Construction World September 2020

COMMENT

As recently as February the concept of working remotely was a foreign one. In the labour intensive construction industry this is an impossibility, but it has always been a probability at head office level. However, maybe in solidarity with the non-remote working nature of the industry, sales, management and administration functions have been office based.

E nter the COVID-pandemic and things changed – almost overnight. Businesses ZHUH IRUFHG WR ZRUN UHPRWHO\ DQG KDG WR ͤQG solutions to keep staff working and their business operational. Construction, like all industries, has a strong sales and marketing element to it, but the lockdown meant that sales people could no longer rely on traditional channels such as face-to-face meetings, industry events and traditional advertising as, for a while, even trade magazines could not be printed. This is the reason why many companies resorted to webinars to promote their offering to potential customers. The popularity of webinars skyrocketed. I can attest to this: as a member of the trade press I was invited to attend webinars almost daily. The lockdown period has lasted longer WKDQ DQWLFLSDWHG DQG DIWHU VRPH ͤYH PRQWKV a sense of extreme webinar fatigue has crept in. Attendees have become discerning in a short space of time and can sense immediately if the webinar is a hard sell or

a thought leadership event. If the webinar is the former (which many webinars have become), it undermines the company’s integrity and can do immeasurable damage. One way around this is obviously to let attendees know upfront that the aim of the webinar is to punt a product or service. Webinars, for me, are more effective when they are implicit and not a hard sell. What this means is that when companies design webinars they have to ensure that their webinar stands out above the rest and that it has a unique selling point to make customers want to attend their own and not the opposition’s webinar. In essence webinars must align closely with the company’s core values and mission statement. If the company’s aim is to sell steel for rebar (for example), it must state this clearly so the attendees know what they are registering for. If they do not, attendees who feel they were lured to the webinar under false pretences will feel cheated, leave the webinar and quite possibly not read any communication from that company again.

As we move along the road to recovery post-COVID there can be little doubt that webinars play an integral role in the marketing-mix of a company. As we are no longer in a state of hard lockdown a semblance of normality is returning. Companies, sales and marketing people must now realise that a webinar is just a part of a company’s marketing mix. Leads and awareness should also be generated by other tools. The pendulum is shifting back to a state where advertising (print and online), events and face-to-face selling are becoming relevant again. The ‘new normal’ (my most disliked neologism of the pandemic) was short-lived.

Stay safe Wilhelm du Plessis Editor

@ConstWorldSA

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EDITOR & DEPUTY PUBLISHER Wilhelm du Plessis constr@crown.co.za ADVERTISING MANAGER Erna Oosthuizen ernao@crown.co.za LAYOUT & GRAPHIC ARTIST Katlego Montsho CIRCULATION Karen Smith

PUBLISHER Karen Grant

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CONSTRUCTION WORLD SEPTEMBER 2020