Posts Tagged ‘Construction Marketing’
What every Finance Director needs to know about Marketing
Marketing can sometimes be viewed as the money-spending department, rather than the revenue-generating department. Marketers often don’t help themselves by talking vaguely about “brands” and “positioning” (and letting themselves be seen as ‘creative types’) rather than using the kind of words the FD loves to hear – cashflow, return on investment, margin, and of course profit. So here are some important ways that Marketing and Finance are linked – and why a great marketer should be the FD’s best friend, and vice versa. Read more…
How the CMAs were won: Best Product Launch
The Construction Marketing Awards, presented on 29th November 2011, give the construction industry the opportunity to recognise its very best marketing campaigns. Winners are invited to contribute a summary of their entry to this blog: today it is SitexOrbis, winner of the Best Product Launch category for the second year in succession.
SitexOrbis as a brand is associated with steel shutters on vacant properties, but this was a limited market and would not fuel growth.
As the recession hit the UK, levels of theft amongst vacant housing association and council properties under development rose substantially. As burglars became more sophisticated, housing associations and construction firms needed to stay one step ahead.
With this in mind, and armed with feedback from customers asking for help, SitexOrbis developed and launched an innovative proposition that would help the company diversify its offering.
SitexOrbis took an existing battery-powered, video-triggered alarm device (Videofied Alarms) and made it meet the demanding needs of the housing sector by including a 24/7 remote monitoring service, online reporting (using the “Aura” workflow management tool), site wardens and flexible pricing.
To launch this new proposition, SitexOrbis had to educate an extraordinarily demanding target audience who were change-resistant, price sensitive and technophobic.
The theme for the launch was ‘delivering more for less through innovation’ which reassured housing professionals that their shared fears about crime could be tackled in a manner that would actually save time, money and even carbon emission – therefore hitting three key hot buttons at once.
The most important feature across all the marketing activities was the building of trust: the housing sector is extremely sceptical of any new product, let alone one that is technologically advanced. For this reason the marketing used case studies, industry experts, articles in trusted publications and even industry awards to reassure housing professionals that they had nothing to fear from this innovation.
While building trust with the target audience, a parallel internal marketing campaign built trust with client-facing staff – whether site operatives of sales consultants.
Once trust was established then lead-generating modes of communication including exhibitions, seminars, email marketing and even social media, converted this trust into sales enquiries and ultimately sales.
The success of the campaign is best evidenced by 80 customer wins (a substantial proportion of the housing sector).
Furthermore, this new proposition is clearly differentiating SitexOrbis from competitors when tending for large contracts, helping SitexOrbis land major contract wins. 44 of the new clients are from these big ticket wins.
The success and creativity of this marketing has helped SitexOrbis clinch their second successive win in this category.
Construction Marketing Awards – winners announced
Fifteen categories of marketing excellence were recognised last night at the annual Construction Marketing Awards, with Manchester based specialist SLG Marketing taking the top Agency of the Year accolade and Anil Govind of Groundforce, being awarded the title Marketer of the Year.
Run by the Chartered Institute of Marketing Construction Industry Group (CIMCIG) the awards recognise and celebrate the best and most innovative marketing campaigns in the construction industry year.
In 2011 there was a marked rise in the number of entries for the digital and on-line categories, with new technology well represented: Optima’s ipad application particularly impressed the judges in the Best Use of Technology category.
However, if there was one characteristic common to many of the entries, it was that of really effective targeting. The Build Centre (and its agency Tangent Snowball) won in two categories for its thorough and well-planned campaign targeting existing customers with personalised promotional material, while NICEIC won the Best Use of Exhibitions category for its own live event whose success was down to careful analysis of the target audience to deliver an attractive programme.
The event coincided with the 40th anniversary of the founding of CIMCIG and the awards evening was enriched by the presence of a number of past members of the Group. Renowned British architect, Ex RIBA President and CIMCIG founder member Owen Luder gave a welcome address in which he reflected on the importance of the marketing discipline.
“Marketing is not just about being known – it is recognising that you have a skill or a product that someone wants to buy and then knowing how to sell it to them. You must know your market.
“The great thing about awards is that they raise standards. Even if you don’t win, just by entering you focus on raising your standards. I am all in favour of awards.”
CIMCIG Chairman Ian Exall summed up his reaction to this year’s entries: “the level of professionalism and articulate problem solving is definitely more advanced than we have seen in previous years. More and more of the entries demonstrate that marketing isn’t just about a nice brochure or golf day but good strategic analysis and implementation.
These are certainly tough times for the industry. However, the winners in the awards give me huge confidence that we have the skills to take advantage of the opportunities that are out there.”
