No sector is immune: content marketing (that is, the creation and distribution of value-added content) is everywhere! In the construction and housing sectors, the trend has grown stronger year after year to the point of becoming essential. This strategy in fact answers several fundamental needs for brands: moving away from a purely technical and/or advertising-driven “product” approach, and building a lasting bond with their audiences (tradespeople, specifiers, housebuilders and more) to stand out from the competition against a backdrop of accelerating digitalisation.
Passing fad or a new high-impact lever? In this article, the agency's experts answer all your questions (especially the ones you never dared to ask).
Adopting a well-thought-out content strategy, built on a solid editorial line, engaging topics and relevant formats, is one of the most effective ways to develop your relationship marketing.
What is the point of producing content that does not (directly) advertise my products?
The whole point of content marketing is to offer your commercial audiences (tradespeople, specifiers, distributors, housebuilders, etc.) content with the power to hook them and steer them towards one of your commercial platforms (over a longer or shorter timeframe). Like any self-respecting communication and marketing strategy, its ultimate purpose is to enable your brand to perform in line with your ambitions — and therefore to increase your sales.
For a long time, the most effective lever for achieving this goal, particularly in the construction and housing sectors, was to put products and their technical performance at the centre of the message (“Look how efficient my new insulation is, look how beautiful my new paint is”). But in 2022, after a pandemic (which we hope is behind us) and amid a succession of industrial and societal crises, the purely promotional or advertising-driven, navel-gazing pitch no longer gets a hearing.
To reach your audiences today, you need to be able to shift the message away from the technical qualities of your products and rein in the self-centred place you give your brand (and all its strengths) in your communications. This is not about no longer talking about your products — quite the contrary: it is about showcasing them through genuinely value-added content, in other words content that provides concrete, effective tools to help your audiences achieve their own objectives.
In a sense, you move from the “advertising promise” to the “concrete, useful proof” delivered by using (or specifying) your solutions.
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Why invest in a content strategy when my audiences do not read?
It is a well-known fact: in the building trade, nobody reads! ;-) If you are asking yourself this question, it is because “content marketing” automatically conjures up 197-page white papers or conveyor-belt blog posts. Yet content creation (when done well, by an agency specialising in the construction sector, for example) is exactly the opposite! Podcasts, videos, magazines, case studies, site diaries, infographics, practical guides and more: what matters is not so much the format (although it must of course be perfectly suited to your audience and your points of contact with them) as the underlying message you want to convey.
For your message to strike a chord with your audiences, the conviction we champion at the agency is that you should put everything you know about them and their challenges (or “pain points” to be solved) to work, in order to offer them content that will genuinely interest them. Ask yourself what your audience does not yet know but would find profoundly useful, and build your content strategy around that axis. You know the tradespeople in your market segment are lost when it comes to the energy-renovation grants they can offer their clients? Then develop clear, engaging, educational content they can easily take on board. Your sales teams tell you every year that winter site work is a real headache for your audiences? Plan a guide bringing together expert advice and suitable product solutions to help them meet that challenge.
In short, make it your goal to:
- share your know-how and knowledge to help your audiences build their skills
- make their daily lives easier by answering their challenges and problems
By adopting this strategy, you will give a great deal… and receive even more! You will build a lasting bond with your audiences, who will come to see you as a reliable leader standing at their side.
Nobody is going to read this — they are already buried under posts and emails!
The first part of the answer lies in the sentence itself: if there is so much content out there, it is because your competitors have already staked out the territory, and by staying silent you risk reducing your brand's visibility to nothing.
A word of warning, though! There is nothing worse than a content strategy cobbled together under duress, “to do what everyone else is doing”. For this marketing tool to serve your commercial objectives, quite the opposite is required: as we have seen, at every point of contact between your audiences and your brand, you need a piece of value-added information to pass on to them, to strengthen the bond that unites you.
At a time when the construction and housing sector is going digital, these points of contact are numerous and sometimes scattered. A well-thought-out content strategy, built on a solid editorial line, engaging topics and relevant formats, is the most effective way to give your brand message unshakeable foundations and to build a bond with your audiences.
“Building bonds to build brand preference” is exactly what one of Convergence's account directors argued in an interview for Négoce Magazine back in 2020.
You are convinced that content marketing is the missing tool your brand needs to perform better, but you do not know where to start? You put a content strategy in place several years ago but want to breathe new life into it — and above all get more results? Whatever your need, the team at specialist agency Convergence is on hand to put its more than 30 years of expertise in the construction and housing sectors at the service of your content strategy.