The following are four examples of where a construction product company has used a social media tactic* with rather unfortunate consequences.
Names have been removed of course, to protect the pioneers. We all make mistakes. Maybe we can all learn from them.
1. Twitter
A construction product company pays a marketing agency to tweet their press releases for a year.
Why? Because there are loads of architects on Twitter (true).
Unintended Consequence? None. No Return on Investment, only brand-related organic growth in their follower numbers.
What do Architects and other specifiers want from Twitter? Apart from intelligent conversation during breaks, they want quick answers from the right human being.
So instead… Be there for your customers, but make sure that you’re listening, useful, and in human form.
2. Linkedin
A construction product company makes a company group on LinkedIn to talk about their product and share their news.
Why? Because there are loads of architects on LinkedIn. (true)
Unintended Consequence? No-one joins the group, except, that is, employees of the company.
When you are looking for an answer to a technical question, even if you’re interested in a product over the long term, you’re unlikely to have the time or the inclination to find and join a Linkedin group.
What do specifiers want from LinkedIn? LinkedIn is a referral network. Specifiers will use it to seek advice via trusted people they know.
So instead… Learn how to use LinkedIn properly. Get your client-facing people on it and make sure they know how to use it. Go hunting and farming. If you must make a community there, make one in an open environment, with a clear purpose and expect to invest heavily in building it over a long period with high value information. Maybe it would be even better to find other places where specifiers go for trusted information, and make sure your information is available there instead?
3. Email
A construction product company requires visitors to its website to submit an email address on a form in order to download their product DWGs.
Why? Because their database is their goldmine. Email is how they communicate with specifiers.
Unintended Consequence? No downloads. I get a call – why aren’t architects downloading our product information?
People in the creative industries are statistically more likely to be dyslexic than the general population, and are less likely to want to fill out forms. But the real reason is nothing to do with this. Why should people PAY to put your product on their drawing? It’s bonkers.
What do specifiers want from your website? Specifiers want to find the right product, quickly and with the minimum of fuss. They also want to deliver this information swiftly to the client, preferably without additional costs. After all, they are your advocates. Why charge them to advocate you?
So instead… Don’t make the receipt of your marketing messages a condition of specifiers choosing your product. Make sign up for email updates optional, and put it after the download, in a thank-you page. That way they can opt in and you’re guaranteed to get more downloads.
Telephone
A construction product company charges 49p per minute for their technical helpline.
Why? The company had found out that a competitor was telling its callers, ‘Use their technical helpline – its free and much better than ours. Then come back to us and we’ll provide you with the same product for less’.
Unintended Consequence? Of course there is a reduction in calls. What is more, the people who do get through are frustrated, impatient and understandably have high expectations. This puts more pressure on the technical staff.
Meanwhile canny specifiers bypass the premium rate line by calling company reception and asking to be put through. Rather than protecting the staff, you’re turning a benefit of their expertise into a disadvantage.
What to specifiers want from technical support? Technical support is essential to the specifier. It provides free, in-depth information about the right products for the right job. With a bit of research you’ll find that good technical support people are worth their weight in gold. If you’re specifying a product, it is your professional responsibility to ensure it is the right one. A product company that takes this responsibility seriously and shares the burden will be trusted and used again and again.
So instead… If you can’t compete on cost, compete on quality and appropriateness. Let us train your technical staff to turn their written support answers from emails into stories and become bloggers. This will save you time and money, and help them do their job more efficiently. That means happy specifiers, too.
What have we learned?
Using social media tactics to assist the process of getting your products specified is a great idea, but it is not as simple as it looks.
Twitter is a tool for human beings to quickly exchange information and advice. It also has some very subtle characteristics that can make or break your campaign. Learn how to use it properly.
Linkedin is a hugely popular trusted network for construction professionals, but its power lies in the trust network, not in its groups. Get your people building networks of trust on Linkedin and offline.
Email is a universal tool for communication in our industry, but it is used on a need-to-know basis. As far as construction professionals are concerned, you do not need to know their email address until they want you to contact them. Make sure you use email wisely or you’ll get ignored in all the noise.
