Construction Sales and Marketing Newsletter

May 2015

Welcome to this month's edition of the Construction Sales and Marketing Newsletter.

Construction market

The Construction Products Association State of the Trade Survey indicates an 8th consecutive quarter of increasing sales for construction product manufacturers. The RIBA Future Trends Survey for March 2015 shows architects are becoming increasingly confident about their workloads. Yet the Markit/CIPS UK Construction PMI shows construction output growth slowing in April 2015 and reaching a 22 month low.

Read full report including:

RIBA Future Trends Survey, CPA State of the Trade Survey, RICs Futures Report, Markit/CIPS Construction PMI, The Glenigan Index, NHBC UK Statistics, Index of Private Housing Rental Prices and House Price Indexes.

Regulations & initiatives

Sustainability

The construction sector is making a strong case for investment in energy efficiency, hoping that the new government will make it a spending priority. This as figures for Green Deal and the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) are at their lowest level of uptake in 20 months.

BIM

The NBS have released The National BIM Report 2015, looking at how UK design professionals are adapting to the use of BIM. They are also hosting a webinar introducing the new NBS BIM Toolkit.

Steve Thompson, Chair of BIM4M2 provides The BIM menu of information in which he reviews the challenges of providing the right information at the right time. He talks about how the BIM Toolkit and the use of Product Data Templates (PDTs) could help. If you have questions on PDTs then join BIM4M2 for their Twitter chat discussing Product Data Templates (PDTs) on Wednesday 20th May at 12pm, using #BIM4M2chat.

Industry updates

The new #loveLives campaign, backed by Construction News has now raised Ł220, 000. Breathe Freely is a new initiative to raise awareness around the issue of lung disease and related occupational cancers in the construction industry.

The report from the Edge Comission highlights the need for stronger institutions and more assertive collaboration within the industry. This co-insides with the merger between the National Specialist Contractors Council and the UK Contractors Group, which hopes to provide a more collective voice for the contracting supply chain in construction.

Articles

Construction product specification - your questions answered

8 tips for creating an effective specification strategy

Are you asking the right questions in your construction survey?

Secret confessions of a telephone researcher - interview 2

Understanding the construction sector - a visual guide

Marketing & sales

This month we start with guidance on the challenges of managing a sales team and delivering an effective specification strategy, a topic we covered in our recent Twitter chat where we answered questions on specification selling. We also provide reading on how to deliver great online customer service, how to make the most of your B2B website and why you need a blog. We also provide some thought provoking reading on mobile technology and the construction industry, which highlights why companies need to embrace digitalisation to engage 'Generation M'.

Read in full

Forthcoming webinar

Planning Effective CPD

Thursday 21st May 2015 - 12.30

This webinar looks to explore: