Average Marketing Practices practiced in the Built industry
Many companies in the built industry (Real Estate and Construction) in Kenya are hampered by a lack of bold ideas and innovation. Brands must reaffirm their value by balancing long term brand-building, master the complex network of marketing and become stewards of critical issues like sustainability and functionality even in the face of economic downturns and tighter regulations.
Apart from the numerous challenges it faces (corruption, high material costs, unfavorable regulations, the Chinese, etc etc.) it is a highly competitive business in Kenya. (From the data I gathered from NCA for my MBA thesis in 2018, there are over five thousand contractors in Nairobi!)
Price wars have become the name of the game. Clients don’t appreciate professionals in the industry. Building professionals in the industry don’t produce their best work — and they happily say it is what the clients could afford. Rubbish.
Like any business, marketing is the soul of your brand. Unfortunately marketers in the build industry (who double up as CEOs or business owners) practice what I call average marketing. Average marketing is the marketing that you practice because your competitor is doing the same. They get a website. So do you. They advertise on the back page of the Daily Nation. So do you. They register as an exhibitor at the KICC. So do you. You notice on their Facebook page that they did some charity work last Christmas. SO do you. They become more active on LinkedIn. Guess what. So do you.
None of the marketing strategies practiced is born out of critical thinking and deliberate intention and planning.
How do you know you are practicing average marketing tactics? A few that I see include:
- Almost all your business comes from referrals, word of mouth and/or your personal network. Or you become over-reliant on particular marketing channels. This is especially true for established SMEs whose founders have developed close relationships with various stakeholders in the industry. While this may not be necessarily a bad thing, the danger lies when the founder is absent. If the founder happens to die, he/she dies with all the business relationships they have built and developed over the years. And again, personal branding can take a short time while company branding can take a very long time.
- Your company doesn’t have a marketing & growth team. That is staff who understand the strategy and business goals. Staff who analyze data, gather insight, generate & experiment on ideas.
- Your business is not retaining existing customers. Especially if they are going to your competitors. The longer you retain customers, the more opportunity you have to earn more revenue from them ( compounding value of retention)
- Your marketing strategy is designed to make your prospect committed to buying. In other words, the only success metric you care about is sales/revenue. No other KPI is tracked
- Your company hasn’t defined its ideal customer. Your marketing can be described as casting your net as wide as possible, aka the bigger pie syndrome.
Extra ordinary results demand extra ordinary marketing efforts
The first and most crucial step in creating exceptional marketing is determining whether your product or service is a must have. Is it in demand? If you are an office fit-out contractor, do you honestly think there is demand for your services? In your research, have you discovered that there are too many offices opening up (and existing) that proves that your solution is in high demand? Or that there are too few fit-out contractors to satisfy the market place?
If you are a swimming pool specialist contractor, what about the market place is changing that makes your company necessary? Was there demand for swimming pool building specialists before you even launched your company? Or did you open your company because you are passionate about swimming pools?
These are tough questions that need solid & honest answers before any marketing strategies are put in place. Many businesses in the building industry operate from a passion or gut-feeling perspective rather than from a problem solving perspective.
If the company has a solid foundation of why they exist, then the following extra ordinary marketing efforts can be practiced:
- Explicit definition of your ideal client: create your ideal customer persona. Define who they are and what qualities they possess. Where are they located? What is their size? Are my ideal customers thrifty or sparkly ( love perfection) Do they love samples or presentations? ?All the marketing efforts should be focused on prospects that fit that profile. Also define the type of customers you do not want to work with. Majority of many SMEs position themselves to be selected, versus proactively selecting their target audience. The more selective you are the better selection you get. Plus dealing with the right customer makes you more efficient.
- In the case of digital marketing, the perfect lead generator tool you could have is by offering a book. And I don’t mean your company profile. For the office fit out contractor, for instance, they could have a book on how elegant office design influences productivity of the employees as well as having a positive brand image on a prospective client.
- Retain existing customers by appreciating them appropriately and continually communicating with the right frequency.
- Innovate on marketing efforts by having a dedicated growth team. Could be internal or external. Apart from insight gathering, data analysis and generating ideas, the growth team should be empowered to innovate & iterate marketing experiments.
- Execute and track other KPIs, apart from sales. Such as number of enquiries, online metrics( website analytics, social media analytics, email signups, number of downloaded whitepapers, webinar signups, etc)
- Data is necessary, but stories sell. Know how to weave and articulate stories. Brands are not built on facts and statistics alone. Connecting with customers means understanding and deploying the power of stories in marketing. Stories can take different forms such as –
- Company origin stories, its people or its products
- Customer experiences stories like case studies, testimonials and reviews
- Stories in campaigns which showcase your brand values.
These are just a few, simple (but not easy) efforts that can be employed by brands in the built industry. They require time, critical thinking and a lot of feedback just to get them right ( hence the need to have a dedicated team).
Very few companies do this right hence why very few companies succeed in the market place.
