What information do specifiers search for online?

My husband and brother-in-law are typical SAS shoppers. You know the type: Get in, get it, get out. There are too few hours in the day to be bothered with browsing.

Of course not all shoppers follow the SAS model. Me, I’m more a creative type, picking up ideas like a magpie, saving things for later, easily distracted. I often have ongoing lists of things to look for and will pick them up in a haphazard way. As you can imagine, I don’t go shopping with my husband!

What has this got to do with specification? More than you might think, because if you want specifiers to find your stuff, you have to think about their personalities as well as their search terms. You have to think about their journey.

How do specifiers search for products?

We all know that online really matters. The last time that RIBA Insight carried out research into this area (2012) they found that 88% of specifiers use Google to research product information, and 83% go direct to product manufacturer’s websites. More recent research by Competitive Advantage (their 2015 Construction Media Index) shows that more architects read online publications than hardcopy magazines and journals, and this trend is enhanced by youth, so it will only get more pronounced in the coming years.

If you think about your SAS specifier and your creative specifier, both are using print and online, but they will also both be using online more and more.

So what information do specifiers search for online?

My brother in law summed up the key questions you ask with a website:

• What is it?

• What does it look like?

• What does it do?

• How much does it cost? and

• How do I get it?

Whether you wander in and out of a website like a butterfly or jump in with a focus, we can split out some of these questions and identify what specifiers are really looking for.

What does it Look Like: Give Specifiers Visual Information

Firstly, we always look for Visual information. Architects are trained in the visual arts, and they make decisions based on images as much as text. In particular, they will be influenced by precedent.

Precedent is something that establishes the credibility of an approach, so that it can be used in a similar situation with confidence. In other words, was your balustrade used on a high spec housing scheme in London before? If so, can you show me what it looked like? Can you show me fifteen different views of what it looked like, in different contexts, with different accessories and materials alongside?

Whatever you do with your website, make sure that you have as much good quality visual information about your products as you can, and make that information easy to find using search.

Don’t assume because you make products that aren’t visually appealing (or even visual at all) that an architect won’t be influenced by what they look like. For heaven’s sake, an architect will even be influenced by the amount of white space you put round your photographs. Take visual perception seriously and give them plenty to look at, beautifully arranged and easy to find.

What Does It Do: Give Specifiers Technical Information

Alongside the visual, specifiers need access to the technical. This may be because they are looking for a product with particular performance characteristics, or simply because they have to satisfy another member of the design team that certain performance can be achieved. Some are technical specialists in their own areas (such as heritage buildings, or hospitals) but all are generalists when it comes to your products. You are the specialists there.

As you are the specialist, make sure that you can answer the technical questions they have, whether on google, twitter or directly on your website. Think about ‘How to…?’ questions and ‘What is…?’ explanations. Ask your technical team what questions they keep having to answer over and over again from architects.

Don’t discount the advantages provided by product selectors and comparison tools and charts. As on interviewee told me recently, ‘We all know you have 500 products, just don’t make me look through 499 before I find what I want’. Remember also that whilst the more technically minded might have the SAS mentality, all specifiers should always be considered to be in a hurry. Get a new employee to look for something in a hurry on your website and see what you can learn.

What Does It Cost: Give Specifiers Cost Information

This last one is probably the most difficult for construction product manufacturers and suppliers to provide – cost information. This is because not only is cost a business sensitive matter, it also varies according to so many factors. How much do you want? When and where do you want it? Do you want it with anything else? But put all these concerns aside – the fact is that specifiers want to know about cost.

Many architects working on small projects will be cost conscious and find the fact they can’t get cost information easily extremely frustrating. That is why they rely heavily on companies they know. On larger projects where cost consultants are involved, specifiers might not need detailed cost information, but they will often want to know which products are going to be cheaper than the one they’ve already specified. This is an excellent opportunity for you.

Don’t assume that you need to provide lots of cost information – or even that you need to put it on your website. Remember the SAS shopper, and ask yourself, “how can we make it obvious that if they ring or email us we can provide them with the information they need right away?”

How to make specifying your products easier

So here are my three tips for helping architects to specify your construction products.

Optimise, Optimise, Optimise – not just so that people find your text by search, but also think about optimising images for search, and think about targeting your content to real specifiers. How do you find out about them? You can do market research, talk to your existing specifiers, or simply talk to the sales team.

Make customer journeys easier – because specifiers are busy and also sometimes lazy. Make it easy for them to make visual comparisons, technical comparisons, and cost comparisons. And lastly,

Humanise your website – put your people on it (not stock photos!) because specifiers want to talk to a human being both online and on the phone. Don’t give them just an info@ address, give them someone they can contact direct. Then when you want to give information out privately, you’ll get a lot more takers.

Su Butcher is director and social strategist at Just Practising Limited. She helps construction companies use the Internet better, in particular when talking to architects. As well as consultancy, Su runs social media and content marketing workshops in-house for product companies, and at the Building Centre in London. The next Content Marketing Workshop is on March 16th.

This article originally appeared in RIBA Insight
Image: {Creative Commons}