We are a Telephone driven industry too. Build telephony into your strategy by making it easy for people to call the right person in your organization, for free.
I’ll leave you to speculate how much loss and expense these failed tactics generated. If you want to integrate social media tactics into your marketing strategy in an intelligent way and start making some real returns, maybe we should talk?
*Tactic: A tool to achieve a strategy. You usually need more than one.
*Strategy: A plan to achieve an objective via measurable goals.
Got any comments or questions? Please post them below.
Interesting article Su. You hit the nail on the head on No.3 – regarding paywalls for access to drawing files for products or at the very least making obtaining this information a drawn out form filling exercise. Not all companies do this, and I find myself favouring their products over others. Many companies provide a wealth of product information as CAD downloads and for a technician this is ideal. A great many more provide little to no valuable information. Stop making it dfficult for me to draw your products.
Also with the introduction of the National BIM Library more manufacturers should be jumping at the chance to get their products in there. Could the income generated by being the go to company for a particular system – say curtain walling – outweigh the initial outlay for their products to be developed into readily usable BIM objects? I think so. A benchmark for the quality of the model could be set, and all the relevent performance information would be present in model where/when it is needed.
Hi Robin,
Thanks for posting your comment. When you think of all the information technicians need to choose and specify products its amazing that this is currently such a problem – you’d think that the effort of publishing the key information would easily pay for itself in no time.
I’d be interested to hear from product manufacturers why these barriers are still in place.
Pauley Creative @PauleyCreative on twitter have suggested the usefulness of explaining the contrary position to the arguments I’m making.
What is the argument for an email form submission requirement before you can download a DWG? I’d be interested to hear.
Our subscribers do not want us to list their CAD or BIM files on http://www.specifinder.com without asking for the user details. This is because they have invested a lot of time and money in producing their content and only want it to go to those who are seriously looking to specify their products – and their view is that anyone who is genuinely interested in their products wouldn’t have an issue providing some information.
We’ve been stricter with the PDF download functionality, having these freely downloadable and arguing that this results in more exposure – but they still argue that they want to measure who exactly is downloading their material and why – as Pritesh says!
Hi Michael,
Intellectual property is definitely an issue with information, I agree.
But how does providing an email address give any protection for this? One of my clients told me that they know all their competitors are on their mailing lists, for example. Temporary email addresses are available for free from many websites. Email is no protection at all.
If companies want to protect their information, then they shouldn’t be publishing it online anyway. And if they want to make it available to specifiers online then why put them off with a form?
Hi Su,
I wasn’t saying whether this is right or wrong, just what we know from experience. At the end of the day a manufacturer would rather have 5 leads with email addresses than be told they’ve had 20 downloads – this is what they consider to be quality rather than quantity.
It’s not about protecting their information, but measuring that what they’ve invested in producing the information was worthwhile.
Competitors creating temporary email addresses is one thing, but a very small percentage of people would bother to create temporary addresses to download a BIM or CAD file – we know, people give us real business addresses every day!
Michael
Thanks Su.
Robin – very valid points made.
From personal experience whilst working in-house, every time that form was filled in, it was a) data collection obviously and b) VERY IMPORTANT: an extra plus point next to how my performance was being measured. (Hint: how many leads have I generated be it cold/warm/hot?)
Basically, a form being filled in stood between me and a pat on the back. Wrong? Right? Who knows? Every business is different with different objectives.
Being able to report on a monthly basis (simplified for example purposes) “We’ve had x% of Architects and x% of Contractors register for CAD details this month” was much better than just being able to say “We’ve had x% of downloads this month”. Context mattered. Seeing names and company names was much more valuable to bosses than a number on its own…….for my own personal benefit really.
It also helped to track ‘sign up on web’ through to ‘drawing received’ within the CRM system to track wider marketing performance.
So this leads me onto another question which I have been asking for ages, how are marketers and the marketing dept being measured? More often than not it’s ‘brand awareness or increase in leads’. Leads = all those people who fill out forms & make phone calls and send emails.
Maybe marketers, departments, bosses need to re-evaluate how individual and departmental success is measured in order to free up information to allow Architects to access info freely. Those forms matter a lot to marketers at the moment I think.
