If you're a business owner or leader in the residential building materials sector, the brand team at Phase 3 understands how competitive and busy the market is right now. So far in 2024, new building permits and housing starts are increasing every month.
Buyers are looking for homes that are special and differentiated from their neighbors – which puts pressure on homebuilders (your customers!) to use unique building materials. According to the National Association of Home Builders, builders are prioritizing materials like these for their 2024 projects:
- Nine-foot-plus first-floor ceilings
- Central kitchen islands
- Walk-in closets
- Low-E windows
- Walk-in pantries
- Front porches
- Indoor fireplaces
- Quartz kitchen countertops
Are you keeping up with market trends by promoting your unique building materials to home buyers and builders? Some of our favorite clients are in this sector, and we are riding these trend waves with them. This article will highlight the marketing strategies that are working for our clients.
Key Players in the Industry
These trend shifts present lucrative opportunities for marketing leaders in the building materials sector. Key players diversify their product portfolios strategically to align with changing consumer preferences. For example, they emphasize eco-friendly options and cutting-edge smart home solutions.
Customization is also a focus. Successful companies offer many color options and designs to cater to individual tastes. Adding innovative technology, such as smart lighting and voice-controlled devices, makes these products even more appealing. They attract buyers who want modernity and convenience in their homes.
Additionally, there's a noticeable trend towards strengthening digital channels (websites, apps, and online marketplaces), enabling seamless shopping experiences for both home buyers and builders.
As a business leader, using these insights from key players can position your brand at the forefront of the industry's evolution. You'll capture the market share you need to sustain and grow your company.
Marketing Trends for the Home Industry
Steven Kleber, Chairman of the Global Opportunities Board of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), recently wrote about the most important digital marketing trends affecting the home industry. Here are a few of the trends he identified.
AI-Driven Personalization
Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolutionizes how businesses reach and interact with their prospects and customers. By harnessing AI algorithms, companies can deliver tailored product recommendations and customized content journeys based on individual customer behaviors and preferences. This personalized approach enhances brand relationships and significantly boosts conversion rates.
Interactive Brand Experiences
Traditional marketing content is evolving, and interactive digital experiences are becoming the norm. Through AI-driven virtual reality showrooms and 3D product demonstrations, brands can engage customers in dynamic ways. Interactive digital content grabs attention and delivers memorable, educational, and informative experiences to customers anywhere. Online interactive brand experiences go beyond static images. They enrich brand engagement and leave a lasting impact.
Video Marketing
Video marketing is imperative. 88% of marketers see video as essential to their overall strategy. Live-action video is the most created type, followed by animated video (24%) and screen-recorded (22%.) For the home materials market, Kleber points out that personalized video messages and live-streaming events will be essential to engaging new customers.
Social Commerce Integration
Social media has evolved into more than social networks. Kleber calls them "powerful e-commerce runways." Adding social commerce features to digital marketing, like product links and shoppable social media posts, can be game-changers for brands. They will help build brand awareness and business growth.
The Phase 3 Way
The expert team at Phase 3 brings a unique skill set to clients in the building materials industry. We offer innovative graphic design capabilities to enhance the creative elements of your marketing strategy. Our designers are enthusiastic followers of interior design trends and the technology used to create and enhance design.
For example, we utilize our design and styling experience to create photo-realistic interior and exterior renderings that highlight our clients' products without the cost and delay of an actual installation. This design and technology expertise offers extra value to our clients.
In addition, our brand team has the business development and marketing expertise to address the business needs of our clients.
“Our sweet spot is branding and brand activation. When we start at that level, we can help our clients map out their exclusive value proposition and build engaging campaigns around it,” Kendra Lively, Senior Vice President of Creative, explains.
In other words, our branding capabilities, paired with marketing planning and strategy expertise, create highly customized marketing campaigns immersed in the core of our client's brand.
Let's review two recent examples of how our team has supported clients in the building materials category.
An Impactful Campaign for a Unique Line of Windows
JELD-WEN collaborated with our team to launch Auraline, a new line of windows and doors. The Auraline brand is unique in that JELD-WEN uses a composite material that is both beautiful, like wood, and durable, like vinyl. Auraline doors and windows fill a gap in the current market. They are between low-cost vinyl and luxury wood products. They give homeowners a high-end look at a lower price.
