As we move towards the digital way of working, team management tools have become a necessity for many businesses, especially whilst working remotely. Not only do these tools enable the organisation and management of your team, but they can also help to increase efficiency.

Brand awareness is the way in which specifiers and architects recognise and remember your building product business.

The greater brand awareness you have, the more your intended audience is familiar with your building product brand.

By boosting your brand awareness, specifiers and architects will be more likely to buy from your building product business over a competitor’s business with which they’re not as familiar with.

You can work to improve your brand awareness with the help of digital adoption, read on to find out how…

We always hear the phrase “work smarter, not harder”, and in many cases it’s true. If you know an easier way to reach a goal, why not use it and get there before your competitors?

Working smart essentially means figuring out what your strengths are and building a network around you to build upon those in order to reach goals in the quickest and most efficient way possible.

The easiest way to work smarter may be through the use of technology: building your tech stack. In this blog, we will be looking at what technologies you may want to consider for your building product company for smarter working, and gaining an advantage over your competitors in 2021.

Here’s a fun fact: Millennials are described as individuals born between 1981-1996. That means that the oldest millennials will be turning forty this year!

That’s right; us young whippersnappers make up for more than a third of the global workforce, and this is set to rise to 75% by 2025.

So, what does this mean for your building product business?

It doesn’t take a mathematician to realise that a large proportion of specifiers within the construction industry will be millennials: the first generation to live alongside the digital world, sharing an affinity with technology that helps shape their lives.

There’s much to learn about the behaviours of millennials, and in this post, we’ll show you how to make those necessary changes to accommodate the new way that these young specifiers and buyers research and select their products.

Read on to find out more…

What is successful social media marketing for your building product business? It’s everything from engaging users, attracting potential customers, researching, and keeping in mind the ultimate goal of gaining awareness to convert followers and connections into customers.

It’s important to improve your social media strategy because:

• An average of 3 hours per day is spent on social networks
• 54% of social browsers use social media to research products
• 71% of specifiers who have had a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend the brand to fellow specifiers

Read on to discover how to adopt digital to improve your social media strategy…

For owners, MD's, CEO's, sales teams and marketing depts of building products businesses, learning how to grow your business better in the digital age is essential for 2021.

Within this, transforming your business through content marketing is guaranteed to help your brand stand out against your competitors. It will generate incredible ROI for your company, generating leads and improving rankings on Google.

2020 is over, but the challenges didn't disappear when you flipped the calendar page.

As part of our blogging series on what to expect from your construction marketing in 2021, we tackle the subject of CPD webinars and why they will remain a crucial driver in your marketing strategy for next year.

If you’ve read any of our previous posts, you will see that we’ve blogged extensively on digital CPDs, so if you want to learn more, explore your options, find out requirements, etc, click here.

Let’s dive in…

It’s important to learn from errors to prevent them from happening again. Mistakes shape us and we learn from them, even the most successful individuals have made mistakes along the line.

With 2020 already being a challenging year, you can learn from the mistakes made and adopt them in 2021 to ensure your building products business thrives.

Read on to discover 5 mistakes you need to avoid for your construction marketing in 2021…

2020 has bought about significant change for all businesses, regardless of industry. One of the biggest impacts we’ve seen within the construction industry is the rise in digital.

People are starting to realise that adopting a digital approach is necessary to survive in this climate.

Whether you’ve embraced digital CPDs, adapted your sales process or spent a bit more time improving your website offering, it’s fair to say that we’ve all had to adjust.

But if you truly want to grow your online presence and increase your specifications, there’s one thing that should not be neglected… content marketing.

And one of the most crucial elements of content marketing is undoubtedly a blogging strategy.

So, if you’re thinking about blogging in 2021, here are some key mistakes to avoid.

With a global pandemic, 2020 was a real kickstart for construction and building product businesses to embrace digital. One key digital channel, that was an easy replacement for face-to-face meetings, is email marketing. According to HubSpot, emails were up by 27% from pre-coronavirus levels.

With over 3.7 billion active email users worldwide, email is booming. Getting yourself in your prospect’s inbox is the first step in building a customer relationship with them, allowing you to stand out and keep top of mind against your competition.

In a nutshell, video marketing is promoting your product and service with video. However, as video marketing becomes more powerful and popular, the definition has become more complicated.

You’ve probably heard that email marketing is dead. However, I’m here to tell you that it’s very much alive, in fact, it’s kicking.

Here are some interesting facts for you,

• 81% of B2B marketers say their most used form of content marketing is email newsletters
• 99% of consumers check their email every day and it is by far the preferred way to receive updates
• 78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months
  
  

Read on to discover how you can adopt digital to utilise email marketing for your building products business…

To identify and define your ideal buyer personas is an integral task to complete before you start any marketing activities for your building product business. The information you gather will enable you to understand thoroughly who your business should be targeting and what messaging will be most effective.

