6 Ways CarbonCure Can Help You Grow Your Concrete Business

By Allison Palmer, Market Development Manager, CarbonCure Technologies

As a concrete producer, you could quietly add CarbonCure to your residential concrete mixes with little to no fanfare. You’d be providing the same quality concrete with less carbon, reducing your cement costs and improving environmental sustainability. But you’d be missing out on significant opportunities to grow your business with both residential and commercial customers!

That’s where my role in the Market Development team comes in: to support our producers’ sales and marketing and make sure you’re not missing out on those opportunities. We can help you to create awareness, drive demand and win jobs so you can maximize your return on investment with us. 

The foundation, which we provide in an orientation program for your entire organization, is a clear understanding of CarbonCure. In a nutshell, our technology injects carbon dioxide (CO₂) into concrete during mixing, where it mineralizes. This enables concrete producers to safely reduce the cement content in mixes without impacting any fresh or finished properties or price. 

Then we build on that knowledge to provide every CarbonCure customer, regardless of size, with customized support so you can effectively market and sell your sustainable concrete offerings to your customers. 

Here are six ways how we partner with producers and equip you with the marketing and sales tools to succeed.

1. Proven sales and messaging training that resonates.

CarbonCure has been installed in more than 400 concrete plants around the world. We’ve learned what information your customers need, and what messaging resonates best. We’ve taken that knowledge and put it into a program for sales, marketing, quality control (QC) and dispatch teams to comfortably and effectively promote CarbonCure and answer questions from architects, engineers and contractors (AECs). Spoiler alert: the answer to most of the questions is that it’s the same concrete, with less carbon. 

2. “Plug and play” marketing collateral tailored to you and your customers.

We provide resources like project profiles to showcase noteworthy projects you’ve supplied, co-branded brochures and PowerPoint presentations to deliver to your existing and potential clients. We have materials tailored to the specific audience you need to reach, whether they are architects, engineers or contractors. Our Market Development team members are regionally based, so we’re “boots on the ground” to augment your sales and marketing efforts. I’ve partnered with my clients to give presentations, come along on new business meetings, delivered lunch-and-learns to the local concrete association or chapter of the AIA, and co-presented at structural engineer conferences. Whatever material you need or support in delivering it, we’re there for you.

3. Spec language to drive demand.

One of the barriers to using CarbonCure for commercial construction projects is the use of prescriptive specs in requests for proposals. To address that, we provide information, testing and data to prove how CarbonCure concrete can meet any and all performance standards, and then we provide architects and engineers with spec language and supporting materials to help get prescriptive specs removed from projects. This makes it easy for the specifying community to simply copy and paste our model spec language into project proposals. In general, when speaking to the specifying community, we advocate for layering carbon-reducing strategies on top of one another; for example, it’s not CarbonCure or fly ash, it’s both!

4. Project lead sharing to bring in high-value and highly relevant projects.

We actively look for opportunities to bring you more business and share contacts of regional AECs interested in specifying CarbonCure. We’re also rolling out a new market intelligence program to more strategically identify great construction opportunities for our producers. It provides insights into which firms have the highest construction value pipelines in their areas — for example, which companies are building the most warehouses or schools — or other projects where having sustainable concrete gives you a competitive advantage. We can then work together with you to determine how we want to approach that opportunity, whether that’s doing a joint presentation or simply connecting you to the structural engineer on the project. Once the connection is made, we’re here to support you in any way we can, from securing the bid all the way until the last truck of concrete is poured.  

5. Sustainability data to measure impact and make strategic decisions.

CarbonCure’s technology gathers data from every batch of concrete, tracking every detail of your production: your mix designs used, every pound or kilogram of CO₂ sequestered and cement reduced, and the resulting environmental impact. Via myCarbonCure, you can download summary reports to view your CO₂ savings data not only to measure impact but also to make strategic business decisions about where to increase production volume to see a bigger return on your investment. Use project carbon savings estimates to support a bid, wow a sustainability-minded client, quantify a project’s contribution to its owner’s climate initiatives, promote your commitment to sustainability, and give everyone in your company something to be proud of. Personally, I love celebrating my customers’ success with CarbonCure and knowing we’re making a measurable positive impact on the environment.

6. Communications tools for internal and external communications and media opportunities.

Once we’ve helped everyone in your operation understand how CarbonCure works and how you want to be seen in the marketplace, we’re ready to look for opportunities to spread the word. The tactics are tailored to your operations and market. It can be anything from using our CO₂ savings ticker on your website to participating as an expert in our webinars and inviting your local community to join in and hear about CarbonCure. Maybe your local media would be interested in hearing how a company in their community is doing something good for the environment. The opportunities are almost endless. It all depends on what your goals are and the story you want us to help you tell. 

If you’re already a CarbonCure producer and this has sparked some ideas for you, please reach out to your Market Development rep. If you’re interested in exploring growing your market with CarbonCure, don’t hesitate to contact us to learn more.