As work starts to pick up in the construction industry a key marketing question for me is “Are building product manufacturers going to stay focused on what’s important?”
The last few years have taught many of us to be lean, pin-sharp and focused on delivering real value for our businesses and in order to achieve that, you knew had to work backwards…
Let me explain…
It is just as important now, as it was then, to fully understand exactly what makes for really effective marketing.
And in order for any marketing resource (in-house or out-house) to do really effective work it needs to be completely clear about one rather important thing.
What does SUCCESS look like in the minds of those holding the purse-strings? …and that’s on both sides of the buyer/seller spectrum.
Ask One Simple Question.
Amongst all the early planning and diagnostic-type questioning that should go on between marketing and management there is one particularly simple, yet golden question, that you (as marketers) cannot fail to ask management.
The type of question that uncovers the kind of meaty information that will not only steer your marketing strategy but will also act as a sanity-check for each and every subsequent tactical marketing decision too. It will become the back-bone to an official, management-backed, working document that is your marketing strategy and plan.
Here it is:
“If marketing could generate One Significant Impact in the next 12 months what would it be?”
It’s that simple.
What does it look like and to whom?
Wouldn’t you just love a good clear answer to that?
In the years we’ve asked this question, to a wide range of key decision makers within building product manufacturers, time and time again it’s given us all the direction, boundaries and freedom we’ve needed to allocate marketing resource and budget effectively.
And you know what, the frustrating things is the answers will not surprise you.
In fact, I doubt any of the following business and marketing challenges (that is what they are) will be news to you.
Thinking, Planning, DOING, Reviewing.
This is what creates the huge gulf in competitive advantage between those that know what to do and those that are actually doing it…
Here are the answers that we hear time and time again:
[For the purposes of this post I’ve batched the answers into 8 categories. However, in our own diagnostic questionnaire this is just one of 60 pin-sharp, super-focused questions that get to the very core of the challenges faced by our clients*]
“If marketing could generate One Significant Impact in the next 12 months what would it be?”
1. Broader Brand Visibility and Reach:
- Increased visibility in the UK market.
- A far greater awareness of our products throughout the specification market with a greatly increased enquiry and specification level.
- To up our profile within the industry, both in terms of product and awareness.
2. More Research and Clearer Intelligence
- To provide us with the insight to redevelop our website to become an effective lead generation tool.
- To understand what our digital marketing is doing for us now and how we can make it more effective going forward.
- To understand where enquiries are coming from and which are converting to orders.
- To research and locate our target market.
3. More Qualified Sales Leads:
- To improve and increase the number of sales ready leads for our sales team.
- To obtain enough quality leads to enable us to increase sales to a sustainable level.
- An increase in awareness across the UK Market, of our product range, and therefore an increase in leads.
- Quality sales leads and therefore a greater conversion of leads to orders.
4. Better Channel Measurement:
- To clearly measure what the web does [for our business, now], and by doing so generate more good quality enquiries that lead to a marked increase in sales.
- We do not sufficiently understand what our digital marketing is doing for us.
- To generate a more proficient and measurable marketing plan that develops the company and takes it to new heights
- More leads and a better understanding of which campaigns have worked best
- We’d like to measure where enquiries are coming from and which are converting to orders.
5. A Better Website and User Experience (For customers and marketers):
- A re-design to make the website easier to use for current customers and attracting and converting new prospects.
- To make the website relevant, usable, informative and easy to navigate for both specifiers and end user customers.
- Vastly improved website usability and navigation for customers.
- Enable customers to quickly access answers to a range of routine technical questions through the provision of a user friendly website.
- To enable our customers to quickly access answers to a range of routine technical questions.
6. Clearer Product Positioning:
- To be able to explain [simply] to visitors what our product is, does and to clearly communicate our core brand values.
- Simplify our messaging for both specifiers and end user customers.
- Harder hitting, impactful messages which position our products as the ‘go to’ provider.
7. Better Use of Resource and Improved Productivity
- To improve [internal] productivity with meaningful statistical information from the website and the subsequent automated data feeding directly into our CRM system.
- To develop into a lean, efficient, systemised, culture driven business able to fly an entire level higher than the competition.
- To have a little more management time, and to have an assistant dedicated to the support of the sales manager.
- To see a data management system implemented that can drive the team and the business effectively and efficiently.
- To justify the requirement for a website with a CMS [content management system] to allow for easier maintenance and more regular updates.
8. A Healthier Bottom Line:
- To consistently make good profits and become the number one company in the UK and have a globally recognised brand.
- An increase in strong specifications for our extensive product range leading to an increase in profitable orders and growth.
- Increase profitability by setting clear goals focused on core profitable products.
- To deliver a credible, achievable marketing plan to grow our business profitably.
- To create a definitive marketing plan with clearly outlined goals and KPI’s.
Summary
What I’m hoping this post illustrates is that in marketing, for building product manufacturers at least, the overall marketing challenges are typically the same. Maybe all our businesses, in whatever state they are in now, could benefit from a little improved performance in some or all these areas.
The trick is to find out which are the main priorities – which will deliver the one significant impact right now…
Work that out and your marketing strategy will become instantly more focused.
*The answers under each topic are taken from participants of our Digital Profit Hunter audit and were provided by key marketing decision makers from CEO’s to marketing execs, technical directors to commercial directors and everything thing in between. Some have been amended to protect the company (and individual) identities.
The companies we typically work for are small to medium sized building product manufacturers or sub-brands of larger construction organisations. All the answers here were garnered from Pauley Creative clients between 2010 and 2014.
If you’d like to find out how Pauley Creative can help you to deliver on any of these significant business issues please do call me on 01908 671707.
