I’m writing this post in the middle of a self-induced website crisis. Carelessly, I uploaded some files onto the server, and managed in the process to trash one of our company’s major websites — just as we were preparing to launch a new publication issue.
Ouch.
Not all is lost, of course.? I can tell that everything is still there, stored in (for now) inaccessible databases — and we have a consultant on call who should ultimately be able to fix the problem.
So that’s the gahhh.
Fortunately, as I was working through the permutations of my mess-up, I took a few minutes to review a hidden gem, buried within an email outlining stories and topics that consultant Matt Handal had deemed not worthy of wide promotion or distribution. The topic: Marketing In the Construction Industry – Everything You Need to Know.
Can this be true?? Can anyone put “everything” into a 2,228-word article?
Maybe not, but Matt has dissected the marketing foundations like I’ve never seen before.
I?ve worked with construction firms just starting out and those making billions per year. I can tell you that those who have the most success always have these two key elements: the?right message and an audience who can say yes.
Handal goes into a bit of detail about how you can determine your audience, and to that, you need to know the type of business you are operating, and then determine the decision-makers within your logical market. And you also can determine the correct framework for your message.
Then, within that framework, you focus your marketing to differentiate yourself and create value within the market you are serving.
Consider, for example, one extreme in the spectrum. Your business is government work, where “low bid wins the job”. In this situation, it doesn’t make much sense to focus on fancy marketing. “However, it would make sense to hire the absolute best construction estimator you can find,” Handal writes.
Of course, you may decide that “low bid” isn’t the best road to go (or isn’t suitable for the market you wish to serve.) Then you can work through the permutations and carefully try out one or two marketing strategies — not an impossibly large collection — to achieve your ideal results.
I’ll come back to Handal’s post in the future here, because it is truly a hidden gem.
