Construction product marketing and data specialists, SpecifiedBy, has released findings from its lockdown specification survey.

As more building product manufacturers get back to work, these timely insights will help those planning their sales and marketing activities.

Whilst 91% of respondents have transitioned to working from home, the majority are still actively working on upcoming projects, carrying out product research, and writing specifications.

Project Research

When it comes to very early-stage research, looking for inspiration and ideas type, over 82% of Architects and specifiers expect to do the same or more product research

Broken down as 56.5% expect no change, 25.7% expect to spend more time on this.

Product Research

When it comes to the critical point for product manufacturers, when a specifier is actively searching for and gathering information about products in order to compare them and make decisions, over 81% expect to do the same or more product research at this time.

Broken down as 57.8% expect no change. 23.6% expect to spend more time on this.

So that’s the majority who will be carrying out their product research activities as normal and almost a quarter who will actually be doing more of this during lockdown.

This correlates well with what we’ve seen on SpecifiedBy over the 3 months or so, with actually an increase in traffic levels and demand for product information.

Specification Writing

Over three quarters (76%) of Architects and specifiers expect to work on writing specification documents the same or more as before.

Broken down as 65.4% expect no change. 11% expect to spend more time on this.

If we think about perhaps why this is the case, Architects and specifiers are often working on projects which are many, many months, sometimes years, out from construction— so there are lots of planned projects that are not being impacted yet.

For those who are saying they are going to be doing more of these activities at this time, which for Project Research and Product Research is quite significant at around a quarter, it would appear that projects will be front loaded even more so than usual, with desktop tasks which can be safely carried out right now.

Demand for Online CPDs

A lot of manufacturers are looking to offer online CPD’s right now, whether that is recorded content or hosting their own live webinars.

When asked about engaging with online CPD’s, over 81% of respondents said they are already are or are planning to, engage with Online CPD’s.

21.9% say they are making use of online CPD’s already. And very encouragingly, 59.2% say not yet, but they intend to — with only 18.8% saying an outright ‘No’.

So this can be another great way to keep engaging with a key audience at this time.

Commenting on the survey results, Darren Lester, founder and CEO of SpecifiedBy, and a former Architectural Technologist himself, said:

“From these results it’s clear that there is still a lot of opportunity to make sure that Architects and specifiers who are doing their research today, find your products — giving you a chance of being specified for their upcoming projects.”

The risk is that if you are not reaching and engaging these specifiers now, during that critical research phase, then what may initially look like 3 or 4month problem in terms of the lockdown, very quickly becomes a 6 month, 9 month or 12 month problem for your sales pipeline and order book.