Outreach can be a driving force that elevates your company’s brand identity and establishes your products as a material of choice within the construction, academic, regulating and specifier communities. When done successfully, it goes beyond just promoting your products to a consumer audience. It also encompasses community engagement and relationship-building to promote the precast concrete industry.
There is no limit to the opportunities to educate others and build connections. By implementing a sustainable strategy that is unique to your business and using NPCA’s resources, you can ensure even a little outreach goes a long way.
NPCA file photo
The elements of a sustainable strategy
A sustainable strategy is one that is focused on long-term success. The first step is to identify what exactly you hope to accomplish. What is your goal? You have to know where you are going to determine if you got there or not or if you are on the right path along the way.
Your strategy must allow for the amount of time, funding and energy you have available to allocate toward engaging a target audience of your choice. Subsequently, these factors can be used to determine the type of outreach activities you participate in and the depth of your involvement. Finally, a sustainable strategy is one with measurable outcomes because knowing what worked and what didn’t is important when considering where to allocate your future resources.
NPCA file photo
How Can NPCA Help?
NPCA has several tools available to supplement your outreach strategy. You can conduct education outreach by using pre-made PowerPoint presentations, webinars and precast concrete curriculum developed for professors at precast.org/professor-resources. Or, kickstart your outreach efforts by viewing NPCA Learning Lab videos dedicated to providing insight on outreach-related efforts at the plant level at precast.org/learning-lab.
In addition, share your local specifications with us. NPCA works with regulators to develop precast-related construction specifications at the local, state and federal level. By creating these specifications, precasters can more easily bid on projects and bring in more opportunities.
Lastly, participate in NPCA’s Precast Days event to connect with the surrounding community. Precast Days 2020 will take place between October 19 and November 6. Participating plants may sign-up to conduct plant tours, provide information sessions, offer continuing education courses for local engineers and architects, and hold open interviews for available positions. More information is available at precast.org/precastdays.
Getting started is often the most difficult part. However, keep in mind any strategy will evolve as lessons are learned along the way and that it’s important to not let perfect get in the way of good enough as you begin this journey.
Leave a Reply