To sell building products you have to get the products in front of your potential customers. This can be a huge headache. Traditional photo-shoots are time consuming, complex and often extremely expensive. Special lighting rigs, set construction and or location selection and scheduling are all hurdles to overcome. All these things need to be done long before any images are actually produced and the results are unpredictable.
Consider now, if there was a way to display any product as realistic as photography, but in any context while saving time, money and resources. What if you could have these things done before the product was even mass-produced?
3d rendering has become so advanced that you might not even know that catalogs such as IKEA are ditching the traditional photography sets and using 3d renderings instead. 3d imaging offers more flexibility, more affordability and provides many advantages of photography. There is still a huge need for great product photography – without question, but there are many reasons to choose 3d rendering instead. 3d product renderings offer unlimited flexibility and the ability to be on the cutting edge while your competition is still wrestling with photographic nightmares. Moreover, there are some products that are just not photo-friendly. Some are inside-the-wall products that are not meant to be visually appealing – a talented 3d illustrator can make them beautiful. Some products are too heavy or large to photograph easily. Sometimes you want to show the internal parts of a product and how they work which is incredibly difficult with photography.
3d Rendering – Lower Cost, Less Time
A traditional photo-shoot takes time to initiate, set up, light and rig and get just right before you even get around to taking pictures. There are numerous challenges that just don’t exist in the virtual world. While a photo-shoot might take tens of thousands of dollars to produce, a 3d rendering of a product can be as low as $500.
To change the setting of a photo-shoot midstream would be cost-prohibitive and is usually impossible for building products. A 3d rendering can show a product in any scene, any context at any time and can be changed at any point in the process. The flexibility of changing colors, textures and showing variations of products can be done with little added cost.
3d Rendering for Product Prototyping and Product Launches – Just-in-time Marketing
For new products, 3d renderings can be produced before the prototype is even created. Marketing and sales materials can be created before or while the product is being developed and can aid in the product design process. Usually a prototype is engineered and created long before marketing can happen. With a 3d rendering, marketing and product development can occur simultaneously in more of a just-in-time marketing approach.
The result of integrating product design, prototyping and marketing visualization accelerates the time-to-market for new products and allows for market testing during the process. What if you could test-market 3 variations of a product design showing it in photorealistic images in a real-world scenario? Could you put those 3 variations in front of potential customers and let them decide which one is the best option? Could you do that with traditional photography?
Sales and marketing could have photorealistic images of how a product looks, how it works and how it is installed on day one, or before. On day one, a beautiful set of installation animations, details and images would all be in the hands of your sales representatives.
3d Renderings Make Emotional Connections with Customers
Let’s be honest here, some products do not make an immediate emotional connection with potential customers. When someone walks into an apple store, or a granite showroom – there is a clear emotional response. When an architect is deciding which type of flooring underlayment to use – I don’t think there is that same type of response – could there be?
Here is an example of what could be done with that flooring underlayment to make an emotional connection using a 3d rendering that would not be possible with photography.
Blow Away Your Competition With Animation
Are you convinced yet of the power of 3d rendering in the sales and marketing of building products? If not, consider animation. Once you have 3d models and renderings produced, you’re are more than half the way there to having photorealistic animations and videos of your products. A well-produced video can increase customer engagement, demonstrate the what, how and why of your product and eliminate problems in the field all in one solution.
For more information on the power of animation and view a case study – see this article
Below is an example of a 3d animation for a building product.
Some Case Studies of Building Product Marketing Using 3d Imaging
Regards and I hope you find beauty today, even when it is not pretty.
-JY
About the Author :
Jason Yana has 2 decades of experience in architectural technology, 3d graphics and construction marketing. This unique combination provides highly-effective visual representations of building products that fuel marketing and support efforts.
His award-winning body of work informs, inspires and educates building product customers.
Start Here >What’s the goal of your trade show display?
