Posts By: Stuart Dinnie

5 ways construction companies can use Twitter for business

 |  1 comment  |  Posted by  |  ,

Twitter is becoming one of the most talked about social media tools. It provides a platform for businesses to connect with each other as well as with industry professionals. By listening and engaging in conversations and also creating and sharing content, construction companies can form long-term relationships, increase brand awareness and establish their presence in the social media world.

Construction companies need to ‘get in on the action’ to achieve a competitive advantage in the marketplace so I have compiled a list of the top 5 ways Twitter can be used for business.Read More

Do you use social media tools for networking, marketing or both?

 |  5 comments  |  Posted by  | 

There still seems to be a lot of confusion around social media in general and whether businesses should be using the channel for marketing or networking purposes. Companies in the construction industry wonder what social media platforms and tools are the most effective, how to go about forming relationships, what conversations to engage in and how to measure campaign results.

Social media networking is the process of interacting with other individuals through a specific social media tool or community. Networking is crucial for increasing  awareness and encouraging people to talk about you and your company whilst listening to what others say about you and your brand. Business leads can be generated from networking on professional sites such as LinkedIn where industry knowledge and expertise can be shared by engaging in group discussions. But is this type of exchange suitable for brands or rather for individuals (employees) representing the brand?Read More

UBM publish research results for construction industry marketers

 |  4 comments  |  Posted by  | 

UBM (United Business Media) recently released the results of an independent research study amongst architecture, construction and commercial property professionals about mainstream construction industry publications. The data gathered provides marketers with valuable information about the current market situation to guide their future campaign development decisions.

The study showed a gradual decrease in industry employees, falling from 100,534 people in 2005 to 80,513 people in 2010. The greatest difference was in the number of house-builders/contractors which fell dramatically. The number was nearly halved, demonstrating the impact of the recession which forced many companies to decrease employee numbers. Surprisingly, there is a significant increase in the number of architects which were the only group not to decrease in number.
Read More

Random acts of Marketing

 |  4 comments  |  Posted by  |  , ,

Had a great meeting with a clever guy (nearly five years ago now) who unprompted, confessed to implementing ‘Random acts of Marketing’.

It made me wonder how many agency and client-side senior managers and marketing managers within the construction industry are actually brave enough to step forward and say;

“Yep, that was random. That was probably a complete waste of time and money. Truth is I don’t know”

I know I’ve been prone to a few random acts over the years*

Post updated – October 2014

Read More

5 ways construction companies can use online video

 |  1 comment  |  Posted by  |  , , ,

Following on from my previous post on 5 reasons why construction companies should be  blogging, we now look at how construction companies can use online video and in particular YouTube as the tool of choice.

Online video usage and consumption is on the increase. Fact. Forrester Research recently reported that videos were 50 times more likely to receive an organic first page search ranking than traditional text pages. So, if you want to get some of your content onto the first page of Google very quickly then make sure it’s a video.

A quick search on the web for ‘Rainwater Harvesting Systems’ returns a mix of video, image and text based results. This is called ‘blended results’. What I want to point out here is that the video on the left (circled below) is produced by a company called ISW (Innovative Water Solutions) and yet they don’t have a single text or image based listing on the first page of Google, but the video is there driving traffic to the YouTube channel and then if viewers are wanting to know more they then have to option to visit the company website.Read More

5 reasons why construction companies should be blogging

 |  16 comments  |  Posted by  |  , ,

This is the first in a series of posts which aims to inspire you, the marketer for your construction company, on how you could use social media platforms and tools such as Blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube to connect, engage and educate your audience and enhance your brand to meet business objectives.

This post was recently updated in April 2015

Firstly, let’s get one thing straight.

Your marketing efforts should always be geared towards business objective(s), goals and targets (K.P.I’s). Why are you doing it? The last thing you want to do is step into the world of public opinions and customer conversations with a blind eye and make a complete hash of things. If you haven’t read Social Media Metrics by Jim Sterne then we suggest you do.

Jim writes that the big 3 business goals for social media are:

1) Increase revenue
2) Lower costs
3) Improve Customer Satisfaction’.

These 3 goals are all that matter in the long run and the goals/objectives which I will relate to for each channel.Read More

Why you need to register your company name on Twitter

 |  6 comments  |  Posted by  |  ,

I was planning to do another social media analysis (similar to the Construction companies and Housebuilders analysis) this time on the UK water companies but then I come across this little wonderful example of why social media and reputation monitoring is so important in protecting your brand online. Companies whose objective it is to communicate to consumers through many channels need to be on top of the social media game and be able to monitor and act upon brand mentions in online conversations and respond to them quickly. Likely places where consumers converse is on forums, blogs, community sites and…….social sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Are you actively monitoring these places?Read More

It’s not about you

 |  1 comment  |  Posted by  |  , ,

Your web site shouldn’t be about you – it should be about your prospect and customers. The average technical and trade website visitor is only interested in what benefits them as a business – they are self-centred. So your content language should not be concentrated on “our” and “we” but instead “yours” and “you”. The age old attitude of ‘my website is a shop window for my business’ is still present today, however, the prospect looking through the window no longer wants to know about you as much as  the need to know WIFM…what’s in it for me? Providing value through your content is what makes the difference.

Read More

Government sector lead the pack in email marketing

 |  no comments  |  Posted by  |  ,

A recent email marketing benchmark report published by Sign-Up.to shows that the Government sector is performing the best against 23 other sectors for open and click through rates for email campaigns during Q1 and Q2 of this year. The Government sector is currently achieving open rates of 35.60% which is a significant increase on 2009. This is due to the General Election earlier this year which, for the first time, saw various other marketing channels used alongside email. We saw many parties utilise social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube channels to attract the ‘online savvy’ audience.

The worst performing sector was the Property sector, dropping from 13.11% to 9.58% open rate in 12 months and this could be due to the current housing market climate we find ourselves in. However, we have to also look at the ‘engagement’ levels for each sector which is measured by the number of clicks to open (Click to open rate) and the Government sector is currently achieving a click to open rate of 25.51% whilst the property sector comes in at 9.23%.

The industrial and manufacturing sector does not fair to badly, with open rates of 19.88% and a click to open rate of 16.87% is around about the average reported during Q1 and Q2. However, the unsubscription rate is slightly higher than average and this could be due to irrelevant information being promoted to the recipient and also the value proposition within the email or campaign itself.

Here is the table for the Government, Industrial and Property sectors for Q1 and Q2 of 2010 of email marketing benchmark report:

email marketing 2011 report