The Strategy and Tactics
The strategy was positioning Auraline as the first "True Composite" window. With the tagline "the best of both worlds" and split-screen visuals, we showed through creative design how composite windows are beautiful and durable, appropriate for contemporary and modern homes, and compatible with multiple climates and conditions. These 3D renderings showed interior and exterior views of the products in various styles and settings.
Our work included the development of product positioning and messaging and launching a phased comprehensive and multi-level marketing and sales campaign. We armed JELD-WEN's sales force with best-in-class marketing materials. We also provided retailers with branded launch kits. Then, we rolled out Auraline to the frontline audience with contextual, programmatic, and retargeting ads. Once we informed and engaged these key influencers, we initiated a consumer campaign on social media to drive awareness of the products. We utilized 3D renderings and images in videos, display advertising, and social media content.
The Results
The Auraline campaign delivered more than 11 million digital impressions and nearly 90,000 link clicks. Pinterest produced the highest metrics overall, but Facebook saw the highest return on investment. Facebook generated over 3 million impressions and roughly 36,000 link clicks while maintaining an engagement rate of 6% and a low CPR of $0.66.
JELD-WEN needed to make a big splash with Auraline to compensate for the new factory they built to support the production of the new windows. They delivered by leveraging Phase 3's passion for design and our experience in branding and marketing.
A New Brand of Flooring for the US Market
Belgian-based Beauflor needed help to define a powerful brand identity for the American consumer and retailer. Beauflor is a manufacturer of vinyl floors and they collaborated with our team to develop a brand strategy differentiating them from big-name competitors.
The Brand Strategy
After extensive research, including interviews with distributors, retailers, and internal stakeholders, we uncovered two key insights that drove the rest of our work.
First, flooring customers care less about brands and more about style and performance. Second, flooring retailers (Beauflor's direct customers) are looking for an easy story (and, therefore, product) to sell.
These insights drove our work. We aimed to strengthen and improve the Beauflor brand through new messaging and visual identity. The new look appeared on all digital channels. It also appeared on traditional sales materials like product templates, social media templates, and business stationery.
“Our goal was to break through the sea of sameness and do things differently. From the color palette to incorporating organic materials, to photographing scenes from overhead in order to emphasize the flooring – all of these elements allowed the brand to stand out and make it more aspirational,” Kendra says.
The Marketing Strategy
After reimaging the brand, the next step was engaging Beauflor's target market. With the two insights in mind, our brand team created the "Easy is Beautiful" concept. We suggested the Beauflor team offer a curated collection of popular flooring styles in various formats. We also recommended marketing their flooring as easy to sell, buy, and love. This strategy included refining their target audiences, marketing segmentation, and marketing goals. The objective was to focus on the audience segment and channels that would make the most of their budget and impact on driving awareness and meeting sales goals.
For example, we created an exclusive marketing toolkit for distributors to use when engaging retail partners. This toolkit had all the assets a retailer would need to promote Beauflor products online. It included a content calendar. It also had a bank of social media assets (videos and images). There was a customizable toolkit for co-branded digital and print ads. Lastly, there was a digital lookbook. Each asset was carefully curated to reflect the marketing features retailers need, and the product benefits end users seek.
The Goals
We are tracking the campaign's results with measurable goals. These goals include the number of distributors in the country, retailer asset portal traffic, social media posts, and overall U.S. flooring sales.
A Strategic Partner for a Competitive Future
A brand strategy and marketing partner like Phase 3 can play a crucial role in helping your business stay competitive by offering several critical services and expertise, including:
- Market research and analysis to identify emerging trends, consumer preferences, and competitor strategies.
- Brand positioning and differentiation to ensure your company stands out in a competitive market and resonates with target customers.
- Marketing strategy development that aligns with your business goals and budget. This includes identifying the most effective marketing channels and sales strategies to reach and engage your target audience.
- Content design and creation, including visuals, videos, and written copy, that showcases your products in the most innovative and appealing way.
- Marketing campaign management that integrates brand messaging and creative across various channels to maximize reach and effectiveness.
- Data analytics and performance tracking to measure the results of marketing campaigns and customer interactions. This allows for continuous campaign optimization and improvement based on real-time insights.
- Partnerships and collaborations with complementary brands, influencers, or retailers to expand your reach and customer base.
A brand strategy and marketing partner like Phase 3 can provide invaluable expertise, resources, and support to differentiate and sustain your company in the competitive building materials sector. Whether reaching your target audience or producing fresh ideas to elevate your brand's voice, Phase 3 can help. Contact us today.