This is an often skipped step. It seems like many trade show exhibitors have a pre-set display that they have always used and have a set routine they go through. The exhibits look the same, year after year, and I’m guessing the results are lackluster. Step one is to define the desired outcome. If you determine first whether your trade show efforts are going towards grabbing attention, strengthening your overall brand, launching a new product or gathering leads? Here is a great article about setting your strategy and measuring the results > How to Make Building Material Trade Shows Pay Off
Get great trade show display graphics to support your goal.
All Building materials need to be presented in the best way possible. At a trade show display, this is the time to spare no expense, pull out all the stops and wow your audience. You’ll only have a few seconds while passers-by decide whether to stop and check out your booth or not. I guess you have to have some sort of free give-away or gimmick to grab attention, but your products have to sing loudly on their own.
3d Rendering of an “in-the-wall” product
Have Samples of your best products at your trade show display
Having samples of actual products is always a great thing, along with photographs of finished projects. This is great for building materials and products that are going to be seen once a project is finished, but what if they aren’t? What if they just aren’t that fun to look at? Use a cue from Mcdonald’s in this case. This post explains more > You so want one – Applying Lessons Learned from McDonald’s to Building Product Visual Marketing
Make a great first impression with your trade show graphics
Your trade show display and everything in it are going to make a first impression, it must be obvious at a glance that you know what your are doing, that you have quality products and that you take pride in them. If you don’t take pride in them, nobody else will. Here’s more on first impressions > One Tenth of One Second – All The Time your Product Has to Make a Great Visual Impression
People just love video at trade show displays
Technical and promotional videos and animations can demonstrate that you understand the real world issues and prime objectives of your potential customers. Nobody is going to thumb through a technical brochure on your products at a tradeshow, but most of them will at least glance at a video if it is on a big enough screen. You won’t be able to talk to everyone that passes by, a video or animation can tell your story to those whom you do not get to speak to. Check out this article about how to improve the customer experience using 3d animation and video.
Check out this iPad Stand for trade show booths
How cool would your product demonstration 3d animation and video look at your next trade show booth on one of these? This is just one example, there are many more out there like it.
Regards and best of luck with your next trade show,
For building materials and building products, marketing and technical information can’t always remain isolated. Most great building products are great because they combine a function or purpose with an attractive appearance. With a little bit of care, the images used to display a building product can the same type of elegance. A great technical drawing can dance the line between being visually appealing and still function as a technical drawing. Here are seven ways that using a cutaway technical drawing of a building product / building material can help inform, educate and ultimately sell potential customers.
1. They make a great first impression.
The brain makes snap judgements about images very quickly, and sometimes unconsciously. A potential customer could form a negative opinion about your product in a tenth of a second. Most of the time we wouldn’t think about making the first image someone sees of our product be in the form of a cutaway technical drawing, but we don’t always control how someone first sees a product. With the way the internet works now, you never know what page they will enter your web site on, or where else they might see an image of your product. On a side note, do a quick google search of your product name and see what comes up, sometimes the highest results are of some old outdated drawing or document that you’d rather them not see first – if that is the case, figure out how to fix it!
2. Cutaway technical drawings demonstrate how a product works.
You are not selling cosmetics here, you are selling building products and building materials that have to perform. By showing the part of the building envelope a product is used in, and peeling away layers to show how the building product or material actually works in the real world – you are informing and educating. They work very well in continuing education programs for this reason.
3. A well presented technical cutaway establishes your authority.
It is a mistake to bury technical details about the proper installation and use of a building product eight levels deep on your web site. Sure it’s great to have a special link to a library of tech information, but don’t be afraid to be technical elsewhere. If you do it in a way that is visually appealing – it will not just be dry and boring gearhead stuff. By showing that you know exactly how the product should be specified, detailed and installed – you establish your creditability and authority in the marketplace.
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4. A great technical drawing builds rapport with people who draw technical drawings all day.
