Building Business

How Building Products Marketers Can Utilize Mobile

Remember back when your project managers and line supervisors didn’t have cell phones? You’ve probably blocked it from memory. For all the times that little device kept you from enjoying vacations, tethering you to your business, it has ultimately proved to be an indispensible tool in your company’s day-to-day operations. Yet, despite in-field use, few building products companies are fully leveraging the mobile phone as a marketing device. Pat Curry breaks down the basics of mobile marketing for building products marketers in an article for Builder Online, Mobile Mindset. Curry implores marketers to ensure their websites are optimized for mobile technology, creating concise, focused websites that cull content down to only what visitors find most important. In addition, Curry extols the power of tying mobile websites to text messaging campaigns. As an example, Curry outlines a scenario where a sign in front of model home could direct prospects to send a text message with a specific code to an agent, generating an automated response containing a link with information about the house. 

@NeilAndrewJames

Home Depot Sees Dip in Contractor Business

The building products industry is no exception to the Pareto Principle: 80 percent of your sales are from 20 percent of your customers. In the building products industry, these heavy users often wear the title “contractor” or “pro.” And as ProSales Online reports in a recent article, Home Depot continues to see its business in this high-volume market segment lag. While contractors are believed to approximate 30 percent of Home Depot’s sales, millwork and building supplies, historically contractor-heavy lines, experienced significant sales declines during third quarter. Big-ticket sales (over $900) were also down by 3.4 percent. Nevertheless, Home Depot’s CEO Frank Blake reported that net earnings in the third quarter did grow 21 percent from the year-earlier period.

@NeilAndrewJames

For Building Products Brands, Small and Agile Can Beat Big Box

Sure you can’t afford to sponsor the NFL on Fox post-game show or deluge the nation’s most populated markets with a heavy television advertising blitz. But that’s not an excuse to curl up into a fetal position and wave the white flag! Small building products companies, as chronicled by Carla Waldemar in an article for Building Products Digest, The Secret of Success? Think Small, are embracing their size as a competitive advantage and carving out success. Waldemar highlights a small Oregon lumberyard, Withers Lumber, whose only rule is to have no rules. Withers Lumber strives to serve its clientele on as individual a basis as possible, offering unlimited free delivery, product-knowledge sessions and regular customer appreciation events. 

@NeilAndrewJames

Turning Social Media Into Action For Building Products Marketers

If your building products company is like 70 percent of businesses, it’s operating under a formalized social media strategy. But are you doing social media because the business down the street is, or are you looking to accomplish specific goals? If the latter applies to you, Brian Solis’ newest article for Mashable, How Social Media Marketers Can Convert Attention Into Action, is a must-read. Solis urges marketers to practice “conversion science” – the art of converting online impressions into action and engagement. To accomplish this, Solis recommends marketers to create definitive goals at the onset of any program, become comfortable with adapting on the fly and embracing data to locate leaks in the online funnel. 

@NeilAndrewJames

Weak Employment Spurring Rental Market

For every loser, there’s got to be a winner, right? We know the foreclosure industry has been a satiated vulture in the wake of the housing crash. As John Caulfield reports in an article for Builder Online, the rental market’s not doing so bad either. According to Caulfield, the National Association of Home Builders Reports that even at the level of multifamily production, currently between 300,000 and 400,000 units, demand is outpacting supply. Furthermore, the National Multi Housing Council reported that in Q3, same-store rent charges turned positive for the first time in two years! Inflated home prices are a strong contributing factor, with real estate website Trulia.com reporting that renting is makes more exonomic sense in several large cities including New York, Seattle and San Francisco. In addition, younger adults in particular have had difficulty picking up the housing market’s slack as 2.2 million moved back in with their parents between 2005 and 2009.