The full list of winners and shortlisted entries are as follows:
Category One: Best use of Strategic Marketing
Winner: Build Center (Tangent Snowball)
Shortlist: AJA Fermacell (AJA), Kingspan Benchmark (IAS B2B), Lafarge Fact (McCann Manchester) Barrett Steel (Netconstruct)
Category Two: Internal Communications
Winner: Imtech Process
Highly commended:: Apollo
Category Three: Best Use of Advertising
Acheson & Glover – MRA Marketing
Shortlist: Redrow, Caterpillar (Young & Rubicam), Forbo (CIB)
Category Four: Best use of Public Relations
Winner: BSS – Willoughby PR
Highly Commended: Swisspacer (MRA)
Shortlist: Glidden (Tangerine), Eurovia (Wildwood)
Category Five: Best Use of Direct Marketing
Winner: Build Center – Tangent Snowball
Shortlist: Trelleborg (IAS B2B), Lafarge (McCann Manchester, NBAT), BLP (TC Communications)
Category Six: Best Use of Technical Information
Winner: Optima – Cyber Duck
Shortlist: Trelleborg (IAS B2B), Fermacell (AJA)
Category Seven: Best Use of Events and Exhibitions
Winner: NICEIC
Shortlist: Kingspan (IAS B2B), Knauf (TGV), Surestop
Category Eight: Best Use of Website
Winner: Door-Stop – MRA Marketing
Shortlist: Minster (CIB), Woodhouse, Lafarge (McCann Manchester, NBAT), Sotech (Harris), Barrett Steel (NetConstruct) , Megaman (Neonlite)
Category Nine: Best Use of Digital Communications/Media
Winner: Tubosider – Considered Creative
Shortlist: IES, Trelleborg (IAS B2B)
Category Ten: Best Product Launch
Winner: SitexOrbis
Shortlist: Alumet, ESG Polyvision, Lafarge Cemergi (McCann Manchester), Kingspan (IAS B2B), Tata Steel
Category Eleven: Best Campaign under £25,000
Winner: Groundforce
Highly Commended: SitexOrbis
Shortlist: Trelleborg (IAS B2B)
Category Twelve: Best Campaign over £25,000
Winner: Alumet
Highly Commended: Glidden Trade (Tangerine PR)
Highly Commended: Polypipe (SLG Marketing)
Shortlist: BLP (TC Communications), Lafarge Big Boys (McCann Manchester NBAT Redmark), Lafarge FACT (McCann Manchester), Goodman (Campaign Works), Catnic (CIB)
Category Thirteen: Best In-house Marketing Team
Winner: Lafarge Cement
Shortlist: Alumet
Category Fourteen: Agency of the Year
Winner: SLG Marketing
Shortlist: Tangerine, IAS B2B, CFA, Harris Associates
Category Fifteen: Young Marketer of the Year
Winner: Anil Govind, Groundforce;
Shortlisted: Carina Watson, Built for Marketing; Daniel Jenkins-Ferguson, NICEIC
Marketing corners you should not cut
CIMCIG’s Rick Osman believes that when times are hard it is tempting, or even necessary, to cut back on your marketing, but where should you cut? More importantly which areas should you not cut.
Marketing in tough times is not just about cutting expenditure, it is about getting the most from what you already have. At CIMCIG we have consistently argued that marketing is more important during a recession than it is in times of plenty, sadly not all financial directors are in a position to agree so it is necessary to think about what can be cut and where your efforts might be concentrated.
Read more…
Digital marketing – the easy alternative?
There’s one thing we’re all led to believe about technology – it’s supposed to make our lives easier. What’s more, in an age when marketers are being challenged to slash overheads, do more in less time, and save carbon… surely technology can provide some help there too, can’t it?
That’s just one of the things we set out to explore – in a very practical way – at the CIMCIG digital marketing workshop on 17th March. By the wonders of the world wide web, simultaneous events were held in London, Bristol and Leamington Spa, with speakers broadcasting from each venue during the course of the afternoon.
It was a first for CIMCIG – a bold plan that took weeks of preparation. We did it for several reasons. Firstly, marketers are being challenged to use ever-changing technology in a relevant way. There’s a pressure on marketers to know how webinars, virtual events and video conferences work, and understand the pros and cons. So we did our own event to give delegates a real-life “social media experience” – so they could see first-hand what those benefits and pitfalls might be.
Secondly, it promised huge potential for us as CIMCIG. With our membership dispersed around the country, perhaps this kind of virtual approach could provide more convenient regional events, and a model for the future.