Courted by construction manufacturers, specifiers nevertheless seem increasingly impervious to traditional marketing techniques. The reason: a poor understanding of customer journeys and messaging still very much centred on the product. The moral : an audience you must approach properly before you can influence it effectively.
The challenge: delivering the right content to the right audience, at the right time and on the right touchpoint.
Substance over style?
Make no mistake, specifiers work "in project mode". They are constantly seeking innovation and permanently monitoring market trends. And yet, in the conversations Convergence has with them, they regularly confide that they are "drowning in the information sent out by brands" or "don't know where to find the right information". Without generalising, these remarks may reveal how poorly visible this audience is to manufacturers' communication and marketing strategies... and that is a shame! Beyond that, they raise the necessary question of the duality between substance and form. All the studies tend to show that traditional advertising models (a press advert tied to a product launch, for example) hold little interest or engagement for this target profile. The reason is simple: architects and engineering consultancies are looking for high value-added content. Content that concretely makes their daily lives easier, reassures them, saves them time and helps them build their skills in the market... to make the difference in the end! Beyond that, it is no longer about making promises on an advertising model to "sell your product", but about demonstrating the profitability and the many benefits of your solutions for the specifier, their client and the end beneficiary!
More than ever, working on the brand's message is therefore essential. Rather than product sheets and technical catalogues, the preference now is for explicit demonstration of the benefits of the solutions offered — through, for example, "premium" tools, case studies, interviews, testimonials, articles, white papers, bespoke events... Another fundamental point relates to showcasing the services provided by the brand (BIM, help with specification documents, ...). This is a real value-creation lever that builds loyalty with this audience by supporting them in their daily work. For once, let's say it: "content is king!".
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What does the customer journey look like?
Once the foundation of the message is in place, what communication strategy should be deployed? When it comes to information, building specifiers are heavy consumers of the trade press and subscribe to numerous news feeds and newsletters. As the 2018 Archiliste barometer shows, digital now plays an essential role as a source of information. Indeed, 92% of the specifiers surveyed use manufacturers' websites to obtain initial product information. We should also mention social media — LinkedIn in particular — which offers tremendous opportunities for brands as part of a social selling approach (editor's note: online prospecting), provided, however, that you support your in-house sales teams! There is also a strong relational dynamic: the construction industry remains an ecosystem where people often count on their partners to show them around the latest sites, present new products, trends... Physical contact therefore loses none of its value — quite the contrary! Specifiers thus remain very present at trade shows and events, both regional and national.
What is specifiers' preferred source of information?
The analysis of Véronique Giraudeau, project manager at Convergence
Specifiers tend to abandon posted documentation in favour of manufacturers' websites, where they can find the same content in an interactive, continually updated format. Paradoxically, they are showing renewed interest in trade shows and visits from sales representatives, which maintain a personalised relationship. The customer journey is resolutely omnichannel and, in most cases, favours substance over form.
Ultimately, the omnichannel customer journey applies to this audience too. Specifiers move easily between digital and physical channels, depending on the stage of their project and their needs. One of the challenges for manufacturers' brands is therefore to deliver the most relevant content to the right audience, at the right time, on the right touchpoint. To be concrete: while an engineering consultancy will quite readily visit your website to retrieve technical information (e.g. a product sheet), you will need to use many other channels to try to « evangelise » them around your innovation... This means being irreproachable on the coherence of your strategy, the campaigns deployed and the message developed!
To that end, getting support from a communications agency specialising in building and construction could well be a good idea ! In the meantime, we will leave you to discover a few projects dedicated to specification.