Are you looking to stay on top of the latest trends in construction marketing?
It’s important to stay ahead of the competition in any industry, and in order to do that, we have to understand which marketing tactics seem the most prominent, and which are falling by the wayside.
These days, information is always at our fingertips, and as an inbound marketer specialising in helping the construction and home improvement industries, I’ve been monitoring recent developments in construction marketing with great interest, as the industry evolves to meet changing buyer behaviours.
With that in mind, we’ve put together five of the most important statistics recently published by the Construction Marketing Association.
The statistics
The following information was published as part of the CMA’s 2016 Construction Marketing Outlook survey results, and displays some interesting trends for this year.
93% of construction companies are increasing their marketing in 2016
Instead of cutting their market budgets, most companies surveyed said they would be increasing their efforts in both online activities such as social media, email marketing, content marketing, as well as more traditional marketing activities including branding, PR and market research.
And social media marketing is the biggest online tactic set to increase
With 88% of construction companies planning to up their efforts in this area. That’s a rise of around 5%, up from 83.3% in 2015, suggesting that more businesses are realising the importance of social media in their marketing campaigns.
Sales prospecting is by far the biggest lead generation trend for 2016
With 58% of companies saying they would be doing more. This is followed closely be local SEO (think Google MyBusiness – a vital tool for construction businesses) at 50%.
In contrast, only 10% of those surveyed said they would be increasing their telemarketing efforts this year – in fact, more (16%) were planning on decreasing these activities.
Direct mail is on a slippery slope – 71% plan to decrease it
We’re definitely seeing a trend towards more online and inbound marketing tactics, with more and more companies gradually letting go of costly outbound practices such as direct mail – along with advertising, promotions and trade shows, all of which saw a similar decrease.
71.4% plan to practice more email marketing in 2016
That being said, the focus is shifting more and more towards marketing automation, opt-in email services and helpful content, rather than the spammy, unsolicited sales messages of old. There are plenty of effective email services you can use to help build up your email lists, including:
- MailChimp
- ConstantContact
- ActiveCampaign
- AWeber
- FreshMail
- MailerLite
Conclusion
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these construction marketing insights for 2016 – but how does your own marketing campaign compare? I’d be really interested to hear what you have to say in the comments section, and whether these statistics are reflected in what you’re seeing with your own business.
A construction or inbound marketing agency should be able to help you decide which of the above tactics fit best around your goals, but hiring one isn’t essential.