2025: the year of longer-term thinking in construction marketing?

As one of the UK’s leading full-service construction marketing agencies, Harris Creative is uniquely positioned to take a broad view of the state of marketing in the built environment sector. With 2025 almost upon us, our senior team got together to discuss the state of play in construction marketing, what we would like to see more of, what we believe needs to change, and where we believe marketing can make a big difference for clients in the construction sector.

Joint managing directors Neil Craven and Kirsty Scott sat down with head of PR Faye Harris-Frost, senior front end developer Richard Butler, and senior social media manager Sarah Cornes to talk 2025 and beyond – here’s what they had to say.

Neil: “First of all, I’d like to start by acknowledging that we are still in a challenging time for the construction sector, with recent bad news around companies like ISG falling into administration: we know the impact that has had on lots of subcontractors and specialists within the industry, not to mention the people who worked at ISG who we’re now seeing move on elsewhere. We know that 2024 has been tough in many ways for the industry – and it’s good to see that the government is moving ahead with some of its housebuilding and infrastructure commitments, which will hopefully start to have a positive impact next year.

“What I think that means for us – and we would always do this – is that our clients will need us to not only provide a fantastic service but lookahead on their behalf so that they are in a strong position when those opportunities do come along.”

Kirsty: “So what we’re saying to clients is: invest in your marketing now, because there are opportunities, but you need to be ready for them. A trend that I have noticed this year with several construction companies and their marketing, is that they have been quite reactive, and that seems to come from the state of the market: when a company sadly folds – whether that’s an ISG or a smaller business – those projects still have to be delivered, so it is then a matter of others trying to capitalise on those short-term opportunities and making themselves heard at a specific time in a specific place. But I hope that, with more investment from the government, we will start to see people looking further ahead for those bigger wins.”

Richard: “I think so, and I think that websites are a great example of where clients should be adopting that mindset. Your website is the core of everything that you do with your wider marketing programme. You can’t simply build a website and walk away from it and never look at it again – it has to work alongside other services like social media and PR and e-marketing, and it has to be kept up to date so that it continues to perform. It’s not a ‘dead’ thing, it needs renewal. That’s why ongoing services like SEO are essential as there is only so much that the build of the website itself can accomplish. Beyond that, it needs regular input and audits, and to be adjusted to keep it nice and high in the rankings so that your customers can find you when they need your support.”

Faye: “With big changes like CCPI, and the Future Homes Standard, that will become even more important. Post-Grenfell, people need to be examining their marketing materials – starting with their website – and really considering what their messaging says and how much honesty and accuracy there is across all of their marketing collateral. Perhaps going back a decade or two, companies could be more ‘gung-ho’ in their claims, but we do not live in that world, and I will be encouraging all of my clients to look again at their websites as a starting point and see what needs to be updated to reflect their current position and offering.

“Equally, it’s our job to encourage clients to consider their marketing collateral, including brand, website, everything, from their own customers’ perspective. And from there, we can support with the right marketing strategy to really connect with customers in what is likely to be a competitive environment.”

Richard: “Exactly, I would like to see clients investing in their marketing as a whole ecosystem. That’s the advantage we offer as a full service agency – we can do the integration of these services for them, once we have a strong strategy in place. So the website is obviously my area, but then once it is finished it does need to be ‘fed’ to remain relevant, and that’s where Zeitzan’s SEO work is so important, and your team’s content creation, Faye, and social media, Sarah. So the website becomes a hub, but having a well-functioning website is really the baseline for your visibility, and then everything else is layered on top of that.”

Neil: “Yes, and like I said in my previous blog, a good agency will take care of your brand and will work to make sure your whole brand architecture is consistent and on point, so that wherever a customer encounters you, they have a good sense of who you are and what you offer.”

Kirsty: “For me, every single piece of marketing activity or collateral is like a link in a chain, which all adds up to connection with a customer. If one of those links is weak, it is going to be much harder to connect with your potential customers, and you are leaving yourself vulnerable to a competitor having taken a more holistic approach and getting ahead of you simply by doing the basics a little bit better. You have to consider marketing as a whole and you have to view it as a longer-term project that will build momentum throughout the year.”

Faye: “We see that sometimes with PR and media relations. Because options like web content and social media content are more controllable, it’s easy to dismiss media relations and press coverage – online or offline – as being too time-consuming or too risky even. But actually backlinks and keyword-rich articles on third party websites are really important for SEO, and for your credibility as a business too. We should never neglect that as part of the mix.”

Sarah: “One thing that we’re explaining to clients more is the changing nature of social media, and how social media platforms are now deprioritising links in favour of native content – essentially, they are wanting to keep people on the platform, not clicking away from it. So the purpose of the social media marketing – and I mean organic social media, rather than paid here – is to grab people’s attention to be memorable and relevant but clients shouldn’t expect it to drive website clicks. For that, you need other elements like backlinks in relevant media, SEO, e-marketing. And of course, where we achieve media coverage for our clients, those publications include that on their social media and we can reshare that, which provides another touchpoint for customers.”

Richard: “And our strength as an agency, is our ability to take that wider view, that full-service offering, and apply that on our clients’ behalf. For larger clients and for smaller campaigns, our clients can reply on us to step back and look at their business objectives, and recommend a marketing programme that matches their needs.”

Neil: “I want to finish by talking about some feedback we recently had from a client. It was an informal conversation, but I think it gets to the heart of what we’re talking about today. Obviously there are other agencies out there who are saying they can do what we can do, but what our clients see as the ‘Harris difference’ is that they don’t feel like we are trying to push them to do what we want them to do – it’s always about finding what will have the biggest impact.

“We truly do work as if we are part of their in-house team, and we care about them and want to make a difference to their business. This particular client said that she forgets we have other clients – and that’s how we want all of our clients to feel.”