@NeilAndrewJames

What to Expect From Housing Market Should the Economy Prosper or Falter

Analysis of the many predictions made about the housing market has rendered a veritable army of accredited economists as reliable a carnival fortune teller. Over the past three years, the housing market has suffered more false starts than an undisciplined football team’s critical 4th quarter drive. If your marketing decisions are predicated on an accurate forecast of housing demand, how do you cope with trends that seem random and capricious at best? Dr. Lynn Michaelis explores why, years after the crash, the housing market has remained wildly unpredictable in an article for Building Products Digest, Housing Outlook: Don’t Fly Blind. Dr. Michaelis states that while over long periods of time, headship rates (the number of households in an age group historically divided by the size of the population in that age group) are steady, in the recent short term, have experienced substantial fluctuation. Historically, headship rates have been steady enough to not require estimation, until now.

Estimating both headship rates based loosely on census data and the excess inventory of housing units, Dr. Michaelis outlines two plausible scenarios based on overall macroeconomic health. Dr. Michaelis forecasts that if economic growth will exceed 3 percent for the next three years, household formations should return to 1.3-1.4 million per year. Conversely, if GDP slips under 2 percent, Dr. Michaelis predicts starts will not hit 1.5 million units until at least 2015.

@NeilAndrewJames

Why Your Building Products Website Is Not Generating Results

Internet marketing isn’t something that comes naturally to most building products manufacturers. It’s not something that can be solved with quality tools or efficient machinery. It’s not particularly easy to distinguish craftsman labor from shoddy workmanship. It is, however, completely measurable, and for many building products brands, it’s not delivering the goods. Calvin Froedge discusses common shortcomings in building products online marketing plans in an article for Building Products Digest, What Your Website May Be Missing. Froedge states that understanding demand for your products is the key to generating traffic. Search engine optimization and pay-per-click strategies are more appropriate for products with existing demand, whereas social media can be more effective for those in a “trend-making industry.” Froedge also discusses several reasons website traffic fails to convert into sales such as user mistrust and poor website functionality. 

@NeilAndrewJames

One-Third of Homeowners Expect Their Next Home to be Smaller

During the housing boom, big houses were all the rage. But as many stretched with adjustable rate mortgages discovered, you have to fill those homes with things. And cardboard box furniture makes for a lousy dinner party. Leigh Buchanan discusses the shift away from McMansions in a new article for Inc., Hot Market: Eco-Friendly Homeowners. Buchanan cites two recent studies: one stating that for the first time since the 1950s, Americans’ ideal home sized has decreased; the other finding that thirty-six percent of homeowners expect their next residence to be smaller. Buchanan also explores a Massachusetts-based business, Blu Homes, capitalizing on this trend with its line of eco-friendly, modular 750 square foot homes.

@NeilAndrewJames

Image Credit - Becoming Minimalist

11 Ways to Show Prospects That Time Spent on Your Pitch Is Worth It

Are your sales people returning to the office in a grumpier mood with each passing month? You’re not alone. As the economy has pinched the building and housing markets, commissions that were once plump, low hanging fruits are far less plentiful for increasingly frustrated salespeople. Dave Kahle describes how salespeople can once again taste the succulent juices of a fat commission in an article for Building Products Magazine, Adding Value to Every Sales Call. Of premium importance in an economy where clients and vendors alike are pressed for time, Kahle argues, is creating a reputation that time spent with you is worth the investment. Kahle outlines eleven examples of ways you can add value to your prospect’s life such as providing some ideas about how to reduce costs and helping him or her solve a problem. 

@NeilAndrewJames

Post-Crash Gen Y and Baby Boomer Housing Trends

The housing market has absorbed multiple macroeconomic body blows. Complete credit evaporation. Oversupply. Unemployment. All those factors aside, the American public is still buying homes, but for very different reasons than they did five years ago. In what ways exactly? Katy Tomasuto explores new housing trends in an article for Builder Online, Baby Boomers, Gen Y and the Recession Shift Long-Held Housing Tastes and Trends. Tomasuto cites a ULI panel report which identified numerous factors influencing home purchases for both Gen Y-ers and Baby Boomers. Included in their findings, the ULI panel reported that for Gen Y homebuyers, 85 percent of household growth will be from households without children. Gen Y homebuyers are also increasingly willing to purchase a less than ideal home if they can walk to work and retail. Conversely, Baby Boomers are more interested in communities with opportunities for continuing education, culture and an active lifestyle.

@NeilAndrewJames