Construction Marketing Ideas

The SMPS Listserve

One of my most valuable resources for Construction Marketing Ideas is the SMPS Listserve. This is really old (by Internet standards) technology. Members post questions or suggestions on the email server, and over the next hours/days, receive answers.

Many questions are highly technical or specific -- for example, the member may request referrals for a specific support service (such as a local photographer) in areas outside their home town. Others touch on much broader issues affecting marketing concerns.

One recent post, for example, asked about the most effective presentation software and options to Powerpoint. I've reported on the responses -- which initially focused on the theme that the presentation software is much less important than the people in the presentation. The original poster returned to the Listserve to clarify that she knows that the human element is most important, but wants to look beyond that to see how presentation resources can be used to enhance the process.

The Listserve can, in theory, clutter your mailbox (though you can ask for a daily digest), and there are periods when people respond to the entire list when private emails are more appropriate. But the lack of complexity, ease of use, and extremely rapid response offset the Listserve's limitations.

You can only gain access by being a member. So I'll reference again the hyperlink http://www.smps.org. Most likely, if you are in the U.S., you'll find a chapter nearby. If you are in Canada, like I am, resources such as Listserve provide value even though you won't have the local networking available through chapter membership -- but maybe, sooner rather than later, we will have enough Canadians to form chapters here.