One of the most important aspects of marketing for architects is reviewing which strategies are working, which aren’t, and which strategies are producing the most income in terms of work output. If the results aren’t worth the work you’re putting into it, why do it? Figuring out these numbers are very important, but can also be tricky. In many cases, it’s easy to stuck on the smaller aspects of your marketing strategy instead of looking at the big picture and seeing what’s really going on.
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| Image by Flickr user Holger Zscheyge |
For example, you might be tempted to push the social media angle as a great success because you increased your followers by 20 percent in a given month. Though that 20 percent jump is great for your social media outreach, looking at the grand scheme of things, it is quite minor to your overall marketing strategy. How big of a role does that social media outreach play in your overall marketing stake? It’s an important detail, but not necessarily indicative of return on investment.
Here is a “big picture” view answering the question of the return you’re getting from social media in your architecture marketing program:
1. How many of your followers actually took the next step and visited your website? Take into consideration the content of your tweets are what entices followers to click through to your site. If your site visitors are low from your social media platforms, adjust your content accordingly. People will need to be interested in your posts to take that next step.
2. How many of these social media followers that visited your site engaged in a call-to-action or even filled out a form? Remember, if they’re downloading content, that shows they are becoming more engaged in you or your firm.
3. How many of your social media followers/leads are actually being converted to clients? Because this is the end goal, you must look at the clients gained by your social media outreach. If that number is growing, then you can consider pushing the social media aspect of your marketing strategy a little more. If it’s less than desired, you can either consider changing the content you’re putting out there, or focus on other marketing endeavors that are earning you more visitors to your website.
This is a great way to figure out which strategies are working and which are not. This line of questioning will work for nearly every aspect of your architecture marketing strategy. Also, if you’re sending out emails, you will be able to check these smaller aspects of your marketing strategy through measuring open and click rates. Which emails are successful? What kind of content do they contain? Which clients are opening your emails, which aren’t? After reviewing this data you will be able to understand how it applies to your overall marketing strategy. You will also be able to see the role your email outreach plays in your overall website visits and client conversion compared to other sources.
Don’t Ignore The Little Things
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| Image by Flickr user musicmoon@rogers.com |
While all the smaller aspects of your marketing strategy may not give you a true measurement of your overall success, they are still important. They are helpful in understanding how your “minor” ventures are comparing to one another. For example if one thing has a much higher open/visit rate than something else, you are able to study and compare that content and then use the information to better your next creative effort. However, you must remember there are several factors that can affect your ventures, even some you can’t control, such as vacation season, big market distractions, or even outdated lists. Therefore, one outreach may have great results, while the next outreach with similar content may not reciprocate the same amount of success. This is when it is important to pay attention to every angle of your marketing process, such as different social media. However, because they are ever-changing networks, do not rely on them too much for your overall marketing strategy.
How Do You Measure The Big Picture?
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| Image by Flickr user Jarrod Lombardo |
If you’re running your website on a Hubspot platform your major marketing measurements will be easy to find because they are already sorted in HubSpot’s built-in system. If you’re running WordPress or some other platform, Google Analytics can help you sort through the mess. However, HubSpot makes this process much easier than a lot of other platforms.
On the other hand, it will be harder to measure your off-line endeavors online without that constant record keeping. For example, if you go to a tradeshow and a tradeshow contact later comes to your website, how will you know that the tradeshow was the source? Any in-person marketing you do will be hard to track after that initial encounter. An easy way to solve this problem would be to make a landing page available with a URL only provided to the trade show participants and in person meetings. Another way to track these encounters would be to include a section on the contact form on your site asking how they heard about your firm. So, don’t be discouraged; there are always ways to track offline marketing.