At Insynth, carrying out buyer persona research and defining them is one of the first things we do with any new client. It’s a crucial part of the process.

In this blog, we will give you 5 important steps to help you with the process of building out your buyer persona.

I get it. Building products are technical. That doesn’t mean, however, that they should be dense and difficult to digest.

As an ex-teacher, I know what it’s like to convey information in a simple way. I also know how to make the most technical of subjects readable.

Over the years, I’ve learnt that no matter what industry you’re in, clear communication is central to any successful web project, and your building product blog is no exception.

In this post, you will learn how to take the most technical of subjects, and present it in a simple, ‘plain-English’ way.

Let’s dive in.

When you’re taking your construction business digital, you must choose the right content management system (CMS) for you.

The only way you can decide which is best for you is by researching and testing a whole range of different CMS options to compliment your digital marketing efforts, so we’ve narrowed down our top 3, as well as what each one can offer your business to make the whole process easier for you.

A couple of weeks back, I addressed the content marketing strategy that is…blogging.

I explored three reasons why blogging might not be generating the results you want for your building products company. You can read that very article here.

In today’s post, I’ll be offering three more reasons why your blogging might not be generating those leads.

Let’s dive right in…

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a way to get a higher ranking on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). When it comes to digital adoption, SEO is too valuable to miss out, here’s why…

• 70% of marketers see SEO as more effective than PPC
• 96% of global traffic comes from Google search, Google Images, and Google maps
• 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search

If your website has a higher rank, each time someone searches about a construction product or service you’re offering, your site will feature at the top.

Read on to discover how you can digitally adopt SEO for your building products business…

With so many new programmes and tech-stack to choose from, the classic metrics can easily slip through. Google Analytics will be the platform most familiar, as it's provided for free by Google, giving you an insight to who your website reaches and how they behave.

It can be easy to get carried away with new platforms and lose site of the bigger picture. This has created a demand to have all your key metrics in one place. 

We'll take a look at why metrics are so essential to your marketing decisions and how you can get clarity of what's working by having all your data in one place like your CRM system.

Blogging advocates will tell you that writing blogs will significantly increase traffic to your website. Blogging advocates will also tell you that some of that traffic may even convert into leads.

As a blogging advocate myself, I agree with the above statements…

…However, I understand it’s going to take a little bit more explaining to convince some of you blogging pessimists out there that blogging isn’t anything more than a painful waste of time.

For those of you that have tried blogging for your building products company and failed to see results, this post is for you.

In fact, if you’ve never blogged before but thinking about trying it, I’m sure this post will appeal to you, too.

Here are 3 reasons why blogging isn’t generating leads for your building products business.

With the use of technology on the rise, the customer experience landscape has changed forever.

For your construction company, long wait times and slow responses are no longer acceptable and have a huge impact on customer satisfaction.

• Salesforce has found that 67% of consumers will pay more for a great experience
• 76% of consumers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations.
• 70% of the buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are treated.

Immediate satisfaction and meeting high customer expectations is important. By definition, customer expectations are any set of behaviours or actions that individuals expect when interacting with a company.

Modern-day customers have much higher expectations, such as a proactive service, personalised interactions, and connected experiences across all channels.

...For your building products brand

Blogs… do I need them? What is their function? Can they increase my specifications? I don’t get it…

According to HubSpot, marketers who prioritise blogging efforts are 13x more likely to see positive ROI.

But, when we speak to MDs and Sales professionals, we often get asked... why should we blog?

There are a lot of misconceptions around blogging, and when done incorrectly, they can, frankly, be a waste of time, producing very little in the way of tangible results.

So, in this post, we aim to uncover:

• The purpose of a blog post
• What they are (and most importantly, what they’re not)
• Whether you should consider them
• How you can get the most out of them

Read on to find out more…

Sales and marketing alignment could potentially be the most important thing that needs to happen to your building product business. The data supporting how massively it can elevate your business’s sales and revenue speaks for itself.

• Sales and marketing alignment can trigger a 32% boost in year on year revenue growth,
• It can lead to over 200% growth in revenue attributed to marketing, and
• It can boost your sales win rates by 38% (Marketo)

When your sales and marketing teams align, your two most important departments can optimise their process as a whole. This means your entire marketing and sales funnel is working collaboratively, reducing costs and increasing business growth.

Now, more than ever, multiple areas of business across an array of industries are reliant on technology - which is why your tech stack needs to be right. Within building product companies, the right tech can make it possible for construction projects to continue.

