Construction research for a leading construction directory services provider
A publisher of a market-leading directory of products & materials for building design and construction wanted to conduct an independent survey of specifiers to establish awareness levels of their product. In particular, they wanted to know how many specifiers are actually using their directory, and if not why they were using competitor publications.
The company’s previous research had only been amongst customers and had revealed that their directory was seen as the market leader. The company commissioned Leading Edge to conduct the project. This time the company wanted to conduct over 100 in-depth telephone interviews with a random sample of specifiers.
To reach the key specification decision-makers we used planning data taken from the last 12 months to engage with specifiers working on live projects. The sample was also split by the size of practice and users were targeted on their level of experience in the industry to see if this had any impact on the publication they used, or how they used them.
The research revealed that the company was not actually seen as the market leader by specifiers and that it often trailed its main rivals when looking at usage rates for both the hard copy and on-line directories. Awareness of their publication was also unexpectedly low amongst non-users.
In particular, when looking at the data for on-line directories, it was clear that the company had not taken into account the growing number of specifiers who were using search engines such as Google as their first point of call when finding out product information.
From reviewing the research we were able to build a profile of how to effectively target specifiers to raise awareness and provide a publication that would appeal more to their specific needs. We also made a number of strategic recommendations in order to update the company’s marketing strategy.
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