Construction Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Construction Marketing - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that some of the similarities between the marketing processes used by construction companies and companies selling consumer goods would be the structured process of strategic marketing followed, the approach to branding, profits and pricing strategies used, segmentation and differentiation of customers and understanding customer needs. Understanding customer needs and experiences would be related to marketing orientation and both the construction companies and consumer goods companies would be focused on providing the best services to the customer. Within the construction marketing framework and the consumer marketing framework, there is a need for delineating company vision, customer segmentation, and focus, benchmarking and identifying distribution channels. The construction and consumer goods companies also go through the process of external audit or market research and market analysis along with competitor analysis as well to understand the marketing processes and dynamics of business. Construction and consumer goods are marketed in accordance with an analysis of processes, profit margins, organizations, product life cycles, as well as strategic plans such as branding and market re-engineering. All these processes of strategic marketing, market orientation, customer focus, benchmarking, distribution and following company vision seem to be the similarities identified between construction marketing and consumer goods marketing. Strict monitoring and control, quality and customer services improvement are also some of the similar marketing objectives. This would bring us to the differences in marketing between the two types of products and the related companies. The construction companies will have to specifically focus on the economic conditions, market orientation, and business cycles as for such companies, business seems to follow a pattern. The staff recruitment and retention strategies, relationship marketing, an d budgeting methods would differ from that of companies selling consumer products. Thus even if the basic approach to marketing does not change between the two types, the elements of marketing seem to differ between construction marketing and consumer goods marketing. This is exemplified by a study in which the influence of marketing policies is seen on corporate performance. Bennett studied 119 businesses in the UK construction industry and suggested that firms that adopted a long-term approach to marketing management tended to attain superior performance. Although short-term approaches are more common. The study showed that the construction industry responds in a certain way to the market conditions. Unlike most consumer goods companies, marketing in this case is long-term whereas for consumer goods, marketing approaches are based on short-term goals and targets. Instead of mission and long-term vision followed by construction companies, consumer goods companies are focused on sho rt-term goals and objectives. Construction marketing is more directly based on the concept of relationship marketing than consumer goods marketing as building trust with long-term customers would be the primary tool for success in any construction endeavor. It has been found that the level of marketing orientation is rather low in the construction industry and in this industry, unlike the consumer goods industry, marketing strategies are developed and followed with only superficial knowledge of the marketing process. The consumer goods industry seems to be more well versed on the dynamics of marketing strategies used than the construction industry.