With so many options out there, and such a reliance on digital, your tech stack has become almost essential to your business, and you may not even realise it.  

It’s almost hard sometimes to remember that communication hasn’t always been an instant process. Thanks to the simplicity and the ease of all the new channels that are available to us, great communication has never been so effortless, in general life and for your building product business too.

With many of us making the abrupt shift to working from home, internal and external communications have changed. Businesses that have failed to adopt a communication process that works for them may be inadequate in ensuring staff are working to high standards.

This blog will help you learn how you can adopt the new way of communicating, read on to find out more…

Does your construction business need to increase its online visibility? Want to achieve more sales leads? Need a re-brand?

If you’ve been asking any (or all) of the above questions, chances are you’ve considered outsourcing a digital marketing agency.

But, with so many agencies to choose from, it’s not a decision that should be taken lightly, particularly in such uncertain times.

So, before making the decision to outsource, it’s crucial that you lay the foundations for a successful partnership… and this means asking yourself and your team some key questions before embarking on the decision-making process.

Read on to find out more…

Everywhere around us is adopting digital, we are now able to incorporate our mobile devices into our everyday lives. Instead of having box telephones that meant you had to stay at your desk to make a phone call.

Digital adoption is making our lives easier, everything you need to do your job is available at just a touch of a button.

Chances are, technology has altered your professional life for the better. That’s what successful digital adoption feels like.

One of the greatest benefits of digital adoption is improving our performance. It allows us to do what we need to do more efficiently

Recent studies claim that businesses can increase revenues by 23% with digital strategies. This demonstrates the huge benefit it can have to your building product business and construction marketing.

Read on to discover the 5 benefits of digital adoption…

Construction Marketing Investment has shifted away from traditional outlets like exhibitions, trade advertising, PR and cold calling. But the skill sets of internal teams lag behind. For some, the time and resources needed to train internal people on how to master digital marketing must-haves like SEO and email marketing don't exist. As a result business like your look to outsource the responsibility.

However, it is not one-size-fits-all. Agencies come in all shapes and sizes, with different specialities and talents. But there are core values and skill sets that make some better than others. Here are the top 3 considerations if you’re looking to outsource your building product business’ marketing.

Did you know that employees spend 22 minutes every day trying to figure out how to interact with technology?

Digital adoption can be tricky, however, when it’s fully utilised you can strengthen your team’s relationship with technology to streamline tasks and improve efficiency.

Read on to discover what digital adoption is and why it’s important…

Aligning your sales and marketing strategy has never been more appropriate, particularly in such testing times. As we see more and more businesses within building products and constriction investing in marketing, we’ve put together a series of articles to help you make the best choice for your business, if you're considering outsourcing.

According to a post by beanstalk, businesses typically spend anywhere between 5-20% of their annual revenue on sales and marketing. That’s a significant investment for any business, particularly if you’re just ‘testing the waters’ of digital marketing.

In this post, I’ve identified 5 steps to agency success, to ensure you choose the right one for your business.

Engaging your prospects with email marketing is a great way to build relationships, stay relevant and communicate important thoughts and insights on the things that matter to them.

And when you consider that over 269 billion emails sent and received on a daily basis, it’s definitely something you should consider investing in for your building products and construction company.

However, it’s not just a case of drafting some copy and hitting ‘send’. In fact, a successful email marketing campaign will encompass a variety of tried and tested techniques.

But, today, we will be exploring the one thing that all-too-often gets neglected during your email marketing campaign:

Your landing page.

Small to medium sized construction companies are the ideal user of marketing automation systems. Smaller teams have little time to be focussing on marketing campaigns while also struggling with keeping on track of sales follow up and lead nurturing.

By implementing a marketing automation system into your construction business, your team can streamline, automate, and measure marketing tasks and workflows all while increasing your efficiency and growing your sales.

Led by Chief Executive Officer at Stratabeat Inc, Tom Shapiro, we explore why so many B2B blog posts just aren’t performing – and what you can do to maximise your blog’s potential.

You can connect with Tom via Linkedin here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomshapiro/

The 22-23^rd September 2020 mark this year’s Inbound Conference (#INBOUND2020), the massive 2 day conference that gathers business professionals from almost every industry, which has gone virtual this year in the light of the Coronavirus pandemic. Inbound 2020 is set to be an immersive, interactive digital experience uniting forward-focused professionals with industry thought leaders to cover everything marketing, sales and customer experience.

As part of our participation in the event, we want to bring you the best of the offering there through blogs and our social media. Stay tuned for more blogs like this. But now, let’s begin on the 10 Scientific Secrets That Make Your Content Impossible to Ignore, as delivered by Nancy Harhut.

