Smarter Building Materials Marketing

Converting contractors — or any audience segment — doesn’t have to be as hard as you think — or so says today’s guest. In this jam-packed episode, our guest explains the importance of imagery, how to convert contractors to customers, how to market to multiple audiences and more.

Luke Hansen is the Founder & CEO of CompanyCam, an app that helps contractors build trust with their crews and customers through photo documentation. He talks to Beth about how he has converted contractors — a notoriously difficult audience to convince — to a new technology. As a bonus, he also provides several other critical pieces of marketing advice. 

How can manufacturers sell more successfully to their customers and gain new ones? There are all kinds of ways to find customers, but today’s guest talks with us about the best ways to connect with customers, online and in person, in new markets.

Alex Cook is the Director of Operations of Lifetime Windows and Siding. He’s been in building materials marketing and sales for more than nine years now, and we were thrilled to hear about his experience with launching and selling a successful brand.

Google announced (another) update to how they’ll handle tracking website traffic, and the changes will have a significant effect on how anyone with a website gets information on their site visitors. Today’s episode covers what every manufacturer and building materials brand needs to know about the update and how to prepare for it.

For the last few years, Google has offered Universal Analytics as a means of tracking data on your website. All of that is changing in 2023, and Zach and Beth break down what that will look like for manufacturers and building materials brands who want to understand how users are finding them online.

The way we are building homes has changed—and the way that today’s homeowner wants to buy is also changing. Today’s guest breaks down the changes that are happening in the marketplace, building technology and what this means for builders and manufacturers in today’s real estate environment.

On this episode, we're talking with Craig Foy from ALY VR about builders and building brands, and the expectation that their customers have when it comes to winning their business. Listen to learn how virtual reality and technology are getting builders closer to their customers and the sale.

Our podcast guest this week has a front-row seat to the future of building product sales. Beth talked with Josh Ruff from Roomvo about how manufacturers can make the online and in-store sales experience more seamless for customers — but check out the full episode for some predictions about the future of building materials and product samples. 

Josh is the VP of revenue for Roomvo, a product visualization tool that’s delivering data and sales insights to the building materials brands that use it. We talked with him about how today’s manufacturers can take full advantage of visualization for their business.

Influencer marketing can help brands reach more of an audience online with the help and partnership of the right person. Today’s guest brings their experience and insight to the show to talk about the intersection of influencer marketing and building materials and how brands can benefit.

Jennifer Flores is a blogger and influencer in the building material space, and she’s worked with brands and content creators around the world to connect with customers. She talked with us about how brands can partner with influencers to reach more customers and stay in the game.

This week’s episode was a global affair — not just because our guest lives halfway across the world, but because of the issue of climate change and the risks we all face today. We dig deep into the topic of sustainability and how manufacturers can guarantee a future for our planet: a topic that’s heavy on everyone’s mind.

Zach talks with Mahesh Ramanujam, the President and CEO at Global Network for Zero. Mahesh Ramanjam brings expertise and experience to the building industry, and we were thrilled to bring his voice to our discussion.

Understanding what is happening across the building materials market is crucial for standing out as a manufacturer in 2023. Join top sales and marketing leaders from some of the world’s top building product brands at the Building Products Customer Insights Workshop in Denver, CO on October 12th and 13th for two days of intense learning, insights and collaboration in the industry. 

Here’s a sneak peek at the type of insightful, data-driven information that you’ll gain from this workshop — it’s definitely an event that you won’t want to miss!

This week, Zach’s co-host is Grant Farnsworth, the President of The Farnsworth Group, a market research company in the building product space. We discuss the questions manufacturers are asking to help them make strategic decisions for long-term growth.

Winning over the designer on a project is crucial for building products brands, especially in the early stages of their project. This week, Zach and Beth talk with a special guest about how to guarantee architects and designers will spec your product when it’s time to start shopping.

Tom Conley is the president and CEO of High Point Market, one of the design industry’s premier trade show events. The ways a designer finds and chooses products have changed, so we asked Tom how building materials brands can connect with them and sell more effectively.

It’s a new world of work out there, and finding skilled labor in the workforce has been a challenge for everyone in the building materials industry. This episode is a must-listen for brands, builders and anybody who wants to recruit talent in today’s gig economy.

We talk often about labor (and the labor shortage), and today’s guest brings a ton of expertise and strategy to the conversation. Andrew Spurvey is the Chief Marketing Officer for QuickContractors.com, a SaaS platform that some people are calling “Uber for contractors.”