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It’s a record year!

By CMA News

Construction marketing has bounced back from the pandemic, with a record number of entries to the Construction marketing Awards 2021.

Entry numbers have shot up around 30% from 2020, pushing the 2021 tally to the highest ever. Judging has now started, and luckily we expanded the judging panel with a number of new members this year, or people would have been seriously over worked.

We’re delighted to have had so many, it shows the resilience of our community, and we’re now working our way through hundreds of entries towards the announcement of the shortlist sometime around October 11th. Watch this space!

Emerging Talent – Young Marketer of the Year 2020

By CMA News

As I type this, I’m in the middle of 7 drafted emails, viewing two screens with various pr spreadsheets, eking out half a cup of tea (and a biscuit!) staring at a very plank word document. It is at this moment I realise why I am a Senior Account Manager and not a copywriter, what would I do without the team behind me! Anyway, let me know what you think ….

December 2017, I arrived for my first interview at Fabrick Marketing Agency, four months post-graduation for an Account Executive role. Excited with nerves but very green to the working world, all I could do was be myself and hope that my preparation was enough to be offered the job. Read More

Extra time to complete entries for CMA21

By CMA News

Good news for those beavering away on entries for the Construction Marketing Awards 2021!

We will be allowing extra time to complete entries which have been started by the closing deadline. So as long as you have begun your entry – given it a name, chosen the category, and completed the basic contact fields – by 23.59 on Friday September 17, you will be allowed until 5pm on Wednesday September 22 to complete all the fields, upload your supplementary files, and press submit.

That’s five extra days to submit, but ONLY if you have begun your entry by the original deadline.

So if you plan to submit an entry, get it started now, and give yourself the extra time.

Construction activity slows

By CMA News

Construction activity slowed in August, as materials availability affected work volumes.

The latest IHS Markit/CIPS Purchasing Managers’ Index posted a score of 55.2 in August 2021, down from 58.7 in July. A reading above 50 indicates work levels are still increasing. August’s reading was the lowest since February.

New work that had been delayed due to Brexit and the pandemic was started during the month, but survey respondents said clients’ confidence had been dampened by limited material availability and inflation volatility. Two-thirds of respondents said delivery times increased in August compared with July. Hiring also slowed to its lowest level in four months, as firms struggled to meet rising labour costs.

Overall cost inflation increased in August and hit its second-highest level on record, surpassed only by the rate seen in June.

Civil engineering saw the slowest growth for the fourth month in a row, scoring 54.8. Commercial construction was the best-performing category, at 56, although this was the slowest rate of expansion for six months. Housebuilding recorded a rating of 55.

Despite the overall slowdown in growth and ongoing cost inflation, construction companies remained “highly upbeat” about their prospects for the coming 12 months, according to the survey. The positive sentiment was underpinned by expectations of more new work hitting the market in the months ahead.

Entry deadline approaching

By CMA News

The entry deadline for the Construction Marketing Awards 2021 is on September 17th.

Many of you have started your entries already, but if you haven’t, now is definitely the time to get moving! Remember, the only way to guarantee you wont win, is not to enter! Give your self a chance of lifting one of our prestigious trophies, and get going on your entry now!

Awards update – plans for the gala dinner

By CMA News

As things stand, with the restrictions on live events lifted, we will be able to stage a gala dinner for 2021. Last year we ran an online celebration, which allowed us to present the awards, but didn’t allow the fabulous networking opportunity, and best party of the year, that is our gala dinner presentation to happen.

This year, we plan the presentation on December 2. We expect to welcome hundreds of guests to the Hilton London Bankside for an evening of fun and celebration.

Tobermore’s newest block paver ‘Artro’ has won ‘Best Product Launch’ at the Construction Marketing Awards 2020

By CMA News
The prestigious awards are renowned as a showcase of excellence in creative, innovative and effective construction marketing. Despite tough market conditions, the awards attracted a large number of entries from across the industry.  Now in their 20th year, the CMA Awards took on a different format with the winners announced via a virtual ceremony.

Following extensive market research, Tobermore positioned themselves to take advantage of market trends by developing ‘Artro’ – a linear paving product which is a concrete alternative to clay.

Read More

Get even more from your content marketing

By CMA News
As our webinar on June 8, 2021, discussed, content marketing is not always a well understood tool. But it’s so much more than posting a few blogs. And, as the BarbourABI team explained, you can use a few simple techniques to get a lot more from your efforts.

Kate Perrin told us about Gary Vee – entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk who created the “pillar content” model content strategy. She explained how she saw how it could work for B2B, took the parts applicable to the BarbourABI business model, and managed to get got better reach without scaling resources.

Simply put, you use a piece of “pillar content”, usually a long-form article of video, then create small pieces of “micro” content by using extracts. This gives you many more points of impact for the same content creatiion effort.

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Marketing, Sales, or Schmarketing?

By CMA News
Our webinar hosted jointly with Insynth focussed on using data to guide your marketing strategy explored how construction companies can approach the collection, analysis and use of data in marketing.

We talked about how many construction companies struggle with outdated legacy systems storing incomplete or poor quality information. The separation between sales and marketing – both in data terms, and more spiritually – came in for some discussion. One speaker, Dan Tyre of Hubspot, said the winning approach was to do away with the difference – not sales, not marketing, but Schmarketing.

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