As more and more companies take on the inbound marketing approach as a way to generate more leads, the importance of having an effective lead nurturing strategy becomes apparent.

It's likely that if someone has enquired for your solution, they've also enquired at competitors of yours too. This gives people the option to explore different solutions and services available, especially if one can't deliver in time. 

Following up these leads with the right content, in a timely manner and at the right time in the buyers journey is essential. Read on to find out 7 effective lead nurturing tactics you can implement.

You may've started to notice a trend in your construction marketing agency research.

The term 'HubSpot Agency' may've come up once or twice but the question is should you choose a Hubspot Partner Agency over a general agency?

That's what we'll find out here...

To celebrate the release of our latest eBook, The Construction Marketer’s Guide to Email Marketing, I’m sharing some top email stats from this year…

…To prove exactly why email is one of the most effective marketing channels.

If you feel that your construction business’ email marketing strategy is under-utilised (or even under-valued) then these stats might be just what your organisation needs to step up their email marketing game.

Read on to find out more!

Over the past few weeks, we’ve blogged extensively about the digitisation of your CPD sessions.

In this guide, we aim to tie everything together, outlining:

• What digital CPDs are and why you should consider one
• Effective formats for digital CPDs
• CPD webinars
• How to make a CPD
• What to talk about
• How to get accredited

And some handy tips along the way.

Read on!

When it comes down to choosing the right CRM system for your building products company, it’s important to understand the capabilities you’ll get out of your CRM system.

Aside from core features such as - contact management, interaction tracking and lead management; there are must-have features that can transform your construction marketing and reduce your workload.

These key features include - workflows, pipeline management, measuring return on investment (ROI), customisation and customer support.

Read on to discover how these key features can benefit you…

It’s all well and good generating leads, but are they being nurtured into marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and then sales qualified leads (SQL’s) as they work their way through the buyer’s journey, or are they just sat going cold?

You want people to convert, fill in a form, download a guide, make an enquiry, and engage with your company. But, what you do after that is just as important to keep them interested in your solution.

79% of marketing leads never convert to sales due to the absence of lead nurturing.

Think about how many potential customers you’ve missed out on by not doing enough to keep them engaged. A huge part of lead generation is making sure there are follow up’s in place.

Are you thinking of hosting a CPD in webinar format?

Webinars offer a wide range of benefits that the modern construction product business can - and should - be taking advantage of.

Today we’ll be giving you a step-by-step guide on how you can effectively host your CPD webinar, as well as some key considerations to help you along the way.

Searching for a construction marketing agency for your building products business can be frustrating.

But once you find one, you may be unsure whether they will be the best fit for your business and what you hope to achieve with your marketing.

We understand.

That's why we have put together a short list of 5 key questions you should ask any construction marketing agency you may be considering, to see if they will be suitable for you.

Lead nurturing is the purposeful process of engaging a defined target group by providing relevant information at each stage of the buyer's journey. It focuses on marketing and communication efforts to listen to prospects, and provide valuable information and answers.

Effectively you’re guiding prospects to eventually purchase from you, but in a way that's helpful and not sales driven. The more a lead is nurtured, the more knowledgeable they become about your specific product.

This ultimately creates a more qualified lead, ensuring the sales team get involved at the right time, when the lead is ready to purchase.

When it comes to RIBA CPD submission, there are several factors that are mandatory in order to gain approval.

In this post, we’ll aim to give an overview on what those essential elements are. This will be useful for anyone who is thinking of digitising their current CPD or creating a new one from scratch.

Don’t forget to head over to our CPD services page, where we talk you through our step-by-step CPD creation strategy to help you get approved with ease.

Finding the right marketing agency for you building products business can be like walking through a digital minefield.

There are so many out there it is easy to be overwhelmed.

But there is a way around this and it is not as hard as you may believe it to be!

Below are a six things you should look for when researching marketing agencies.

To say that building products businesses weren’t prepared for the world relying on digital would be an understatement. The same goes for a lot of other industries, as we’ve all been forced to work from home and get on board with new technology.

This week I interviewed Leigh Simpson, the founder of Project Prospecta, to learn where the idea came from.

It’s easy to understand how there can be confusion about SEO and content marketing as they are so often talked about separately.

However, they come hand in hand and work together to achieve great results for your building products business.

They both fuel each other and act as the cogs to any successful digital marketing campaign. To get a clearer understanding of how they work together, lets first review them individually.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) has been a successful route to market for Building Product Manufactures and has become a vital part of architects’ and design professionals’ career development.

The rise in remote working, however, has prompted us all to think a little differently about how we deliver CPD to a wider audience, since face-to-face interactions are not viable right now.

