Preparation is Everything
Arm your sales and marketing staff with the tools they need to stand out in the crowd and inform prospective customers with the best tools, learning aids and laser focused marketing, sales and support materials available
Early Disclaimer – Yes I am writing this article trying to convince you that my services are valuable and necessary. You can look at this as self-serving, and it is, but I don’t write about the value of visual marketing because I provide it as a service, I provide visual marketing as a service because I believe it is paramount to success in the marketing of building products. If all my writing does is make you take a second look at how your present your products to the world, I count that as a success.
Step One – Give them excellent visual representations of your products
I’m sure you have the most talented people out there on the streets showing your products off to your prospective customers and regardless of how talented they are, they still need ammunition. Whether you hire the best consultants and product photographers to showcase your products, or someone like me to do great 3d renderings of your products – you just have to do something to make a positive visual impression. It sounds so simple, but it is often overlooked. It is most often overlooked for products that aren’t meant to be pretty – the utilitarian things that will never be seen once a project is finished – I think it’s more important than ever in this case to act like McDonald’s and make something that isn’t necessarily pretty look awesome in your advertising and marketing. See this article to see what I mean about McDonald’s.
Step Two – Give them great details
Construction details provided by the manufacturer are a big part of sales and marketing. Sure, they can be a mundane pdf or dwg download that you bury seven levels deep on your web site, and that is fine, but think for a moment about what that says about your products, your loyalty to the success of your customers and your commitment to making this world a better place by providing a product that adds value in some way to the world. You and your colleauges have most likely lost many nights of sleep hashing out every detail about how your product is best used in the real world. That moment when the sales pitches are over, the dust settles, your product is specified and the designer is trying to use it correctly and the contractor is actually holding it in his hand – that moment is really what matters. If you don’t show that you take pride in this very serious moment, you are putting your company in jeopardy. Imagine now, looking at this a different way, creating beautiful details in crisp life-like 3d. You don’t pick the simplest application of your product or the simplest thing to draw to just get it over with, you show the down and dirty real-world details. Of course, the final decisions on how the building is designed and detailed lies with the engineer and architect of record, but so does the decision to use your product again.
Step Three – Demonstrate with the fourth dimension
Video, people just love it. I have approached many people trying to give them the elevator speech about what I do, why I do it, and how I can help them improve their business with varying success. Nothing works better than handing them my ipad which is loaded with a two minute video reel of my work. They sit quietly and watch for way more time than they will sit and listen to me babble. Many architects and contractors are visual learners and they are way more likely to remember what the heck your product is, how it is used, and most importantly why it should be used. Social media marketing is great, but have something to share. Things are becoming more and more about the mobile internet – video and animation is perfect for this.
Click here for a case study of 3d animation for building products
That’s it!
I humbly appreciate you taking your time to read this and please don’t hesitate you let me know what steps I missed to properly arm a sales and marketing staff to hit the streets well-prepared. Leave a comment below, call and holler at me or drop a message in the box that slides up on the bottom right.
-JY