Greetings!
There was disappointing news about the construction market in last week's press, but there are still opportunities in housing, education, healthcare and infrastructure. For those of you in the midst of your planning process we have some suggestions to help you get the best from your marketing communications as well as details of a couple of useful events to attend. |
| State of the Market |
The latest CPA Trade Survey continues to deliver disappointing news, with reports of falling activity from July to September. However the good news is that the Office for National Statistics reports that construction orders for the same period were unchanged compared to the previous quarter (April-June). Meanwhile RICS report that education and healthcare contributed to workloads in non-housing public sector construction reaching their most positive level since the first quarter of 2008. |
| How's the Housing Market? |
Last month the CPA forecast that there would be a slow recovery in the housing market starting next year with 5% growth. Our own survey - Housebuilder Watch, just published, shows there is growing confidence amongst private developers with 43% of National and 18% of Regional developers saying they expect to open new sites in the last quarter of 2009. (Appendix 2 of Housebuilder Watch lists these companies).
Meanwhile the HCA has just announced 91 approved projects from its £400 million Kickstart housing delivery programme. A useful list of these projects giving details of the site, developer and number of homes is available for download.
£5 million has also been made available by the Department of Energy and Climate Change to increase the use of renewable construction materials. Funding will be administered through the HCAs National Affordable Housing Programme. Only homes that start on site during this financial year and achieve Level 4 or above of the Code for Sustainable Homes will be eligible. This does restrict opportunities as our Housebuilder Watch shows that only a small proportion of RSLs are building homes to Level 4 or above.
The programme also seems heavily biased towards timber as homes must "use a very high proportion of construction materials from renewable sources such as timber frame, natural insulation and timber windows to be eligible for funding." |
| Planning your Promotional Activity |
If you are planning your promotional activity for next year have a look at the report on the recent CIMCIG event the future of construction media. This was an interesting and thought provoking event which indicated that although online media is growing in importance there is still a role for the hard copy publication. Our own recent research, Engineer Communication Channels, suggests that the two forms of media play a different role. Hard copy magazines being used for browsing and idea generation while online publications are more widely used to keep up to date with the news.
If you want information about not just online and magazines, but other forms of communication such as CPD, Product Directories and NBS, Competitive Advantage have published two research reports on specifier communication channels. Architect Communication Channels published in October 2008 and Engineer Communication Channels published last month.
Finally, read this article in Building on using Twitter for some useful views on using this new communications medium. |
| Keep yourself Informed |
Here are two events worth attending in the lead up to Christmas.
I will be delivering an afternoon seminar Marketing Building Products into a Sustainable Market on 24th November at the Building Centre in London. It's good value at only £95 and reviews the drivers for sustainability, the key decision makers and proposes a strategy to maximise the benefit from this opportunity, suggesting ways that you can add value and position your company to get maximum benefit.
Don't forget the CIMCIG Construction Marketing Conference - Strategy 2010 being held at the Building Centre on 2nd December. This key event will help you prepare a strategy, segment your market and put in place a planning process. |