Digitising your Building Product CPD means that you can deliver helpful content, whilst enabling professionals to access it from the comfort of their own home.

However, it’s not just a case of creating a PowerPoint and talking about the benefits of your products. Creating engaging, educational value is what will set you apart from everyone else.

Read on to find out more.

Searching for the right agency for your building products business can be challenging.

Identifying the strengths and differences of each agency is difficult, and identifying whether they will help you achieve your key objectives is also a challenge.

You want to make sure you find the right agency for your building products business because you're going to spend time and money so the ROI has to be worth it. 

However before searching for an agency, there are a few things you need to consider.

There are so many options it is easy to feel overwhelmed, and fall into an agency that may not be completely the best fit for your building products business.

So with that in mind here are four areas to consider before jumping on google to find your ideal agency.

This is the first question that anyone asks when considering delivering a new CPD session, followed by:

Can I deliver true value?

Will people be interested in what I have to say?

You then may have practicality concerns such as:

Do I have the time?

Is it worth it?

Before you know it, you’ve talked yourself out of delivering a CPD altogether.

Establishing the right topic is the first step in achieving a meaningful, educational CPD.

This post aims to provide some useful tips on how you can decide on an appropriate topic, and hopefully, steer your thoughts of negativity into something that you and your team will benefit from.

Read on!

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system handles your data. 

A high-quality CRM system can encourage you and your building products to move away from lengthy spreadsheets and store your marketing, sales, and customer services data in one place. 

This blog post aims to help make your decision easier when deciding the best CRM system to implement. 

I’m going to provide the pros and cons of these 5 CRM systems: HubSpot, SalesForce, Fresh Sales, Zoho and Pipedrive. 

There are so many marketing agencies out there it can be difficult to know which one will help solve your issues. We understand that not every marketing agency is going to solve your problems.

What would you do if you had more time in the day? Get ahead and use the time to generate more sales for your construction company?

According to research from Salary.com, 89% of staff waste some time at work every day.

Time is the one commodity you can’t buy more of and you can’t get back, you only have one chance to use the time you’ve got and in the most effective way possible.

A CRM can help you get organised and essentially, get more done in the time you’ve got.

Maybe you’ve decided to digitise your building product CPD; or maybe you want to create a fresh, new CPD from scratch.

Whatever your aims, you need to ensure that your end-result helps to develop your relationships, establishes thought leadership, and perhaps even leads to specification.

To increase your chances of the above happening, there are some key rules you can follow.

Read on to find out more.

It’s widely known that, for architects and design professionals, CPD is a vital part of career development. Many professional institutes (such as RIBA CIOB, RICS, RTPI, CIAT, ICE, IStructE) now require members to undertake a minimum number of CPD hours each year.

Ahh the age old question, should you hire in-house or outsource?

A question that has most likely crossed the path of every business no matter the size or department.

Of course there is plenty of material about this online, so within this blog we are going to focus on the construction and building products industry.

Digital marketing is becoming a strong pillar in many business' marketing strategy so there's no doubt it needs to be handled one way or another.

So who handles your digital marketing?

Wouldn’t it be great if technology could take up some of the strain and become your next technical sales rep? Well with marketing automation, it can!

What is a CRM system? Good question. A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system handles your data. 

A high-quality CRM system can empower you and your building products business to understand your customers, sales data, and marketing like never before.

CRM Magazine showcases that 91% of business with 10+ employees use a CRM system.

So, let’s go and delve into the benefits to find out why they’re valuable to your building products business and your overall construction marketing.

Time and again construction / building products businesses choose a marketing agency because the agency has a good website or were referred to them by a trusted source.

However this may not be the most effective way to go about it. 

Finding the right specialised agency that really understands the construction industry, and all of it's nuances and dynamics, would provide more benefits than just a generalised marketing agency.

Let's find out why working with a construction marketing agency makes sense for your business.

According to research carried out by Darren Lester at SpecifiedBy, 98% of specifiers prefer to carry out product research online.

Considering that so many decision-makers within the building products and construction industry are using the internet to help aid their specification process, it's crucial that companies take advantage of the delights of automation.

Automation has the ability to become 'your extra sales-person' so read on to find out what platforms are available to you.

In our modern, technological era, more and more activities and services are being automated either as a way to reduce human labour or to streamline processes.

Marketing is no different – anything digital can be automated.

Automating your marketing processes can save your business time and money whilst improving ROI and customer experience.

Do you struggle to keep track of customer information? Are your lists scattered across multiple spreadsheets, notepads, inboxes, files or even in a filing cabinet?

If so – you will see value in adopting a CRM system. Read on the find out more.

