Establishing a new construction start-up in competitive market

Specwall is a start-up construction firm that manufactures a concrete partition wall system to replace plasterboard, blockwork and SFS systems. This is a crowded marketplace and marketing was key to ensuring that the product stood out, especially given that the alternatives are so widely used and understood.

I joined Specwall before the company even had a logo or website as part of my work with Property Alliance Group. At the time I could see the product’s potential, but also going up against plasterboard, block and SFS seemed like a tall order. Finding a way to compete with such universal products was the challenge we set ourselves, and I think it’s fair to say we succeeded.

Establishing a startup brand and launching a new construction product

We went through the whole process of establishing the product in the UK market, including:

• Creating the initial brand and developing key marketing messages
• Design and build of the company website
• Creation of brochure, technical guide and showroom
• Achieving BBA, acoustic, fire safety certifications
• Writing and delivering CPDs and presentations to hundreds of contractors, developers and architects
• Developing case studies and a content marketing plan
• Newsletters, sales emails, social media and award entries

We all worked hard together to define Specwall in the market as a viable alternative that helped developers and contractors achieve positive outcomes on their projects. 

Educating a happy market

The market didn’t know it needed an alternative to plasterboard, blockwork or SFS. That meant we had to design the marketing to accentuate the positives of our system and explain to people why they should alter their supply chain – a constant education piece.

We created a thorough content marketing plan to do this at the same time as proactively reaching potential clients in their own environments through CPDs and presentations. We created those resources, got them approved and delivered them to more than 200 clients each year. 

Martin Pickering, Project Director at Specwall, said: “New to market products to the construction industry are faced with many challenges for the sales and marketing team. Creating interesting exposure and providing sufficient information for the specifier is key.

“Alex’s understanding of the product and ability to transform technical data into professional, understandable pieces for case studies, CPDs, blogs and technical brochures has been a great asset to the business.

“Alex delivers high quality work no matter how technical the subject matter which shows a great understanding of the product, the industry and what we need for our customers. I’d recommend working with Alex to any construction company.”

A true start-up product and atmosphere

Everything at Specwall was a whole team effort with product, marketing, sales and quality teams all working closely on every part of the process. 

For example, I used my past experience of BREEAM to take a lead role in Specwall’s sustainability work. That included writing about it on the blog and social media, but it also meant advising on the development of the Environmental Product Declaration, creating resources for developers showing how it fit into their sustainability certification and more. 

That made Specwall more than a simple content marketing role – it was a truly creative, rewarding marketing job that showed just how much can be achieved by a small team of dedicated, motivated people who cared about the product.

David Priestley, Business Development Director at Specwall, said: “Alex has a great knowledge of the product and the industry. He always delivers high quality work on time for Specwall that helps us sell our product.

“He’s a freelancer but feels like a dependable member of the team who brings a fresh perspective and adds a lot of value to the company."

“I’ve worked with him for several years and would encourage others to do the same.”