MANUFACTURERS & BUILDING PRODUCTS
I help building product manufacturers understand what drives specification, support their merchant channels and connect marketing activity to commercial opportunities.
I'm Patrick. Most recently, I led the digital strategy at Knauf. I now bring that experience to manufacturers who need strategic direction and practical help with delivery.
Planning next year’s specs? See how many your target needs
Long sales cycles, specification decisions and merchant channels can make it difficult to see where marketing is working. These are some of the problems I help untangle.
An architect specifies your product. Months later, an order comes through a merchant. When those events sit in separate systems, it's difficult to see how specification activity connects to sales.
Datasheets, BIM objects and CAD files help customers assess your products. But download totals alone tell you little about the projects behind that interest or where useful follow-up could happen.
The system records enquiries, quotes and orders. The research and specification work that came before them is harder to see, leaving an incomplete picture of how customers reach you.
The website, brochure, merchant catalogue and specification platform show different information about the same product. Every update creates extra work checking which version is right.
You have shared brand guidelines and campaign materials, but they need adapting to local customers, channels and buying decisions. That work takes time and is easy to underestimate.
When the reasons to choose your product are difficult to explain, price becomes an easier comparison. Clear positioning and useful evidence help your sales team explain where the value lies.
At Knauf, I led the digital strategy and was responsible for the digital customer journey.
That meant working across a group structure, merchant channels and specification audiences, with different people influencing different stages of the purchase.
Before that, I worked agency-side. I understand both commissioning agency work and delivering it, and how much depends on a clear brief, useful information and agreed responsibilities.
I now bring that experience to manufacturers who need someone to connect the commercial questions with the practical work.
Customer research and positioning
Understand who influences product selection, what they need and why they choose one product over another.
I help you identify the audiences that matter, sharpen your positioning and decide where to concentrate your marketing across specifiers, contractors, merchants and end clients.
Best for: teams that need a clearer reason for customers to choose their products.
CRM, product information and reporting
Connect the systems supporting your customer journey, from early interest and enquiries through to sales follow-up.
That can include CRM setup, automation, website connections, product information management and reporting that helps you understand progress across a long sales cycle.
Best for: teams whose systems create extra work or leave gaps in the customer picture.
Campaigns, sales materials and delivery
Turn the agreed direction into work your customers and sales team can use.
I create launch materials, landing pages, campaigns, merchant-facing content and sales presentations, with messaging built around why the product matters to the person choosing it.
Best for: teams with a clear direction and too little capacity to deliver it.
You work directly with me across strategy, systems and delivery, keeping the thinking connected to the work.
"What does marketing actually deliver?"
You need a clearer account of what activity and investment are achieving.
I help you agree useful measures, understand what the available evidence shows and identify the gaps that need fixing.
"We know what needs doing. We need help doing it."
Your team has the priorities, but limited time or specialist capacity to move them forward.
I can take responsibility for a defined project or work alongside you on an ongoing basis.
"We need to move quickly."
You may be launching a range, responding to an acquisition or stepping into a new role with a plan to deliver.
I help you establish the immediate priorities, agree a manageable scope and get useful work underway.
I work alongside them, helping turn priorities into an agreed plan, build the evidence for investment and share the delivery work. Their knowledge of the business stays central to the process.
Yes. I work with manufacturers on how they support merchant and distributor channels, including positioning, product information and sales materials. I can work directly with those businesses.
Yes. I work with your agency and internal team to agree priorities and responsibilities. I can help connect customer research, marketing strategy and the systems supporting delivery.
The diagnostic is useful when you need to decide where to focus or understand what is holding progress back.
If you already have a clear brief and need help delivering it, we can discuss the project directly.
You receive a focused recommendation and a review of the systems supporting your marketing. The plan is yours to use with your team, your agency or another partner.
If you want me to help implement it, we can agree a separate project or ongoing support. There's no obligation to commission further work.
We agree which signals show meaningful progress before an order arrives. Depending on your sales process, these might include specification activity, engagement from relevant accounts and qualified opportunities moving forward.
We then review how those signals relate to sales outcomes as the cycle develops.
It depends on how many specified projects go ahead, how many specs hold through to order and how long that takes. The spec pipeline calculator works it out from your own figures in about a minute, and shows the months you need to win them in.
Yes. My experience at Knauf included working with specification audiences, technical product information and merchant channels.
I understand how specification platforms such as NBS Source, BIM objects and technical literature fit into the wider journey from researching a product to specifying and buying it.
A fixed-fee first project to assess your market position, identify one clear growth priority and review the systems supporting your marketing.
You'll leave with a focused recommendation covering which customers to prioritise, why they would choose you and where to concentrate your effort.
The plan is yours to keep and use, whether or not we continue working together.