Think about your customers, are they architects and engineers? If so, speak their visual language. If they see a very well drawn and informative cutaway technical drawing, you are speaking their language and building rapport before you open your mouth. If your customers are contractors or do-it-yourselfers, you are showing them how your product is installed in an elegant way – again, you’re speaking their language.
5. Selling is teaching, cutaway drawings are great teaching tools.
Without a doubt, you are the worlds leading expert on your product. Some of the best building product salespersons are great teachers. They facilitate their customers by sharing technical and practical knowledge that solves problems. Not to mention the issue of conversational tone, if you have the heart and tone of a teacher, you will conversations and the general experience of serving customers transcend from what we traditionally think of regarding sales into a much deeper connection.
6. The spouse test – A high-end 3d photorealistic cutaway drawing is easy to comprehend.
It’s where the technical stuff and the marketing fluff come together
My wife is not a technical person, she doesn’t want her time wasted with boring details or excessive information, she’s the perfect test subject. Find a layperson who doesn’t know anything about building materials, building products or construction. If they don’t immediately learn what the product is, why it is used and how it is installed from looking at a cutaway drawing, get back to work. I pass everything through the “wife test” and it’s very effective. I’ve seen this impatient creature grasp how a mundane widget works in a few seconds from a great 3d cutaway drawing. All the 2d details in the world would never get that result.
7. 2d details have their place, it’s just usually in the trash.
I will concede that there are some situations that are best explained using a traditional black line on white paper flat boring detail. But in general I feel that you should have decades of experience, but your drawings should not. Get with the times!
I’m sure you all can relate to my broken shelf in my former office. It was weighed down by the ubiquitous and industry standard sweets catalog of building products. It’s pretty funny to think back now of a huge volume of printed binders being the state-of-the-art for getting information about building products.
We can look back now and think about that tectonic shift from printed materials to online communication and laugh. The shift to mobile marketing is going to look very much the same and it is happening now. Building product manufacturers need to embrace mobile marketing and deliver engaging and interactive content that helps sell their products and educate their customers resulting in increased sales and increased customer satisfaction. This can be accomplished using high end visualization tools.
Mobile marketing is the next big shift
2012 internet trends report by mary meeker and Liang Wu documents the following :
Three years ago, 2% of adults owned a tablet or eReader, this year in 2012 it’s 29%!
Mobile internet traffic was 4% of the total in 2010, now it’s 13%
In india, as we speak mobile internet traffic is surpassing that of desktop usage
The global installed base of smartphones and tablets will exceed that of desktop computers in the second quarter of 2013
Prepare mobile marketing that works for desktop users equally well.
1. If your web site is not mobile friendly, figure it out – either have your web designer create a mobile responsive site that resizes itself automatically according to the size of the user’s screen, or have them make your site autodetect and redirect users to a mobile marketing web site.
2. Once you figure it out, deliver engaging content for mobile users – 3d Instructional Animations and stunning interactive demonstrations of your products.
Use 3d renderings, interactive demos and animations for mobile marketing
Reading large amounts of text is quite enjoyable on most mobile devices, but it is not what they excel at. Apple has put super high resolution retina displays in their iPhones and iPads which produce stunning visual clarity. 3d renderings of products, 3d interactive product demonstrations and animations excel on these mobile platforms.
– Create high end visualizations of your products that look great on mobile screens, see some examples here
– Using those assets have your visual marketing professional create interactive product tours that allow the user to interact with your product with his or her fingers. Think about millions of potential customers holding a sample of your product in their hands. Imagine how powerful that would be. See examples here
– Those same assets can be used to create instructional 3d animations that can demonstrate how your product works to a customer, how to install them for a do-it-yourselfer or a contractor. See an example here
We know the value of first impressions in interpersonal interactions, but they are also vital to the first time your product is seen by a customer. Get it right the first time, wow them from the beginning and realize that if you don’t take pride in your products, nobody else will. This article explains this concept more.
