The blog is often a must-have in a brand's communication strategy. And the construction and housing sectors are no exception: in recent years, many of the sector's manufacturers and distributors have launched a blog to bring their communication to life and share their news and innovations. Well thought out, well designed and well fed with topics that interest your audiences, it becomes a genuine asset for building brand preference.
The blog is the format par excellence for providing concrete answers to your audiences' problems and demonstrating your expertise!
But that is precisely where the difficulty lies! A poorly defined editorial line and objectives, struggles to publish relevant content regularly, a lack of inspiration, intangible results: after a flying start, the enthusiasm of marketing and communication teams generally fades as the months go by....
Yet new forms of blog have been emerging for several years now: less self-absorbed, more targeted, more conversational, and richer too. Through 4 successful examples from construction manufacturers, our team presents the best practices and trends for turning your blog into a genuine "e-magazine" for construction professionals.
The blog: an essential format for any content strategy
At the agency, we often talk to our manufacturer clients about "content marketing": the practice of regularly creating high value-added content to reach and convert your audiences (tradespeople, specifiers, distributors, housebuilders, etc.) and ultimately build brand preference. It requires a necessary "shift in focus" for the sector's manufacturers, allowing them to talk a little less about themselves and a little more about their audiences' needs through a range of tools (white papers, articles, themed features, infographics, web series, interviews, etc.)!
And within that same content strategy, the blog is hard to ignore! It is the format par excellence for demonstrating your expertise: it is where you offer a distillation of information - the information you have mastered - to deliver value and concrete answers to your audiences' problems. It stands to reason: you will earn your audience's trust if they see themselves in what you tell them. So whether it is to make first contact or to strengthen an existing relationship, there is no doubt that a blog has its place in your B2B communication strategy.
Ultimately, the question is not why create a blog, but how to use it to bring together and engage a community of professionals around it. Here are a few successful examples from the housing and construction sector.
The agency's selection
The "classic blog" (a reverse-chronological string of articles) is gradually giving way to new approaches that are richer, more polished and more engaging for audiences. Resource centre, enhanced blog or e-magazine: there is no shortage of terms to describe this format in its upgraded version.
Here is a round-up of 4 best practices from the housing sector:
It is not the form of this first blog that catches our eye, but very much the substance!
In 2020, the Chaffoteaux brand (Ariston Group) embraced the subject of France's RE2020 regulation and built on its existing blog to open a conversation with housebuilders, engineering consultancies and specifiers. Hosted on the Chaffoteaux website, the CHAFFONEWS blog has become a fully fledged guide to RE2020 in its own right. The brand's latest news made way for customer-focused content that meets their needs. The topics are carefully chosen, working back from all the problems encountered by construction industry professionals since the new regulation came into force (and there was plenty to work with!). Somewhere between education and practical guidance, the brand struck just the right balance to engage its audiences and keep them coming back.
Inform, demystify, solve: that was more or less the watchword behind every piece of content on the blog (in-depth articles, expert interviews...) and it enabled Chaffoteaux to position itself as the go-to authority on RE2020 and housing among its audiences.
Quite an achievement, which we covered just a few weeks ago in our case study.
IMPACT, the mini-site that punches above its weight
To reach installers, joiners, architects, developers and engineering consultancies, REHAU played the card of rich, diverse content on its Impact blog. Initially a simple landing page, the "Impact" initiative (editor's note: making informed decisions today that will shape tomorrow) evolved into a genuine hub housing and providing access to a wide range of targeted content: case studies, cheat sheets, mini-magazines, interviews... All of this premium content has nurtured REHAU's relationship with its audiences over the long term, and converges towards that precious request for a meeting with a member of its sales team.
Cementing its position as leader of the PVC window and door market among professionals took time and discipline, but the brand can pride itself on having built a fine community around its Impact initiative... largely thanks to its blog! Feeling inspired?
By a "crazy coincidence" (as French actor Pierre Niney would say), that is exactly what we cover in our case study!
KNAUF STUDIO and LE FUTUR A COMMENCÉ: two platforms pushing the boundaries
Browsing the mini-site knauf-studio.fr, you could be forgiven for thinking it was Knauf's new showcase website. Gone is the traditional blog: the brand has created a platform 100% dedicated to its specifiers, designed to support their insulation projects and invite them to discover its materials, its sources of inspiration and its completed projects. Here, product sales pitches are set aside in favour of a highly inspirational, "seductive" tone that almost leaves you dreaming (a strategy that works, as we have seen).
A user-experience-driven approach, smooth and intelligent navigation, a clean and polished design, clearly signposted content: Knauf has got it all figured out!
To address the challenges of tomorrow's buildings, the SOPREMA brand launched a blog a few years ago dedicated entirely to its "Le futur a commencé" initiative. It hosts content (articles, case studies, a white paper...) designed to shift the industry's habits towards more responsible construction by offering sustainable solutions to project owners and contractors. With the introduction of RE2020, the initiative evolved to upskill the sector's professionals on the subject.
Thanks to an evolving blog that rides the wave of topical issues, and to expert content, SOPREMA has anchored its initiative in the daily lives of its audiences. Mission accomplished!
Key takeaways
- Vary your content: do not hesitate to step off the beaten track and enrich your blog with "rich" content that takes different forms depending on the topic (ebooks, case studies, cheat sheets, practical guides...).
- Deliver value-added information: generic, self-centred messaging no longer interests your audiences! If you want to win over (or win back) the pros, make sure you address the topics and news that matter to them, and bring them concrete solutions. They will thank you for it!
- Communicate regularly and consistently: these two magic ingredients make all the difference! If your posts are too few and far between, your audiences will inevitably switch off.... Conversely, do not drown them in an overwhelming flood of information. A post on your blog every 2-3 weeks is more than enough.
- Place smart CTAs: like your website, your blog should contain "calls to action" that prompt your reader to do what you want them to: booking a meeting, moving on to another article on the same theme, signing up to your newsletter, downloading a catalogue...
- Do not obsess over SEO: running a blog obviously means thinking about SEO... but not only that! While it remains essential to define a semantic cluster and pull every lever to optimise organic search rankings, the best content is and will always be the content that genuinely interests your audiences and solves their needs!
At the agency, we are convinced that the blog still has its place in a communication strategy and that it has plenty more surprises in store! Do you feel the same? Let's talk it over, coffee in hand!