Building Business

Is Your Building Products Brand Niche Enough?

You can’t be all things to all people. If you stand for everything, you stand for nothing. The sheer number of clichés articulating the pitfalls of mass appeal should serve as a warning to every marketer dismissive of specialization. Mark Buckshon expands on this notion in an article for Construction Marketing Ideas, Construction Marketing: The Mass and the Niche. Buckshon argues the appeal of specialized services and niche interests is paradoxical in that, compared to mass appeal, there is more opportunity for growth and development. Although messaging designed to appeal to larger audiences may be easier to understand, it is far more difficult to cut through the clutter and engage prospects in a meaningful way. Buckshon implores marketers to better understand the needs of their target market to discover the unique niches that appeal to their heart, emotions, and most importantly, their wallets.

@NeilAndrewJames

Consumers Shifting Dollars From Remodeling to Maintenance and Repairs

With the housing hangover seemingly in the rearview mirror, consumers are once again putting dollars into their domiciles. But are these dollars going towards upkeep or upgrades? Sentiment appears to favor the latter as reported in a new article for Kitchen & Bath Business, Survey Shows Shifts in Remodeling Projects. After a strong start in the first quarter, demand for additions and remodeling has dropped 18 percent on a national basis, led by a 33 percent decrease in bathroom remodeling. So where is the demand going? The survey reports that 46 percent of consumers have waited over a year to invest in high-cost maintenance and repair services. Sixty-two percent of homeowners reported the need to avoid further upkeep as the primary factor in the decision to eschew remodeling in favor of repairing. 

@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

Building Products Marketers: Remember the Phoenix

The phoenix. The mythological creature that rises to glory from its ashes. What exactly does this have to do with building products marketing? Everything, says Boyce Thompson in an article for Builder Online, Time to Focus on New Opportunities, Not Destruction. Thompson spotlights several companies in the building sector who have thumbed their nose at trying times and grown their business. Included in Thompson’s list of successes is Providence Homes, a company that launched two years ago and has now become the second largest builder in Jacksonville with its new line of value-engineered, energy-efficient Genesis homes. 

@NeilAndrewJames

Image Credit - openhpsdr.org

Alpha’s Better Than Beta For Building Products Marketers

Although top speed may not vary substantially from horse to horse throughout the herd, without the alpha leading the way, differences in speed are meaningless. If you’re a building products marketer, are you the alpha horse, or one of the many betas? Does it even matter? Mark Buckshon says yes it does in an article for Construction Marketing Blog, Be First. Not only serving as a valuable reminder of the importance of being first to marketers, Buckshon makes the case that being a market leader is not as difficult to achieve as perceived. Simply by observing and adapting working ideas from neighboring industries and associations, Buckshon argues, building and construction marketers can create firsts in their own industry – an advantage no competitor will ever be able to take away.

@NeilAndrewJames

Image Credit - New York Post

Value and Differentiation Still Trump Price in Building Industry

“Is this your best price?” This song has been an unwelcome mainstay at the top of the chart for many in the building and building product industry. With unemployment showing no sign of receding and macroeconomic growth that makes the word “tepid” an overstatement, are those of us in building sector doomed to bottom-feeding price wars forever? Not so fast, says George Casey in an article for Builder Online, Making a Difference: Strategies For Today. Casey reminds us that, despite daily despair from the financial news networks and talking heads, consumers are still willing to spend money to meet needs, and their needs are often more than what the lowest cost alternative can provide. Casey states that building brands must remember that differentiation is the key to communicating value to consumers and staving off your industry’s loss-leading vultures.

@NeilAndrewJames

Image Credit - Radvision

First-Time Buyers Purchased 41 Percent of Homes from 2007-2009

Why are builders dedicating increasing resources to meeting the needs of first-time home buyers? As chronicled in an article by the National Association of Home Builders, First-Time Home Buyers Stoke Demand for Smaller, Less Expensive Homes, new research found that from 2007 through 2009, 41 percent of the 8.4 million households that purchased homes were first-time buyers. This figure is up from 35 percent in 2005 and 2006. Unsurprisingly, price was the top consideration for first-time home buyers, reflected by the fact that first-time home purchases averaged 1,800 square feet – 700 square feet less on average than homebuyers who were trading up.

@NeilAndrewJames

For Builders, Most Important Word In "Loss Leader" Is Still "Loss"

There are many currencies in life one must give to get. We give love to get love. We give respect to get respect. In the business world, we give business to get business. But, unlike warm human emotions, if the business you give away fails to return business, the consequences can be harsh. Mark Buckshon expands on this topic in an article for Construction Marketing Blog, Free – With Strings Attached. According the Buckshon, the streets of bankruptcy are littered with the bodies of those who gave away building products and services and received nothing in return - a veritable graveyard of good intentions. Buckshon is careful not to argue against giving away services or loss-leading as an absolute. Rather, marketers must be strategic with the respect to ceding profits and never lose sight of the parameters by which they engage in “free.”

@NeilAndrewJames

3 Ways Building Products Wholesalers add Value

Nobody likes the middle man. Since establishing roots in the building products supply chain, building products retailers have often lamented the intermediaries who seemingly bring little to the supply chain table. As told by a recent Building Products Digest article, The Value of a Wholesaler, despite these perceptions, wholesalers truly have much to offer building products retailers. Leaner economic times have made excess inventory a four-letter word. Wholesalers allow buyers to have quicker inventory turnover and better manage company cash flow. In addition, by aggregating selection, building products retailers are able to secure a range of inventory that, in the absence of a wholesaler, would have to be negotiated and purchased from multiple sources. Lastly, wholesalers can aid retailers by adding value above and beyond the simple transfer of goods through packaging, remanufacturing, and application of treatments.

@NeilAndrewJames

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3 Truths All Building Products Brands Must Know

The past decade has seen building products brands experience the full spectrum of emotions. From the euphoric highs of the housing boom to the painful lows of the recession, few other industries have come to know how to thrive and survive quite like building products. In a recent article for Building Products Digest, Forever Changed, Alan Oakes urges building products marketers to use these lean times to take inventory of their strategic plans and reflect on the three timeless truths that will forever define their organization: their goals, their values and their differentiation. Revisiting these oft-forgotten principles, states Oakes, will give brands the direction needed to navigate through economic tribulations and emerge from the darkness stronger than ever before.

@NeilAndrewJames

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