Anyone who has dabbled in marketing has probably heard about the concept of “content marketing”. It’s the notion that by developing content that is useful, actionable, and relevant to your target market, they will beat a path to your website to read it.
Done well, it absolutely works. You write some great content, you post it, and Google sends a ton of traffic your way. Easy, right?
But when you’re marketing to architects, engineers, and contractors (AECs), it takes a special kind of content to get them to come to your website. They are seeking technical content.
What Is Technical Content for AECs?
The content that makes AECs happy is the stuff that helps them to get their work done. Architects and designers have embraced digital tools and technologies to help them to design more projects in less time. To help them, the savvy manufacturers have been creating Building Information Models, or BIM, of their commercial building products.
BIM are computer files. They are 3D digital representations of physical building products. The AECs want the BIM files, like Revit or Sketchup, because they can drop them into the projects they’re designing digitally. That saves them a lot of time, but it also allows them to be very specific as to the products they envision being used in the actual construction phase.
This is a big plus for the manufacturers who provide BIM, because once specified in the design, those same products are commonly used in construction.
They Need More than Just BIM
BIM alone is not enough. The AECs are also looking for Specifications, Data Sheets, Images, CAD, and Documentation. Again, they are expecting manufacturers to provide all of this, and to make it easy to access it.
Factor in those who are working towards LEED v4.1 certification on their projects, and they will also be looking for Health and Environmental Product Declarations and Material Safety Data Sheets.
We surveyed over 5,000 AECs, and they told us that building product manufacturers need to provide all of this, or they will head elsewhere.
So here’s some good news. You can provide all of that technical content and make it easy to find by adding the Concora Digital Experience Platform to your website. It provides your customers with a branded, marketplace-like environment that makes it easy to search, select, and specify building materials, while also providing the deep technical content that they need to do their jobs.
If you want to see how it works, sign up for a demo of the Concora DxP.