As more companies within construction and building products consider digitising their CPDs to reach a wider audience, many are tasked with the conundrum,

I’ve never digitised my CPD before.

Similarly, those who are new to the world of CPDs may be wondering where, even, to start.

If this is the case for you, our recent series on digital CPDs for your building product/construction company may help you.

Today, we’ll be exploring some essential ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ worth considering for anyone looking to digitise their building product CPD.

Read on to find out more…

As more and more companies within building products and construction embrace technology as a new way of working, digital CPDs are becoming a key consideration for many.

If you’re new to CPDs, or if you’re more accustomed to the traditional, face-to-face style of CPD, this blog sets out to explore how to make your CPD digital, reaching out to a wider audience and increasing your chances of specification.

Working in digital marketing for around a month now, I have learnt that time is one of your businesses most valuable assets. After all, time is money, and the more money you bring in as revenue, the more likely you are to be profitable. Therefore going off that, time leads to profits, right? That’s why you need to use your time wisely and in the right areas, so why wouldn’t you want to save time wherever you can?

There’s an endless amount of different software that can help you save time, from CRM systems, to social media scheduling, or even easy to use graphic design software. After working in digital marketing, I’ve been able to learn how to use these different software and now use them on a regular basis, showing just how easy they are to use, if somebody with no experience can pick it up, and effectively use these systems. All of which are designed with one goal in mind, to save you time in your business.

Before we begin, I should outline that gaining CPD accreditation isn’t mandatory. You can still create a CPD without accreditation. You can still deliver value without accreditation. You can still increase specification without accreditation. CPD doesn't have to come from, be accredited by, or approved by the RIBA, for example, to count.

However, many organisations across all industry sectors decide to gain accreditation for various training courses. This is mainly because it is a recognised approach to learning and almost a ‘seal of approval’ for anyone looking to help educate people on new trends, initiatives or practices.  

For anyone considering getting their building product CPD accredited, this blog sets out to explain the process, the positives, and the considerations.

As people are returning to work and a sense of normality returns, you might need to re-access the way you sell whilst bouncing back. Your business might have triumphed during this crisis or been at it’s lowest depending on the sector you provide to.

It's likely that your 2020 marketing plan has changed drastically in response to the disruption caused earlier on in the year. You most probably had events or trade shows booked in, even if you were just visiting, which have all quickly been shifted to online events.

Data should be the main driver for your strategy approach anyway, but now more than ever you need to dig down and find out which tactics are working best for you.

Each company will have different metrics, some may find that email marketing is really working for them, others may find producing guides and sharing them on social is keeping their customers engaged and interested.

However, there are some typical tactics which shouldn’t be adapted out of pure desperation and others that you should seriously consider for improving your presence online.

As more building products and construction companies become more educated on the Inbound marketing methodology, Insynth is pleased to welcome our new Digital Marketing apprentice, Josh Simpson, to the ever-growing team. 

As the only HubSpot certified agency to major on construction marketing, Insynth is leading the way with the latest inbound marketing techniques and welcomes this opportunity to help develop individuals' professional skills further. 

When searching on the Internet we all consume content without realising, our daily queries get answered by featured snippets, Q&A, forums, articles, and blogs.

However, when it comes to creating content for your building product brand, many companies fall short. This is partly down to time and skill, although people also struggle in knowing what to produce.

There’s no denying that content creation is a skill, but nothing is stopping you from learning the basics of how content marketing works and how it can help raise your profile online at a time when digital is the go-to place for research.

Winning more building product specifications is not something that can be answered in one sentence, or even one blog post. It’s a complicated process involving a multitude of skills and techniques that encapsulate a deep knowledge and understanding.

Today, we’re focusing at the start of the journey: Your audience.

We often refer to your audience as ‘Buyer Personas’, and understanding your BPs is crucial to winning more building product specifications.

Having a CRM system is key to bouncing back from this years events, it gives you data about your contacts that you never knew you needed, helping you reach out at the right time and track how they interact with your website.

This blog will take a look at what a CRM is and how they can help with not only marketing activities but sales too.

The proportion of construction workers furloughed has fallen below 25 per cent, according to research from Build UK this week, highlighting a slow return to normality within the industry.

As construction sites begin this long and challenging process, this blog aims to give your building products company some useful tips to help reach out to your audience. Right now, communication is key if you want to gain specification with those decision-makers in the industry. Read on to find out more.

As the world starts to repair itself and we see a gradual change in behaviours, make sure your company can be found in a time where there may be less choice.

Each company’s approach has been different to this crisis, for some it’s given them the realisation that being digital plays a key part in future proofing your business, others will adapt the way they work forever, with less office and requesting staff to work from home and some sadly might not make it.

