Grabbing your audience’s attention and engaging them in today’s fast-paced market is tough. You’re up against your competitors — and the entire Internet. You must present compelling creative assets in your building material brand’s marketing campaigns if you expect to achieve sales goals. And all of this on a lean marketing budget. No pressure.

How can you positively impact sales while walking the tightrope of cost-effective creative execution? Let us show you.

Use a Customizable Website Template 

When it comes to overhauling your building material brand’s website you can go one of two ways: Hire a developer and designer and start from scratch (spoiler: it’s time-consuming and expensive.) Or, you can buy a website theme and customize it to accurately reflect the look and feel of your brand (bingo.)

Unlike starting a new website from the ground up, a customizable template gives you a healthy head start on both the development and designer side. Not to mention, it’s faster and more budget-friendly.

A templated website already includes many necessary design elements, such as layout, color scheme, font choices, and navigational structure. Plus, it has attention-grabbing features like animation that can enhance the user interface, keeping customers engaged every step of the way, positively affecting your KPIs

Of course, it’s not enough for the keystone of your digital presence to accurately reflect your brand. It needs to be a frictionless experience. Using a customizable template makes sure your website is responsive and user-friendly across different devices and platforms. 

Most customizable templates are designed to be mobile-friendly and optimized for search engines, which improves your website’s performance and attracts more traffic to your site. Because this functionality comes standard, you get a headstart on making the website look and feel more like your brand.

Sustainable flooring brand Surface Resources needed to evolve their digital presence and needed a new website, so we started with a template and customized it to their brand. The result conveyed the high-end sophistication of the brands they represent, with website metrics steadily increasing since its launch. The best part? It didn’t require a large budget or lengthy timeline to develop and design. 

Reimagine Your Brand’s Existing Imagery Assets 

Whether your brand’s marcomm strategy calls for a new landing page or a paid social campaign to drive leads, it’s going to take creative thinking. Instead of allotting time and money for a big video and photography production, reimagine what you’ve got.

What do you already have in your visual arsenal that you can update and reuse to avoid costly reshoots? And how can your message be as clear and straightforward as possible? 

Maybe you don’t need as much visual material as you thought. Focus more on the message, especially when you need to communicate more complex ideas than a single visual can handle.

Use of short-form videos that cut together videography, photography and large format texting can be very compelling. The production is easy. The hard part is getting the story and transitions clear at the upfront to make the execution go seamlessly. This is a great way to make a shoot last a few years and not have your customers realize they are seeing the same images over and over again.

We used this technique when OSI wanted to offer a giveaway to reach more window and door installation professionals, we prioritized using images that were already in their portfolios over unnecessary photo shoots. We crafted messaging and creative assets that positioned them as the installation partner with the exact products, methods, and tools that would elevate critical aspects of their business. And it worked.

Our approach focused on simplifying the message and using what was already at their disposal to stay on budget and on time. How could this type of creativity impact your campaigns and customer activation?

Use CGI to Save Time and Money — and Show Every Detail

Multiple photo shoots that show off your product in different scenarios (weather, building type, application nuances) require time and money you may not have. This is especially true when you’re launching a new product and need to produce creative assets at the same time the product is being manufactured. 

Don’t worry. You don’t have to build the whole house, produce stock imagery, or procure every option of your product for a photo shoot. 

CGI lets you efficiently create highly realistic 3D renderings from CAD files you already have. For example, you can:

  • Substitute product textures — polished, brushed nickel, matte, chrome
  • Showcase different types and patterns of installations — tile, insulation, fencing, roofing
  • Demonstrate how your product holds up in different environments — siding, sealant 
  • Show the nitty gritty detail a photo couldn’t capture — where the mortar meets the brick, or how seamlessly the caulk smoothes into gaps

Ply Gem leaned into CGI when they launched a new flagship luxury vinyl product, EverPlank. Not only did they face the challenge of getting their audience to embrace vinyl, but they needed creative assets as part of their launch strategy. So instead of spending time and money building a house featuring each and every siding option, we CGI’d all of them. The result was a successful, efficient rollout.

Not only can you use CGI for still imagery, but you can use it to produce compelling videos, too. Adding CGI to a sizzle video, for example, can instill an idea in your buyers’ heads about what it’s like to work with or use your product. More detail for less resources — it’s a win-win.

All of this may sound expensive and out of reach, but it’s not. While the cost of an artist who specializes in CGI can run the gamut, there are many whose rates should fit into your budget while also turning assets around quickly.

Your Building Materials Brand Doesn’t Need a Big Budget to Be Effective

Roomy marketing budgets are nice when you can get them. But they’re not necessary to make an impact. By taking advantage of these cost-effective and time-saving tools and tips, your marketing efforts can come out on top, in the black, and on time.