Construction Marketing

Buckshon addresses the architectural, engineering, and construction industry's marketing challenges with a positive and practical approach especially for business owners who don't want to be bogged down in clichs and who have been encouraged to try a variety of marketing ideas which simply don't work.

This book is aimed at anyone working in the construction industry wishing to obtain new work. It draws upon the reader's own experiences as a consumer to introduce the key principles of marketing and relates how these principles can be used to advantage in the construction industry. The book explains marketing strategy as the means of assessing where customers are likely to be, deciding what to offer them and what to say to them to persuade them to work with the reader's firm rather than with a competitor. Emphasis is placed on the development of personal relationships as a route to developing new business. Practical guidelines are offered for obtaining competitive advantage, for securing an initial meeting with potential clients, for the design and use of brochures and other publicity material, and for many other marketing and sales related activities.

This breakthrough book is a comprehensive guide that covers all aspects of marketing in the construction industry, from building products and equipment, to A/E/C services, and retail, along with detailed examples of construction marketing implementation.

This book covers the whole range of marketing principles, skills and knowledge that the modern construction manager - from whatever discipline or profession within the industry - requires to generate effective and profitable business. While aimed primarily at students in the later years of degree, diploma and professional courses, it will also appeal to students in related disciplines and those following postgraduate and post-qualification courses. The approach underlines the importance of adopting a proactive attitude towards the marketing of a company's services in the construction industry. It reflects the reality of the transformation that has taken place over the past twenty years where there has been a shift from a highly protected domestic industry to an unprotected global industry. The already huge and increasing pool of expertise in the field means that there is much greater choice available to clients and and potential clients. The choice of contractor is therefore going to be made increasingly on the basis of factors other than pure expertise. Therein lies the importance of marketing. Factors such as price, quality, value, volume, time, client satisfaction and confidence all come into play - and these are presented and differentiated through marketing. The book covers all the principles of marketing, including strategy, marketing campaigns, product and service, price, promotion, access and research. It also deals with client perceptions, confidence, expectations and understanding. The critical question of operating in a fully globalised industry is also addressed.

Marketing is at the centre of the business education boom: a million or more people worldwide are studying the subject at any one time. Yet despite widespread discontent with the intellectual standards in marketing, very little has changed over the past thirty years. In this ground-breaking new work, Chris Hackley presents a social-constructionist critique of popular approaches to teaching, theorising and writing about marketing. Drawing on a wide range of up-to-date European and North American studies, Dr Hackley presents his argument on two levels. First, he argues that mainstream marketing's ideologically driven curriculum and research programmes, dominated by North American tradition, reproduce business school myths about the nature of practically relevant theory and the role of professional education in management fields. Second, he suggests a broadened theoretical scope and renewed critical agenda for research, theory and teaching in marketing. Intellectually rigorous yet comprehensible, this work will be of vital importance to all those interested in the future of teaching and research in business and management.

"How can architectural, engineering and construction businesses profit from social media? Learn the do's and don'ts of Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Google Plus and other services and what you can actually expect to achieve establishing and maintaining profitable client relationships. This book offers straightforward and practical ideas on how to put social media to work economically."--

This practical book on selling and marketing will help architects,engineers, project managers, facilities managers, surveyors, andcontractors ‘sell’ themselves to prospective clients. As clients become more sophisticated at both local andinternational level, and as competition in the constructionindustry increases, both contractors and consultants have to take amore professional approach to selling themselves. This isespecially true for PFI bids where vast resources are committed towinning multi-million pound contracts. Through a simple-to-follow process, illustrated with plenty ofdiagrams and checklists, Marketing & Selling ProfessionalServices in Architecture & Construction sets out the sevenkey aspects of selling and marketing professional services. It isfull of applicable ideas and examples and is well structured toenable readers to dip into the section relevant to their currentneeds.