Discover how you can bounce back with a kick-ass approach to digital marketing, starting with your SEO.

1: Selling Solo

Being an old-skool salesman I thought I knew it all. Results were powered solely by my own hands and my own way of thinking. My way had always worked, hitting the phone as hard as I could, sniffing out buying signals in order to get that next sale. I didn’t need anyone apart from my own desire, and I had bucket loads of that.

As we’re adapting to work remotely via calls and videos, it’s worth considering remote interviews.

You might be thinking why at a time when people are being made redundant and furloughed should I be thinking about interviewing people, but it’s actually more relevant than ever.

This whole experience has been an eye opener for a lot of businesses, people are realising they don’t need their team to live in a 20 mile radius, they don’t actually need to see them to get the job done and they might even be questioning having such a big office space after this.

Let’s rewind to January 2020. The year was laid out before us, new strategies were in place, new products were going to be launched and big projects were due to begin.

And then the unexpected happened. Out of nowhere, a global pandemic altered every aspect of our personal and professional lives. Projects were put on hold, jobs lost, and businesses forced to adapt to this ‘new normal’.

It’s been several weeks now - and for most - the initial shock has settled. In some cases, we’re even seeing glimpses of what life used to be like. However, we’re all aware that it’ll take a long time before we get back to the pre-Covid life that we all took for granted.

With that in mind, this blog aims to give some actionable ways for you to pivot your content strategy in order to adapt to these unusual times.

It’s a sad fact that Covid-19 has brought about an abrupt halt to people’s livelihoods. Individuals are being furloughed-and in some cases-even losing their jobs.

With that in mind, the construction marketer needs to be aware that people just aren’t as contactable as they once were, and this means that you may have to adjust your strategy in order to reach out to the right people.

From an email marketing perspective, those who have sadly lost their jobs will have inevitably had their email accounts switched off, meaning that your email campaigns will not achieve the level of engagement you’re aiming for, causing your bounce rate to soar. 

We want to avoid this at every possible opportunity as a consistently high bounce rate will cause you to get penalised by your service provider-affecting your ability to send future campaigns. And of course, you want people to actually read your emails.

This blog sets out to give you some useful tips and tricks to reduce your email bounce rate, ensuring the right people read your emails.

We all know that words are the currency of the web. The more SEO-driven content you have, the better chances you will have at ranking highly in search. If you’ve read any of our previous posts, this message will come as no surprise.

What’s different, however, is this ‘new normal’ that we’ve all been forced to adopt. Working from home is giving us more time to reflect, and it’s even allowing us to catch up on the things that we’ve let slip in recent months.

And for many, this means addressing your content strategy.

The purpose of this blog is to give you some practical guidance that you can implement now, in order to prepare for the post-covid future.

If you attended our webinar a couple of weeks back, you’ll have learnt that email marketing is more crucial than ever during these unprecedented times, and the data-which we will be sharing-certainly backs this up.

We’ve seen some great results from companies within building products and construction who have used this as an opportunity to focus on two key areas:

• Growing their contacts database and;
• Reaching out to their current database

The purpose of this blog is to give you some useful tips and tricks (that are backed up by data) to ensure that you stay on top of your email marketing game during Covid-19.

Read on to find out more…

Although some industries production lines or sales have come to halt, our advice is where possible, carry on with your marketing. Google is not going to stop so the SEO shouldn’t be stopping.

As businesses are forced to work from home, concern grows of how you and your team will continue productivity and communication whilst still fulfilling your roles.

Although working remotely is embraced by many, it’s not perceived the norm for a lot of companies.

This worldwide crisis has forced companies to adapt, making the digital tools you use essential to your new daily work life.

This blog runs through just some of the different tools that are available in an over-saturated market of technology.

Almost every business in building product and construction has been planning for the inevitable impact that COVID19 will have on our industry. It's unexpected, and sadly for most, unplanned for. In these uncertain times, a strong sales and marketing strategy is your closest defence to ensure that you come out of this the other side. 

But, how does a strong sales and marketing strategy look like for building products and construction?

Current affairs have meant companies are reluctantly forcing themselves to embrace their teams working remotely, even if they don’t want to. However this is not a new concept for so many workers, 70% of people work remotely at least once a week, with 53% working remotely for at least half the week.

Some believe that ‘working from home’ is a cop out. However there are little excuses for not working at home with the technology and software that is readily available to download for free.

This blog runs through 5 tips to help you manage your team remotely-successfully- including the must have tools.

Digital marketing can sometimes seem overwhelming. There are thousands of pieces of software out there to streamline and structure your marketing efforts.

However, successful digital marketing doesn’t come down to the tools they use. Although they help, the fundamentals of digital marketing amount to educating, planning and executing.

