 2021, 1 out of every 5 construction leaders believed they would benefit from having more access to real-time information, particularly through faster data flows. In some cases, this might require the digitalisation of the database of your building product brand into a cloud-based CRM. In fact, as reported by Nucleus, a CRM that leverages automation can improve operations performance in about 20% and productivity by about 15%!
#10 Report On Your Marketing Efforts
Set clear goals and report on whether your marketing plan is ticking all the boxes. Marketing is not an exact science, but it is not far from becoming one. Through marketing-specific platforms such as HubSpot, you will be able to track and report on the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, identifying those assets that are attracting more leads and pointing out those areas that might need you to focus on a little bit more.
BONUS Make Sure Your Website Stands the Test
In 2017, a solid 98% of specifiers reported heading to Google when seeking construction solutions for their specifications. This translated into over 40% of the revenue of building product brands that year coming from purely organic traffic. Speaking to a remarkably technical audience, falling short on providing accurate and sophisticated data is not an option. Create detailed content available within 1-2 clicks that can also be downloaded and shared.
About Insynth
At Insynth we deliver a predictable flow of leads, customers, and specifications for building product brands through our inbound marketing approach, proven to reach a technically demanding audience.
We use the latest marketing techniques such as construction inbound marketing, to equip building product companies to grow sustainability in this era of digital transformation.
As the only HubSpot certified agency to major in construction marketing. We have a proven formula of bringing a variety of functionalities together including CRM Implementation, Web Design, Sales Automation, SEO, and Email Marketing to achieve your ultimate aim: Growing your business and gaining new specifiers and customers.