That’s really interesting Pritesh.
If this is the case then the concept of a ‘lead’ needs to be re-evaluated. When someone downloads information they may be a ‘lead’ but they are not a ‘request for information’ they are a ‘received information’ lead.
They’ve chosen to obtain some information, and that may be all they need.
If you then email them and ask them if they need any more help, the likelihood is that many of them (though fewer than just broadcast emails I grant you) won’t want the contact – at least not now thank you very much. This is one reason why specifiers won’t give you their email address. They don’t want you to contact them. When they do, then they will.
I’d be interested to hear from people who work in the role of line manager or decision maker about these forms of performance measurement, as it seems to me that these registrations are not giving them the full story and actually preventing them getting more genuine leads.
Great post Su – a lot of good points and food for thought as always. I agree with making the email address optional, but perhaps the canny form designer will make it desirable to fill out the form by giving option for updated product drawings and info as soon as they come out.
Certainly in recruitment line managers will always expect consultants, (who are very much in sales), to have some form of contact for them to even consider any conversation being a lead. An email address is seen as the bare minimum with telephone being much preferred.
I think that could be part of the typical “conflict” or lack of understanding between support people and sales; sales sees support as an overhead and often can’t grasp how much harder their job would be without them there.
A more proactive support team will want to be seen to be generating leads for sales and also be able to quantify it in some way, particularly in today’s climate where costs are constantly being reviewed and people feeling that their role being (whether actually is or not) constantly re-evaluated.
Certainly most of the managers I’ve either worked under or alongside struggle to understand how someone that always gives, ever gets and will be reassured/expecting this kind of information.
That’s a good outline of the conflicts Simon.
On one hand the need to prove one is performing by providing ‘leads’,
on the other hand reducing the number of ‘leads’ you get by requiring an email address when the ‘prospect’ doesn’t want to provide one.
What a dilemma!
We at Olsen Doors & Windows have almost our entire library of CAD details in DWG & PDF format for free download on our website. We find this makes it easier for clients, as well as generating more work with the information architects need and want at their finger tips (also it helps when we’re working at home and haven’t got the right section!). Currently we’re under going a massive overhaul of our technical manuals to make them easier to use and have more clarity, hopefully these new files shall be uploaded within the next week.
Thanks Paul, glad that its working for you, and thanks for posting your experience.
Hi Paul, yes, good to hear! And don’t forget to get your CAD files over to us for your specifinder entry!
Architects are so busy they really appreciate having info at their fingerrtips and, being intelligent, will rmember who provided info freely and willingly and return to the same supplier.
Online info should be given as freely as technical info over the phone.
Yes companies will be taken advantage of by the miserable few, but this is unavoidable and happens in all industries and all aspects of life.
Thanks Lynn. Time is of the essence for us!
I receive on average anything from 8 – 12 e-mails a month from an Architectural/Building Magazine Publisher, offering me subscription packages, services etc… This can work out at about 2-3 e-mails a week. Some people might find this a low number, acceptable and reasonable. When added to those received from other similar organisations and product manufacturers, I find it excessive and a hard sell that I cannot tolerate, plus, additionally something easily classable as Spam. As a result, I make it a principle, that I would never buy any products or services from such an organisation that adopts and pursues such practice. Therefore, they have lost me. Yes, I can opt out of receiving these e-mails, but there is a principle, should I have to? There should be a common decency and consideration to be reasonable with what is sent, and not to invade someone’s ‘space’ and bombard them with so much ‘noise and interference’.
In some ways, I view such e-mail use as ‘an assault’, in a parallel way to someone being mugged in the Street, in the form of an intrusion, a robbery of my time having to deal with such messages.
It comes back to that fact, that e-mail, as well as any other contact method and approach is a tool and not something of a ‘right’ to use just because it’s there.
Robin,
How important trust is with email. And how easily trust can be destroyed by its abuse.
Thank you for commenting.
UPDATE:
My helpful dad informs me that if you ever have the misfortune to come across a premium rate phone line for a company you can often find another method of contacting them using the ‘Say no to 0870’ website:
http://www.saynoto0870.com/search.php