Hopefully by now you’ve got a pretty good idea of what 2020 looks like for your building materials company. If not, this blog should open up some areas that you might not have considered, or start discussions internally.

It’s healthy to review where you’re at as a company and how you are being perceived in your market. Most marketing reviews and strategy planning takes place yearly. This is your opportunity to not ask why but why not?

The construction and building sector is one known for it’s traditionalism, with this comes the reserved approach to trying new things and experimenting.

This blog consists of questions to try and kick-start your marketing strategy plans. Ask yourself…

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to hear some words of wisdom from some of the big players in the world of construction.

The event: The NBS Construction Product Leader’s Summit.

It was a great opportunity to network and learn from the experts on all things affecting the construction industry today.

When it comes to revitalising and updating your content it can be easy to throw aside content pieces that you feel aren’t working for your target audience.

Before doing so it’s worth considering these 6 options that often get forgotten about. Then you can focus on producing content that’s not only relevant to your audience but also content that Google will love.

It started as a debate about why I want to improve the image and value of marketing in the construction industry.

Last week, I attended the Construction Product Leader’s Summit: an event hosted by the NBS, which set out to highlight the importance of adopting a digital approach to construction.

We were lucky enough to listen to the words of Dame Judith Hackitt. Dame Judith has been instrumental in the much-needed improvement of current building regulations, through her recent implementation of the new Building Safety Regulator.

This post aims to highlight the key takeaways from Hackitt’s talk, and how Insynth applies these principles within our digital marketing approach.

Have you ever wondered why content marketing works so well for some construction/building products companies, whilst failing miserably for others?

You might be one of those companies who has hired a team of exceptional writers yet aren’t seeing the ROI that you needed or expected.

With January out of the way and our construction marketing strategy in place, we imagine that your sights are firmly set on how you will promote and network your building products company to drive growth and success in the new year.

Throughout 2020, the UK is playing host to a variety of trade shows aimed at those in the construction and AEC industry, and Insynth has compiled a list of the shows not to be missed.

Read on to find out more.

There are a ton of companies in the building products and construction industry who spend countless hours and thousands of pounds producing content and developing webpages that go unnoticed by Google.

You may hire an expert copywriter who writes beautifully but has little knowledge of your target audience.

You may spend thousands on a web developer who’s an amazing visual designer but knows very little about SEO.

And what are you left with? A website that acts as a product brochure (I’m aware that I’ve used this term several times).

This post will provide you with the tricks and hacks that’ll ensure you structure your blogs in a way that gets you noticed by Google, giving you the biggest slice of the pie.

There’s nothing more frustrating than your website not showing up on Google when you type in a particular keyword.

You spend so much time improving your website’s content; you’ve got an attractive website; you’re promoting your brand in the best light.

Yet, when you’re sat there, ready to rake in all the traffic…

Nothing happens. No increase. No ROI.

For construction marketers who are new to digital marketing, this can be disheartening. Fear not, however. There could be one of five reasons why you’re not finding your building products website on Google. This post aims to identify them.

Want to make your construction content marketing stand out in 2020?

You’ve come to the right place.

As we enter into the new decade, we need to understand that the times are changing. So, before I break into a clichéd Bob Dylan quote, I’m going to share some key tips to make your construction marketing content stand out, increase specifications and win you the projects you deserve.

There are so many opportunities to make your building products and construction website a content-rich beacon of information.

Our industry is full of content opportunities. Whether it’s BIM objects, technical specifications or product information, there's a lot of accessible information for our audience of architects, contractors and designers.

But, in the building products and construction industry, there’s an overlooked and neglected facet of content…

And it’s blogging.

A series of keyword-rich blogs can have the ability to drive substantial traffic to your website, increasing specification potential and placing you ahead of your competition.

You planned too much for 2019. There were specifications you didn’t get, money you didn’t make and goals you didn’t accomplish. Sound familiar?

In many cases, we find that this is largely down to a lack of strategy and focus.

So, why not kick-start 2020 with a new source of inspiration that creates focus and alignment for your team.

As an inbound marketing agency that specialises in the building products and construction industry, one of our main aims is to educate our audience. Part of the ‘education’ process involves producing high-quality, free resources aimed at up-skilling your front-facing teams.

The resources that we’ve produced this year will be shared in this post.

In the world of digital marketing, email is one of the oldest marketing channels, with the first email being sent way back in 1971. Since its primitive beginnings, email has evolved, with worldwide usage set to reach 3 billion by 2020.

This powerful tool shows no sign of slowing down, and with over 43 thousand architects and 2 million contractors currently in the UK, this guide will ensure that you’re leveraging every opportunity within your email marketing efforts.