BIM marketing strategy — BIM marketplace or your own BIM platform?

Why is the choice of a marketing channel in the construction industry crucial?

Faced with the decision to promote BIM libraries, manufacturers often feel trapped. On the one hand, they are tempted by ready-made scopes and “easy start” on popular BIM marketplaces, and on the other hand, they feel the need to build their own brand, be independent and have full control over the data. Contrary to appearances, the fight for potential clients is not only about where to publish BIM libraries, but about selection of the entire business model that will define the company's presence in the digital sales channel.

To make this decision consciously — whether you plan to use marketplaces, your own platform, or a hybrid approach (which we will discuss later in the article) — you must first honestly assess your position in the market. This is the foundation without which it is difficult to find an effective and long-term BIM strategy.

Marketplace Tactics — Marketing for Smaller Businesses

Let's be honest — building your own advanced platform is not for everyone. If you're a small, local manufacturer, have 10 products on offer, don't update them often, and don't have a marketing department that can generate traffic to your website — a marketplace can be a sensible choice.

You act here on the principle: I pay a subscription, publish BIM files and forget. You accept that you are not building your own assets and that your data does not exactly belong to you, but you gain peace and a basic online presence. Architects are likely to find your brand, but this approach is more of a temporary strategy for survival rather than growth.

Own platform for generating leads through BIM

For larger construction manufacturers, especially those operating in multiple markets, the situation is different. If your business invests in brand, SEO, and customer relationships, relying solely on a third-party vendor is risky. Why is that? Even if marketplaces provide you with download statistics and sometimes also leads, they are data provided conditionally and under the control of the platform. The user accepts the terms and conditions of the marketplace, not yours, which means that without purchased access you lose the opportunity to contact leads and further use of the collected data. The people who download the files do not subscribe to your newsletters, and in most cases do not even leave you their contact details.

In the case of your own platform, however, it is different:

1. Full Control: You decide how the product is presented.
   
   
2. Safety: no one will place a competitor's ad next to your product.
   
   
3. Own leads: the user registers with you, not with an intermediary.

However, the concern arises: “What about the ranges? Marketplace has thousands of users and my website doesn't.” And here we come to the point - more and more companies promoting their building materials using BIM technology decide to gain a competitive advantage through combined method.

Combined sales strategy — omnichannel for manufacturers

The best digital marketing specialists for manufacturers in construction do not choose between two strategies. They choose both solutions, but on their own terms. They use marketplaces as a tool for traffic acquisition and not as a final destination of a potential customer.

How does this trick work? You treat the marketplace like a big advertising pole. You only place a narrow subset of your most popular products there (the so-called “sales hits”). This allows you to pay a lower subscription (because you host fewer BIM libraries) and you use the reach of the marketplace to support your marketing.

But beware — inside these BIM files you hide “signposts”. You can put the links leading directly to your own platform in product data (URL parameters). How it might look like:

• “Do you want to download the full documentation? Click here.”
• “Are you looking for other variants of this product? See the full range on the manufacturer's website.”
• “Download a newer version of this file from our database.”

In this way, you use the reach of the marketplace to reach designers and then bring them to your ecosystem, where you have full control over what BIM libraries they download, and at the same time pay no additional commission for the amount of hosted assets on the marketplace.

How does BIMStreamer automate marketing strategy for manufacturers?

Manually managing such a hybrid distribution would be a nightmare. Your company would have to prepare other files for the website and others for the marketplace.

At BIMStreamer we have implemented a mnichannel mechanism that does it for you. The system acts as a command center:

1. One Source, Multiple Channels: you have a single product database (which is integrated with PIM).
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2. BIM generation for a given marketing channel: BIMStreamer can generate BIM libraries specific to a given distribution channel:
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   1. Own channel/platform: generates files with a complete set of data, rich description and internal linking.
      
   2. Marketplace channel: generates files tailored to the requirements of this portal (e.g. a specific hierarchy of categories), but automatically “injects” links (URLs) into them that lead to your page.‍
3. Selection: you can decide: “Send these 50 products to the marketplace, and keep the full 5000 products only on my platform”.
   
   

With this omnichannel solution, you can not only determine in detail what BIM objects to appear in the data marketing channels, but also you can distribute your libraries with ease, to provide designers always up to date information about your products.

With BIMStreamer you will also create your own BIM portal as part of your website. Learn more about our module Online Library.

Use the system to achieve your business goals

You don't have to give up on the markets entirely. However, treat them the way they treat you — as a tool to make money. Let them serve you only to build the reach that you will ultimately consume on your own platform.

With BIMStreamer's omnichannel approach, you can have your cake (your own, independent platform and data ownership) and eat it too (reach from external portals).

Manage your BIM distribution wisely. Book a free demo of BIMStreamer and see how you can reach your target audience more easily: https://www.bimstreamer.com/en/contact