The website for the new Construction Marketing Association founded by Neil Brown in the Chicago area is now “live”.
The site certainly follows what I understand are best current website optimization practices, including links to related blogs, Facebook, Twitter.and Youtube (the video below is from the site’s Youtube link). The new associaiton, as well, looks like it will have many features and services common to well-established associations including a certification program (Certified Construction Marketing Professional (CCMP)), an annual conference and an awards program, the cmeSTAR.
The association shares office space in Naperville, Illinois with IDeasBIG (Brand Identity Group) and FUSION b2b, which describes itself as “a Chicago (Naperville) based business-to-business (B2B) integrated marketing communications agency,” and Construction Marketing Advisors, which says on its website “is the leading strategic marketing and creative agency for construction market brands and targets in North America.”
Neil Brown’s LinkedIn.com posting describes him as the Managing Partner at FUSION b2b and Managing Director at IDeas BIG.
When I noted a news release announcing the formation of the Construction Marketing Association in February, I contacted Neil and we exchanged emails in which he explained the association’s place in the spectrum is focusing on the manufacturers and distributors of products and services for the construction industry.
We are more focused on brand owners who target contractors and construction firms, retail hardware and home centers. The AEC market is more focused on biz development. We will have sub-groups for more specialized construction marketing, like AEC. Perhaps you would like to participate in such a sub-group?
He said the association has real membership interest. The members list on the association’s website is open only to members but the website cites Kevin Enke, Marketing Director Robert Bosch Tool Corp. as a feature member.
Dues are modest at $200 for individual members a corporate rate of $150 each for five or more members (with a $25 new member application fee.)
In my first posting, I observed that association appears to be largely in the space occupied by the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) and its structure and programs seem to have many similarities. However, I sense that Brown is actually visualizing an association primarily serving a market quite distinct from SMPS (which has its roots in marketing departments/services for architectural, engineering and construction businesses) and which validly may deserve its own association. This is the place one step down on the supply chain: the organizations and businesses wishing to sell their products into the AEC community.
Certainly, these marketers — largely representing building products and technology manufacturers — are active in associations such as the Construction Specifications Institute and its Canadian counterpart, Construction Specifications Canada. Brown’s marketing and branding agencies/services, naturally would benefit from business opportunities and relationships with these manufacturers.
I certainly advocate marketers join relevant client-focused associations to find and discover new business and relationship opportunities (it is a key chapter in my Construction Marketing Ideas book). Can you take things a step further and create a new group when a relevant association serving your clients’ (and potential clients) interests doesn’t yet exist?
Frankly, I’m not sure. Brown is undoubtedly a skilled marketer and the association looks like it may be useful. My sense, however, is that the association’s core values and identity must come from the primary members who don’t see it as a marketing opportunity for their own businesses/organizations but as a place where they can fulfill common needs and interests. (SMPS, for example, traces its roots in the 1970s to a group of marketers within the American Institute of Architects who, as far as I know, worked at actual architectural practices — not companies and organizations selling products and services to them.)
However, I could be totally wrong in my assumptions here so am keeping my mind open and might join the association later. I sense Brown’s biggest challenge is showing that enough qualified and relevant members from the peer group the association is serving are truly engaged and leading the group. In other words, he will need a core group of committed volunteers to create enough critical mass for the association to be successful.
(The association’s current board of directors includes Kevin Enke, along with Jim Scarlata, Director Marketing, Knaack Div. Emerson Electric and Rick Kean, Managing Director, Business Marketing Institute (BMI). The association website’s “About the Founder” section says: “Neil M. Brown has been CEO of numerous marketing consulting and creative agencies for the past 15 years, managing some of the biggest brands in the construction sector. Prior to the agency-side, Brown was a brand manager at electrical products marketing powerhouse IDEAL Industries, and later CMO of an architectural metals manufacturer.”)