Construction Sales and Marketing Newsletter

October 2013

Welcome to this month's edition of the Construction Sales and Marketing Newsletter. With reports of increasing confidence amongst UK construction firms, continued growth in the housing market and sales of construction products growing the outlook remains positive. So this eNews provides some useful tools for your forward planning, including information on our new research into marketing activity and spend, as well as the changing influences on specification sales. If you would like help with your specification sales strategy then please contact me. I would be happy to discuss this with you.

Construction market activity

The ONS has released its construction output figures for August 2013. These show that when compared to July 2013, construction output decreased by 0.1% in August 2013. They also show that compared to the previous year output increased by 4.0%. The Construction Products Association's latest State of The Trade survey indicates that the sales of construction products continued to grow during Q3 2013, with the growth mainly being led by private housing and Infrastructure.

With the housing market still leading the construction industry's recovery, the ONS house price index shows that UK average house prices increased by 3.8% over the year to August 2013, up from an increase of 3.3% in the year to July 2013. This increase has continued since April 2012 and is the highest year-on-year change since October 2010. Private and public housing new orders significantly increased between Q1 2013 and Q2 2013, predominantly driven by housing new orders in and around London. With the housing market picking up, Galliford Try are reporting record results with a pre-tax profit increase of 17%.

Looking forward, there are further signs of recovery as RIBA release the results of their latest Future Trends Survey. The survey shows that all regions of the UK gave positive workload forecast figures, with the south of England and Scotland being the most optimistic. The most positive about the prospect of improved workloads in the next quarter are medium sized architects practices.

Finally, KPMG have published their Annual Global Construction Survey. This shows that Australia, the UK and the Middle East are the least hopeful, but there is increasing confidence amongst UK construction firms. Internationally the main opportunities are seen as infrastructure, energy and power. Top priority for companies is recruiting key personnel with industry experience.

Regulations & initiatives - a quick update

The long awaited publication of Part L will happen next week. For a preview see the presentations from the recent BRE launch event.

The September 2013 editions of Approved Document A and Document C are also available for download from the Planning Portal.

PF2 is another initiative which has been on hold for some time. The government has now published the standard documentation to be used, with implementation starting with the Priority Schools Building Programme.

Details of the Government's much discussed Help to Buy scheme can be viewed on their website as can the unimpressive Green Deal statistics. A response to this has been the All Party Parliamentary Group for Excellence in the Built Environment which has expressed concern that the Green Deal and ECO might deliver carbon reduction at a far lower rate than the policies it replaces.

Also published is the September 2013 Green Deal Assessment Survey which interviews householders who have had assessments. An interesting document, it shows that of those who had work installed 14% used their own savings, 13% used the Green Deal cashback scheme and the remainder had the work funded through ECO or the Local Authority.

There has been much talk about the importance of being a part of BIM, and rightly so. If you still don't understand it see this simple explanation BIM for All published by NBS. And if you are wanting some facts to justify the investment see our report Adoption of BIM.

Deciding your marketing spend

How do you decide your marketing spend and then justify it to the Finance Director? Even when starting with a bottom-up process it is useful to have a comparison with other similar companies.

Our 2013 survey of marketing activity and spend in the construction sector for Manufacturers, Contractors, Professional Services and Suppliers (Wholesaler, Distributor, Merchant) is due to be published. The research is designed to help you:

Evaluate marketing spend in relation to turnover by construction sector
Understand proportion of spend per marketing activity per construction sector and how these have changed
Be aware of how spend on traditional marketing may change in 2014 and where budgets will be focused for digital channels
Know of the levels of enquiries received against channels used
Understand how others evaluate and measure ROI
Evaluate attitudes towards marketing expenditure over 2011, 2012, 2013 with a view to 2014

Find out more

Specification sales - drivers for change

Specification selling is a whole company activity, requiring technical input and involving the whole supply chain, not just the sales team. The approach draws on the principals of Key Account Management (KAM) and is a crucial construction sales activity for any business that wants to reduce dependence on price and create demand for its products.

At a recent CAB Conference I presented on Specification Sales - Drivers for Change. With the adoption of BIM, The Green Construction Board, Modern Methods of Construction and the Government Construction Strategy changing the specification landscape we have a number of webinars that may be of interest:

Market research that informs your business strategy - Thursday 24 October, 12.30 - 13.30
Construction Industry Drivers for Change - Thursday 21 November, 12.30 - 13.30
The Future of Specification - Friday 10 January, 1230 - 13.30

If you would like help with creating a specification selling strategy and how to implement this in practical terms, then please contact us

Find out more

Understanding the different players in the industry

The construction industry is made up of a series of relationships with architects; designers; engineers; contractors; sub-contractors all working together to meet the needs of the client. In this series we have recently published blogs on the Building Services Engineer and Main Contractor. To find out more click the relevant title below:

What's being said - a round-up of useful marketing items

Social media as a sales tool

I recently wrote an article for Construction News on how to build your profile with social media. Darren Lester from SpecifiedBy has recently written for CIMCIG on how to Generate sales through social media. Another Construction News article on How to nurture leads, this time by Nick Pauley of Pauley Creative, presents ideas on how to use social media in the lead nurturing process. With the judges meeting this week for the Construction Marketing Awards here are the recent awards announced by BE2Awards. And for more inspiration take a look at the 7 Trends from Content Marketing World

Google updates
Google have recently introduced a new search algorithm called Hummingbird. There has also been a lot of controversy about the increase in "not provided" in their organic search reporting. With this there has been some thoughts on how to adapt your reporting and how to measure your content effectiveness. Finally Pauley Creative provide a useful blog on how to use the new Acquisition and Behaviour reports.

Slideshare updates

Slideshare now accommodate infographics! see our infographic on the history of the UK construction industry.

Smarketing

With the end of the year approaching and with thoughts turning towards strategy, this Whitepaper: Delivering on the Promise of Account-Based Marketing may provide some inspiration on how to align your sales and marketing, to create one team that consistently achieves goals.

Forthcoming events

Our live webinar programme: