5 Questions to Answer with Your Online Building Product Information
Specification selling or marketing is tough. Particularly online.
Providing a specifier with all the essential information they need to make a decision to use one of your building products is crucial to this process.
With 99% of specifiers doing this research online (see our free report), it’s your online product pages, and the information you present, that need to do most of the heavy lifting to turn that briefly interested visitor who has no real idea about your products or your company, into someone who wants to know more and may go on to specify your product(s).
To achieve this, building product manufacturers need to focus on clarity. To help with this, here are 5 key questions you need to answer for the specifier.
#1 — What is your product and what does it do?
This might seem really obvious, but you would be surprised how many companies do not do a good job of explaining exactly what the product in question is — what it does, what it can do and where it can or should be used.
Don’t assume that the specifier knows exactly what your product is.
Getting this right starts with the very basics — your product name and description.
I’m always telling manufacturers to use more descriptive names (even more important in search platforms like SpecifiedBy).
Bad Example — ‘NSYJK43001’
Good Example — ‘NSYJK43001 — Pitched Roof Insulation Board’
Descriptions are often too concerned with listing the features of the product and why it’s better than alternatives in the market. This can be good information, but it needs to be preceded by a very clear one-liner of what the product is.
Bad Example — ‘NSYJK43001 has long been one of the most popular products in the [Company] product range and achieves a rating of…
Good Example — ‘The NSYJK43001 insulation board is used for creating warm pitched roofs by insulating between and below the rafters’
In addition to your product names and descriptions, clarity can be achieved through a mixture of good quality images of both the product in-use (if possible) and as a standalone ‘marketing shot’
Side note: The above can also be applied to your company descriptions too. I’ve lost count of the number of companies who’s main description is something like:
With over 30 years experience, [company] is a market leader in the construction industry, delivering innovation and unrivalled customer service.”
What do you do though?
#2 — What are the benefits of this product?
Don’t just list features.
You need to explain the benefits of the product, which can be backed up by the feature that help deliver those benefits.
People don’t specify for features they specify for benefits. What can your product do for their project? What problem can it solve?
Features
- Board size: 1000 x 2000mm
- Thickness : 50–100mm
- Lambda: 0.020 W/mK
- Low emissivity foil facings
- BBA certified
- BIM object available
Benefits
NSYJK43001 insulation is well suited to use in warm roof constructions: it is robust enough to span the rafters and will resist moisture.
Also, its high thermal resistance enables the required U-value to be achieved with a minimum thickness of insulation, which minimises the loss of headroom within the loft space.
Make the effort to properly describe the benefits of using your product and back them up with the features that make those benefits possible.
#3 — How does this product compare with product X and product Y?
Don’t shy away from comparisons with competitors products.
If you know of a product that is often in consideration for the same projects as yours, and you know there are real benefits of using yours rather than the competitions, hold them up side-by-side on your product page for comparison.
Think about it from the specifiers point of view; chances are they are going to compare your products anyway, so why not take ownership of this process?
You will benefit from making their lives easier and you also have the chance to highlight areas for comparison that are strongly in your favour.
For a good example, check out how Celotex provide their potential customers with this conversion tool :
“To find an equivalent Celotex product, select the manufacturer and product you which to change from using the dropdown menus below.”
#4 — Who else has used this product?
Providing social proof that your products have been successfully used by others is incredibly important. Even more so when it comes to specifiers doing their research online, who may make their decision without ever getting in touch to speak to you.
Social proof can come in many forms, but is usually made up of reviews, recommendations, case studies or testimonials.
People like to know that they are making a sound decision, and one of the best ways to do that is to see other people have done the same.
So it is really important to have testimonials and case studies available on your product pages.
Most companies do this, but most do it poorly.
Testimonials need to align with your product positioning. If you have highlighted a particular benefit, use a testimonial which demonstrates this benefit in action.
The same thing goes for case studies.
We see a lot of case studies that highlight a really nice project, but they don’t really highlight why a particular product was used, the problem it solved or the benefits it has brought to the project.
They basically say, ‘isn’t this a nice building, our products were used in there somewhere’. Which isn’t actually that useful.
Make sure your case studies and testimonials are focused on your product benefits and WHY it was selected for that particular project.
#5 — What’s the next step?
Finally, there is no point in providing all this great, persuasive information if you are not giving the specifier guidance on what their next step should be.
You need to have really bold, clear Calls to Action.
Should they email you? Or call you? Should they just download a particular piece of information? Can they request a quote?
Whatever it is, make sure it is really obvious and as simple as possible. The less friction you create between the specifier and the next step the better.
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It’s not easy, but if you can answer all of these questions in a single, well-structured product page, you’ll be well on your way to providing all the information a specifier needs, and hopefully generating more high quality leads online.
Agree? Disagree? I’d love to hear your opinion. Leave a comment below.
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