Some of the best sales people in the building product world are great teachers. They have a way of understanding the needs of their customers and can communicate solutions to real problems in an eloquent way. The act of taking someone from ground-zero and walking them step-by-step through a solution from beginning to end is an act of teaching.
The customer experience used to be done largely in person, when it comes to building product sales. A representative would put on a suit and tie, carry a large heaping pile of samples in to an architect’s office and make a great and informative presentation.
Arm your Sales Staff
I recently got a tour of a brick plant and one of the shocking things to me was there seemed to be more people, effort and expense going into creating the product samples than there was actually making the actual end product. The time and monetary investments are being made on the front-end of the sales process making the product samples look just right. That sample room is an arsenal of ammunition for the sales staff to use. Here is a new weapon for your sales staff – the 3d animation.
Bring a Machine Gun to a Knife Fight
Educate your sales team with 3d animations which demonstrate the what, how and why of your product in high definition detail. It is a very powerful sales training tool that can make sure that all the most important technical points and installation nuances are being addressed correctly.
Even the most boring and invisible aspects of a product can be illuminated and highlighted with a great 3d animation. Once the sales team is armed with this information, they can hit the ground running.
Take Customer Experience to the Next Level
The days of the boring powerpoint presentation are coming to an end. Your customers are completely desensitized to moving bullet lists and boring slides. Instead, if you show them full resolution, full motion 3d animated product tours and installation demonstrations, you will get their attention, you will educate them more thoroughly and they will be far more likely to remember the information you present to them.
Improve the customer experience with video demonstrations that do not just list features and benefits, they demonstrate them in real time.
Why is YouTube the Second Most Popular Search Engine?
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world because people love video. Video is engaging and is particularly effective when you are trying to demonstrate a highly technical concept. We will be at a point where customers are going to expect a much higher level of sophistication from product manufacturers and I think that time is drawing near.
Support the end-user and decrease problems in the field
A multimedia demonstration can help contractors and do-it-yourselfers understand the processes and procedures that need to be followed in order to correctly use your products. A step-by-step animation, often the same animation that you used to sell the product, can also serve to reduce warranty claims, callbacks, complaints and litigation.
An end-to-end solution
I have a map on my wall from Mark Mitchell (seethewhizard.com) it is a map of all the different paths a building product can take through the building product channel. At every touchpoint from architect, to general contractor, distributor – every point at which a building material moves from manufacture to installation can be improved and even transformed by a simple 2 minute video like the one shown above.
It’s There When you Cannot Be
Here is a quote from a customer who had a product animation done recently “I’m a product manager and I cover the entire US. Obviously I cannot accompany each salesman during their sales presentation but having a 2-1/2 minute video point out all the highlights of the system is huge help. Our customer’s time is very valuable and many times you only have a few minutes to pitch a product. The video gets directly to the point, pecks their interest and opens up the dialogue.”
What does visual marketing of construction products have to do with McDonald’s?
Well here comes the stretch.
Ever notice how the images they use of a Big Mac in commercials are always so perfect looking? What about on those big pictures they throw up on their menus at their restaurant locations? They know the power of visual communication. There is a company they hire who painstakingly pours over every detail of the sample sandwiches they make with the sole purpose of photographing them for marketing materials.
Maybe I watch too much documentary tv on the science channel, but I happened to catch the show about how they do that. It’s intense and it has to be expensive, but they do it. They know what they are doing.
When I look at catalogs and marketing materials on web sites for building products, the products usually look lame.
Here’s a cold formed metal framing part – It fireproofs the top of a wall – or so they tell me.
Anyway looking around the internet to see what I am competing with when I do a rendering of this product, here’s what I come up with:
I think we can do better – way better as an industry and learn from McDonald’s a little bit. So there hamburgers never actually look as good as the products they show in the commercials and on the menus – maybe that’s not such a big deal.
Maybe we can take a page from this playbook and send our products to beauty school a little bit.
Here’s my attempt at it, for what it’s worth – 3d subdivision surface model and rendering of Cemco Fastrak 1000
