Construction Marketing Ideas

Wal-Mart and bidclerk.com

While checking my Google Analytics and discovering that some readers had visited our sites again through bidclerk.com, I googled Bidclerk and discovered a rather interesting story published last summer in a Maine local newspaper. It explained where Wal-Mart sends people who inquire about bidding on Wal-Mart projects, a McGraw-Hill Construction office in Missouri, of all places.

I've posted the story about this little find across our website network, but you can logically view it on the home page of Maine Construction News. My interest in this story is on several levels:

1. If you want to get closer to the source for Wal-Mart job bidding information, you now have a potentially useful resource (note, however, I haven't yet independently checked any of this out.)

2. Bidclerk.com (and McGraw Hill Construction's eleads service) are referenced on our leads links at our regional websites. If you are in the Northeast, you will also want to check out Work in Progress Inc. If you are a leads provider elsewhere, feel free to email me at buckshon@constructionnrgroup.com. I continue to prefer McGraw-Hill's service to bidclerk, but think both have real merit and their prices are low enough for any sub or trade wishing an inexpensive supplemental leads service (noting, however, as I constantly do in this blog, that you will get your best leads through doing your work well, and marketing effectively.)

3. The revisit to the Maine site brings back some painful memories of how we did everything wrong in developing a market. Over the course of a year, we managed to publish four issues of the printed version of Maine Construction News. The sales curve is something like this: $50,000, $25,000 $6,000, $4,000. Yes, a disaster -- we blew it -- collecting a small fortune in quick revenue at the start at the expense of ANY repeat business. I don't consider the failure here however a total failure; I learned important lessons on the limits of any approach in marketing and the challenges of over-assertion at anything.

On another track....

We are getting ready for our bi-weekly newsletter which will be published in the midst of a rather intense two days travelling and visiting universities in southern and western Ontario. Here is a sneak-preview of a survey assessing the level of correlation between work enjoyment and marketing initiatives. If you wish to take it now, and point out the flaws/bugs/inconsistencies in my thinking here, I will be truly grateful.
http://www.constructionnrgroup.com/backoffice/survey/public/survey.php?name=funstuff