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Manufacturers Can Be Rewarding Partners

The following tips, taken from Kathleen Ziprik's book, “PR Power: Public Relations for Building Pros,” will help you get started:

• First, identify your “favorite” products. Then, make the manufacturers' marketing and public relations people aware of when you are using their products in especially visible projects like show homes and parades of homes.

Manufacturers are very eager to find installed settings with good interior design. Often they will pay for photography (or offer to split the cost with you) and allow you to use the images for your own promotional purposes.

• Offer to serve as a guest speaker during media tours of the manufacturers' facilities. The media are always looking for actual examples of how products are being used. By serving as a guest speaker and giving a clear view of the building situation in your state or region, you fill the media's needs as well as position yourself as a leader in the industry. (This will also help you get connected with even more media contacts.)
  
• Co-sponsor consumer focus groups with manufacturers on several “common denominator topics” of interest to both of you. This way you and the manufacturer gain valuable research at a fraction of the cost of sponsoring the research independently.
  
• Select a company with products you regularly use and believe in. Offer to co-host media briefings in key cities with the manufacturer. The manufacturer discusses the product, you talk about using it to enhance your homes. Again, you are answering reporters' needs by helping them get a more complete story.
  
• Ask manufacturers about their model and show home programs. These programs may have appealing incentives for including the manufacturers' products in your homes.
  
• Make photos, written copy and a link to your company's Web site available to your manufacturers in exchange for doing the same for them. You'll be surprised, for example, how many people visiting a window manufacturer's Web site will be interested in linking to your site to see that product in use.
  
• Offer to serve as a referral to a manufacturer when builders are needed for media stories. Often a manufacturer gets a call from a trade magazine asking for the name and number of a builder using the manufacturer's product. You want to be that builder. It means free publicity and more exposure for your company and homes.

One builder, Dobson Construction, created a beachfront retreat using dozens of windows by a vinyl window manufacturer. The window company's public relations team was able to place a story about their windows exclusively with Luxury Home Builder magazine. This resulted in great publicity — an eight-page cover story — for both the builder and the manufacturer.

• Ask your manufacturer's representative if a discounted (or free) product is available for you to use in community projects you're working on, like the construction of a homeless shelter or playground. You'll look like a hero in your community!

“PR Power: Public Relations for Building Pros,” by Kathy Ziprik, is available at BuilderBooks.com. For information, visit BuilderBooks.com or call 800-223-2665.

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