Impact of Internet Marketing Strategy for small construction firms
As the construction industry globalises and regional boundaries become less relevant, the survival of a construction firm will increasingly be determined by its ability to create and sustain a strong internet marketing strategy. The majority of the companies operating in the market are small and locally based. In 1998, the Construction Task Force reported that the industry was suffering from low levels of productivity and re-investment, but in subsequent years, marked by historically low interest rates, growth has greatly improved. The UK construction and engineering market reached a value of £19.3 billion in 2002, giving an overall growth of 0.6% since 1998, outperforming the European average. The UK market share at the end of 2002 was 14.3%, giving it the second largest share of the European market. In Scotland in particular, the construction industry has outperformed the UK average for new construction contracts with a 25.3% increase from 2001 to 2003, worth £3.4 billion.
Construction companies on the whole have been slow to utilise the internet as a marketing, and particularly, as a sales tool. The UK's leading companies in the construction and engineering sector, Balfour Beatty plc, AMEC plc, and Bovis Lend Lease, have failed to use their websites as more than an internet presence. Their websites offer information on the companies' history, market share and latest successes, often in very sophisticated formats. The main purpose of the sites is to reaffirm the reliability and competence of the company to potential customers as well as promote the companies' desired brand image.
While the above companies focus mainly on large scale priva...
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...y the nature of its business and build partnerships and contacts within the industry. It can help them establish a foothold in a sector that is ignored by the larger competitors. Since internet marketing has proven successful in the past for other companies, such as Amazon, Yahoo, and Ebay, through constant diligence and evolution, there is considerable opportunity for independent small construction companies to forge ahead into new markets. Gaps in the market can be exploited, as is being done fairly successfully with companies such as Buildstore. It is imperative that if an internet marketing strategy is to prevail however, the marketing mix, promotion, web community and customer expectations will have to be continuously monitored and adapted to react with market changes and customer demands, ultimately leading to an increased market share for Happy Building Co.
When we see an economic downturn many of the different industries are affected in different ways depending upon their demand. The industry which always seems to be affected first and the last to recover is the construction industry. The construction industry is one of the largest sectors of the UK’s economy. It contributes around £90billion which is 6.7% of the total and 2.9 million people are employed within the construction sector. (HM Government, 2013) (Barawas and Fleetwood et al., 2013) This contribution is measured by the Gross Value Added (GVA), here below is a table to represent the contribution the construction industries GVA (for 2012 prices) and its % of economy.
The construction industry plays an important role in competitiveness and prosperity of the economy in terms of its significantly contributing to shelter, infrastructure and employment (Anaman and Osei-Amponsah, 2007). A number of researchers have investigated on the vital role of the construction sector to the overall economic growth. In Rhodes’ paper who stated the construction industry in the UK contributed £83.0 billion in economic output in 2012, which accounts for 6% of the total. Also, workforce jobs in the construction industry in UK were 2.03 million in 2012 and 2.12 million in 2013, account 6.4% and 6.5% in total respectively (C. Rhodes, 2013). Oladinrin indicated the significance of construction linkage with the aggregate economy in Nigeria by studying on construction output and Gross Domestic Project (Oladinrin and etc., 2012). A recent report of U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis showed that the GDP value added of construction industry was $652,723 million in 2014, 3.7% of total GDP (http://www.bea.gov/industry/gdpbyind_data.htm). Besides, a report of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics stated the employment by construction industry sector take 4.7%, 3.9% and 4.5% in the year of 2002, 2012 and 2022 respectively (http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm). The construction industry has been playing an influential role on domestic GDP in China (Zhou and Liu, 2007). A report of National Bureau of Statistics of China
Home Depot is the brainchild of Bernard Marcus and Arthur Blank and came about after both men lost their job in the home improvement industry in 1978 (Parnell, 2014). Home Depot has acquired several smaller home improvement stores in both the U.S. and abroad through the years which enabled it to position itself as the world’s largest home improvement chain (Parnell, 2014). Home Depot focuses on the do-it-yourself segment of the market and sells sells tools, construction products and services. Marketing is a strong point for the company. They are able to maintain a competitive advantage by keeping themselves available to their customers at all times. Home Depot has been using both online and offline marketing efforts. The internet has become a very useful tool for the company and part of the reason that they are leading the market in DIY stores. Home Depot currently provides DIY videos on YouTube and Vine that cover current topics that consumers are likely to be interested in. They also have social media pages on Facebook and Twitter, where they have a huge following. They provide online communities where actual employees answer consumer’s questions and provide assistance on
In summary, “Internet activities are not most significant in competition, such as informing customers, processing transactions, and procuring inputs”. (Porter, 2001) significant corporate assets--skilled employees, proprietary product, and efficient logistical systems – these factors are the most important to keep competitive advantages. In fact, it is foreseeable that the Internet's evolution will come up in the future involve a shift “in thinking from e-business to business, from e-strategy to strategy”. (Porter, 2001)Only by integrating the Internet into overall strategy will this powerful new technology become an equally powerful force for competitive advantage.
