Manufacturers and specificationWhich communication strategies are the most effective?

Specifiers have an essential role to play for construction and housing brands. But reaching them is not always easy, and it often takes patience to reach the precious tender specification document! To help you choose the right angle of attack and activate the right tools, we have gathered all our most effective strategies here.

To reach specification audiences, you need to bet on programmes that combine longevity and visibility.

Architects, housebuilders, social landlords, engineering consultancies, quantity surveyors, contractors and sometimes even project owners: in the construction and housing worlds, specifiers play a distinctive role since, while they do not buy your solutions directly, they nonetheless have the power to make you sell significant volumes. The challenge is therefore to convince them effectively that your solutions meet their needs and those of their clients (most often a project owner or a housebuilder). Specifiers indeed have in mind their own constraints (budgetary, aesthetic, technical and environmental) and those of their clients, whom your solutions must help convince and satisfy.

One objective: the success of the job and the enhancement of the project. Your role: to share knowledge and give specifiers the information they need to make, in an intelligent partnership, the best possible choice for their project — that is to say, yours ;) Your communication towards specifiers must therefore:

1. Strengthen your leadership
2. Show that you understand all of their needs (including the need to satisfy their own clients) and that you have the solutions to meet them in “project mode”.

Building a lasting, fruitful bond with your specification audiences is work that happens over the long term. The consequence? Out with one-off or opportunistic marketing campaigns, and in with long-term content strategies (or content marketing). Well designed and well activated, these strategies are the most effective way to demonstrate your expertise and leadership and gain visibility, while building a strong bond with your audiences.

To reach specification audiences, you need to bet on programmes that combine longevity (with tools that create a rendezvous and a bond) and visibility (with tools that demonstrate, on given subjects, your ability to act as a partner for your audiences at every key moment of their own market). In the background, keep in mind that these programmes must also absolutely reinforce your position as an opinion leader and a technical leader. Your specification audiences are like you: they want to work with the best option on the market. It is up to you (and us) to show them the way.

At Convergence, we have never been fans of grand, airy speeches. So let's get down to brass tacks with a list of the tools you can rely on to reach your specification audiences:

• Long-form content (white papers, magazines, technical guides, regulatory briefings)

Carrying a very strong promise of added value, this content aims to share knowledge and allows you to reinforce your expertise while genuinely meeting your audiences' needs (more on that shortly). The bonus? You can put it to work over the long term and showcase it across many channels (using extracts at different stages of your communication and activation programme).

• Case studies

For the construction and housing industries, we are convinced that the discourse of proof is king. To showcase your audiences while underlining your expertise in a concrete, well-argued and proven way, case studies are perfect. The idea is to highlight one of your projects from a “site reference” angle to get your messages across to audiences effectively, in a reasoned and illustrated way.

• Newsletters

In our article we talked about the best way to turn regulatory constraints into a communication opportunity. Good news: newsletters have made a big comeback and, in their 2.0 version, they offer you a powerful tool for reaching out to your specification audiences. Gone is the standardised, somewhat hollow email; today's newsletter is a genuine mini e-magazine — incisive, precise and a pleasure to read. An editorial tool rather than a marketing one.

• Brochures and technical documentation

Basic, but absolutely essential for giving your specification audiences a clear idea of your offering and its strengths. The brochure as Convergence sees it is an ultra-practical tool that showcases your offering perfectly thanks to effective structuring and a layout perfectly aligned with your brand image. A genuinely useful tool that makes the specifier's daily work easier through memos, checklists, summary sheets, tender specification aids and more.

• Short-form content (blog articles, social media posts)

This content gives your leadership the visibility it deserves. On precise, well-framed subjects, it allows you to maintain consistency in your communications as the news unfolds.

• Concise downloadable tools (site notebooks, memos, cheat sheets, practical guides)

Often offered as annexes to long-form content, these pieces are tools that effectively meet one of your audiences' needs, while playing the role of “bait” to guide them towards your longer, higher value-added content.

Want to know how to combine all these tools into an effective programme perfectly suited to the construction and housing industries? Good news — it has been our business for 30 years!

Talking about the right subjects in the right way

We won't beat about the bush: our deep conviction is that, to be effective, a content strategy must have as its main objective answering your audience's real needs. Nothing is more off-putting for a specifier than realising that the white paper they were about to read with interest is in fact just an advertising brochure in disguise.

To reach your specification audiences, you need to identify the subjects that interest your audience (based on the news of their own market), the challenges they face (often technical or regulatory), and adapt your content production so that your communication becomes an active lever for your expertise.

Your content should not talk about you (at least, not only), it should embody the effectiveness of your solutions, the expertise and commitment of your technical sales teams towards your audience, and your ability to understand and anticipate the subjects that really mobilise them.

Seen from this angle, your communication programmes are no longer merely communication programmes, but genuine tools at the service of your audiences, enabling them to build their skills. Then you are no longer just a “manufacturing supplier”: you become a brand that is a partner in the success of the job.

Do not hesitate to involve your internal teams in this strategy: they know the field, and these tools must be theirs too if they are to reach your audiences effectively!

For 30 years, we have been supporting the manufacturers and distributors of these industries in designing and deploying their brand strategies. Market culture and field immersion: we champion an approach to your brand across all its “business” challenges.