If construction marketing is basically a service to help your client, then it should include an element of consultation. You are using your personal skills, and the skills of your company, to help your customer deliver a profitable end-product.
As a construction expert, you’d be opening a conversation with your client. ‘What are your real concerns and constraints? What really matters to you on this particular project?’
It might seem that, if you’re a marketer rather than a builder, you might not have much to offer by way of consultation. That might be the case sometimes, but you may have more to contribute than you think. Does the client need advice on procurement and lead times? On cost reductions, or on budgets and pricing? How can you help deliver cost effective solutions? These sorts of questions demonstrate an interest in your client’s success, and the approach will win you respect.
There are big advantages to a consultative, service-based approach to marketing — both for you the marketer and for your client. It creates rapid rapport. It answers the question, ‘What’s in it for me?’ It makes a space for open and trusting communication. It takes the pressure off you to ‘sell’, and lays the foundation for a potentially long-term relationship.
Sales and marketing
You’ll notice that I talk about both sales and marketing, sometimes inter-changeably. What’s the difference, you may be wondering.
In simple terms, marketing is the major discipline covering all aspects of product, pricing, people and profit maximisation. Sales is the pro-active ‘get out there and sell’ element of the wider marketing discipline.