Conclusion: Given the current economic status the home improvement industry is in a low spot with sales. With the decrease in building new homes we have to focus mainly on home improvements. The three strong points we have against existing rivalries are our great locations, quantity of quality products, and convenient customer service. With these great qualities we can move ahead and stay ahead of our competitors during these times.
Being a writer isn’t a complicated task, but being a messageful writer requires lot of experience and inner self-presentation. James Baldwin was a very great writer. He expresses his inner feeling into his writing, which makes him true writer. When ever he wrote something always contain some kind of message. Most of his writing about African American culture where he raised. His writing tells the story of pain. He painted cruel history of black community into his writing. His writing contains lot of pain and anger, which could only describe by his writing. He was a one of the leader who speeches his nation by his writing. After reading his piece of art, which was presented via short stories and many books, I have come to perceive James Baldwin as a legendary writer. Through his short stories, Baldwin expresses the truth about his life. It seems that most of Baldwin's life was spent during times of extreme racism and he was strongly discriminated against due to his racial and ethnic background. Some of his stories were written in the middle of 19th century, a time when American citizens were distinguished by their color. It was a time when black and white people had their own separate worlds in which they were living. It was very hard to break the narrow-minded ways of many racist people. In other words, there was a self-created border between both races. In his stories, "Previous Condition" and "Sonny's Blues," Baldwin has developed characters to fight against racism in attempts to live their lives as they please.
German construction industry had an extremely succesful period form 1988-1995 increasing elevator sales from 8000 units per year to 15500 units. This growth has to come to stagnancy and even decline as the elevator market is projected to contract by about 15% in 2000. The market can be broadly divided into 2 segments: new equipment and service with new equipment provider garnering upto 80% of the service contracts. Competion was intense in new equipment with intense price wars leading to negative margins. Profitability came from the servicing business. Servicing also saw steady demand.
In today's competing world, many organizations are rethinking their strategies in terms of the online business and its capabilities and culture. Organizations are taking advantage of the widespread web to buy and sell goods from other companies and recently from individual customers. Exploiting these opportunities of convenience, availability and widespread reach of the web or Internet, many companies such as Amazon have benefited from the use of web successfully.
Vrijhoef, R. and Koskela, L. (2004) ‘The four roles of supply chain management in construction’, European Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management, 6(3-4), pp. 169-178 ScienceDirect [Online]. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/ (Accessed: 6 February 2010).
During the last decade, we’ve been to the top of the world—during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s—and back down again, when it all fell apart a few years later. But with the bad came the good: The Web forever changed the business world. The following small-business owners are shining examples of how Web-based technologies can be a businessperson’s best friend.
message to your target customers, from the traditional, like advertising in magazines, newspapers and direct marketing but one of the newer methods of communication that has been developed is the internet. (Ebook) With the expansion and mounting usage by the search engines, many small businesses can now cost-effectively and successfully own and operate their own website, giving them unlimited exposure.
This paper explores what it takes to be a construction manager and the responsibilities of being a construction manager and the skills that a construction manager should have. It also explores what good construction managers do to have success on their construction projects and the steps that a construction manager must follow to end a project and meet their deadlines at the same
Marketing is a vital component in the success of businesses. Smaller businesses rely on business advertising, expenses, knowing if the business is networking with the right people, or joining the best organisations which lead to success (EStartup business blog, 2010). Marketing concentrates on customers and what the customers want. Customers are the source of sales and profits. Many small businesses are faced with remarkable hardships due to not developing the right marketing plan (EStartup business blog, 2010). To help these businesses a more appropriate or better marketing plan needs to be designed. Small business internet marketing services can help businesses develop and thrive in a highly competitive market. For the highest quality internet marketing services, hiring an online marketing company to design a customized internet marketing campaign may be advantageous for some businesses (EStartup business blog and contributors, 2010). Identified will be the role that marketing plays in a successful business demonstrated by use of two examples, the importance of developing a marketing plan, and ethical and legal issues that surround marketing practices (EStartup business blog, 2010).
Scott Jardine, 2007, “Managing risk in construction projects – how to achieve a successful outcome – an article”, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
They create brochures and distribute them in the potential market. But the digital era has made the world very small, and one can easily reach to a business with the help of the website of that business. Having a website means you need not to spend millions on printing brochures and distributing them. Customers can know about your business, services you offer and/or products you sell.