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Every organisation spends significant amounts on its recent history – measuring what’s happened with its finances. But too few invest in research to tell them what their markets and customers are doing and the opportunities or threats these represent. Here is an explanation of the various levels of research that are available to you. Construction…

Nyssa Patel, Industry Analyst and Economist at the Builders Merchants Federation explains how they have developed a unique method of forecasting demand. Launched in the spring of 2019, the quarterly Builders Merchants Forecast Report, uses a unique forecasting model specifically developed for the UK merchant sector and the building materials supply chain. While most forecasts…

A section covered in the CPA’s Construction Product Information Survey looks at the frequency of specification switching. This provides a useful reminder to building product manufacturers about the importance of publishing well written product specifications. Much of the work Competitive Advantage undertakes for our building product manufacturer clients is around the actions to minimise specification…

Chris Ashworth looks at some of the findings from the CPAs most recent report. One of the follow-up initiatives resulting from the Hackitt Review has been the formation of a Marketing Integrity Group by the Construction Products Association. The purpose of this group is to ensure that construction product information is provided in a clear…

Information is now often freely available and people complain of ‘information overload’, but in the construction industry there is a plethora of technical information available for free as well as paid for, and as such the quality of it can differ wildly.  It’s hard to know what information to trust. If technical information is chargeable,…

Thirty years ago, the job of a construction marketer was quite straightforward. There were a few key publications to target for PR, and getting editorial coverage for important stories in those magazines pretty much hit the spot each time. Ditto for advertisers. Circulations were large, reach and industry influence was significant. Is it still the…

It might be stating the obvious, but the unique characteristic of social media is just that – it’s social.  Get it right and you don’t have an audience, you have a community, a group, a tribe. The channels know that – and they encourage your innate tribal instinct.  Algorithms ensure you see content you are…

CPD is a key channel for communicating with architects and an important element of any specification strategy. With multiple options for CPD delivery available to manufacturers, it’s important that you have a well thought through and implemented programme as part of your marketing strategy for construction products.   What is CPD? To quote the CPD…

It has long been the case that the trends and approaches prevailing in consumer marketing have eventually crossed over to and shaped B2B communications. For many years now, for example, the mantra has been that there needs to be more emotion in B2B – talking human to human, rather than robotically outputting technical data. After…

Because the only constant in life is change, and while change is certain, the form of change isn’t.  We thus require information to enable a more informed view of the future.  We can gain a more informed view via in-house resources, although in reality, companies lack funds, and suffer bias when they take this route. …