Dorian Wallace
For building product manufacturers, developing trust with architects is essential in getting specified. To do this effectively it is crucial you understand what architects want from your brand and how you can influence their decision throughout the specifier journey.
Read on to find out more...
A technical perspective to trust in construction
Seeing your customers as statistics rather than human beings is detrimental to the building trust and the success of your business, view them instead as people trying to find a solution to a problem. You need to establish trust because:
- Your customers are the epicentre of all of your business activities. Your business exist to solve a problem for your customers, don’t shy away from this factor as it is what makes your brand unique and it can even yield opportunities to optimise
- Customers control the destiny of your brand. If your business isn’t credible, whether its from past mistakes or a lack of online presence, then your customers will leave and turn to your competitors. This can even result in your company being blacklisted by good fit architects.
- Happy customers are your best marketing strategy. You can advertise all you like but what it really boils down to is word-of-mouth, recommendations and online reviews. Think, when was the last time you purchased a product from Amazon which had a 3 star rating?
Happy customers make your brand credible and trustworthy to other specifiers who are considering a building product solution. I know what you’re thinking, isn’t that standard? Let me delve a little deeper.
On all construction projects there will be a BOM created. A BOM (Bill Of Materials) breaks down every component needed to manufacture a product. Now, within that there are two sub-categories: Multilevel bill of materials, and single-level bill of materials.
If you assumed multilevel BOM is a fully comprehensive list of products and a single-level BOM is a rudimentary version, you’d be right.
A BOM outlines the quantity cost, product code, and other information. BOMs helps architects plan material purchases, estimate cost, and reduce waste.
The information in the BOM is then shared with all business systems involved in ordering and building the product… This is where you will receive information if you have been shortlisted. It’s here where you may need to propose the benefits of your product over that of your competitor.
So, how is trust and a BOM connected? Let me explain.
BOM’s are put together by architects and engineers… Most likely the people who specify building product brands like your own. When shortlisted for one, if your brand delivers in all aspects claimed by yourself and required by your customers then you’ll more than likely to receive more specifications from those architects in the future.
This is why some of your competitors may have unshakably loyal customers due this one factor. Trust.
How to build trust effectively
There are many ways you can build trust between you and your customers, and not all are expensive... Most are completely free. The most useful ways to establish trust with your customers is as follows:
Do not assume your product is right for every architect or customer, this helps ensure your product is right for the project while building credibility and trust with the architect. You’ll occasionally find architects return with a better suited project for your business because of this transparency.
Ensure your business is as secure as possible. If you sell your products online you need to ensure your website offers secure payments, otherwise people will refuse to pay as well as spreading their negative experience with your brand.
Sign up to as many relevant social media accounts as possible. Try to ensure you social media accounts are authentic as well as helpful, active, and showcase your expertise. Nowadays 80% of the buying process in conducted online, so make certain your accounts are relevant and helpful to your customers needs. Think. What’s the first thing you do when you find an interesting brand? If you’re like me, you visit their website and social accounts then evaluate your options before even picking up the phone to call.
Have a professional website which caters to the needs of architects, customers and specifiers. 47% of visitors expect websites to load in less than 2 seconds, so in having a slow site you lose half of your visitors instantaneously. A few quick fixes for page load times are:
- Image Size - Keep hero images below 5MB and body images less than 1MB. You can compress images to a smaller size without losing major quality here.
- Video Size – Large videos can significantly slow load times, so you may have want to compress your video to improve your sites user friendliness. We compress our videos for free here.
Conclusion
Let’s recap. Running a business isn’t solely about churning a profit and lifting your bottom line, building product success is based on your customers and how they perceive you: Listen to them, consider ways you can make their lives easier and in turn they’ll become brand cheerleaders promoting your brand far and wide.
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.