It Takes Dedication If You're An Architect Doing Marketing
Is your strategy not going as well as you anticipated? Expecting results by the end of 2015, but just not seeing the outcome you anticipated by now? Don’t worry; you simply need to address it from a more strategic approach. When you are marketing for architects, whether you're a marketing professional in a firm or an architect yourself, you have to get a few things straight to see success. Here are a few simple guidelines to help you set up a quicker, more efficient strategy.
Have a Plan
This may seem a bit obvious, however when things start to get busy, your firm doesn’t have time to drop everything and figure out where everyone is at in the scheme of things.
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This is especially important if there are multiple members involved. It is best to just start off on the right foot with a solid plan so there is no confusion later on down the road.
This includes setting marketing goals and objectives. Things such as how successful you plan on your marketing to become, how much money you plan on making, as well as the time frame in which you plan on accomplishing everything.
These are just some guidelines every architecture marketing strategy should take into consideration.
The easiest way to plan any endeavor is to break it down into more manageable sections.
As a result you and your firm will be able to avoid becoming too overwhelmed, and it will be easier to see what you have accomplished along the way.
Who is Your Targeted Audience?
When it comes to marketing for architects, not everyone is a pro. One mistake marketing amateurs often make is not targeting the correct audience.
You only need to catch the attention of a specific group of people, not everyone. First you must figure out exactly whom you are trying to contact with your marketing strategy.
This is where buyer personas come in handy. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customers based on market research and real data about your existing customers.
When creating your buyer personas, you will consider customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals.
Who is looking for this information? What kind of visitors do you want to attract, are they clients, firms, other architects? The more detailed you are, the better. All of this combined information will give you an idea of what your audience is looking for.
How’s Your Website?
One of the biggest tools for new marketers when it comes to inbound marketing is going to be a great website. You need to create an effective website with all the information your prospective clients are searching for.
Give them something to look at, while still giving them plenty of useful content! The more they return to your site the better, so make sure you are keeping the content constantly flowing.
There are a few things you do need to be aware of when creating your architectural marketing website, such as:
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Different ways to spread the word about your firm and all the services you provide
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Don’t forget to analytically pick keywords from, optimize your pages, and build links around the terms these visitors are searching for. This makes your site show up more prominently in search engines equalling more visitors to your site.
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Make sure all of the information on your site is constantly updated, especially information on your products and services.
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Also include forms and surveys on your landing pages for visitors to fill out in exchange for the information you have provided the. Then you are able to turn these visitors into leads, and hopefully clients later on.
Another thing every marketing strategy, not just marketing for architects, should have is a blog.
A blog is one of the most effective, inbound marketing tools to attract visitors, and keeps them coming back. This is a quick and easy way to give out educational content that speaks to visitors and answers their questions.
This is a place to write opinions, facts, and even include pictures, videos, and links to help give as much information as possible.
Because the point of a blog is to frequently make posts, this is also a great way to keep people coming back to your site.
Social Media Butterfly
The world as we know it has changed thanks to social media. It’s on our computers, it’s on our phones, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
Therefore, you might as well take advantage of it for your marketing strategy.
Sites like Facebook and Twitter can be used as a gateway to draw people to your website.
You can use social media to interact with visitors, as well as give real-time customer service. Marketing for architects is no different than marketing for other professionals at this point.
These social media sites are also a great way to reach new people through sharable content. The more people you come in contact with, the more opportunities for your content to be shared.
Keep in Touch
Let’s say you have attracted your visitors, converted them to leads, and closed the deal, making them into clients. That’s all there is to it right, mission accomplished?
Unfortunately, there’s a little more to it than that. The clients you do obtain are important, but it just as important to keep building those relationships even after business has concluded.
It is important to keep track of clients through follow up calls, or even a simple email every now and then with relevant content that appeals to their buyer persona.
You need to focus on retaining the relationships you have built during your business transactions, because this could lead to great recommendations to other possible clients, future transactions with old clients, and possibly even up selling to those you’ve already closed deals with.
Clients who are satisfied as a customers, but also have created a great relationship with you are more willing to return for future business transactions.
Let’s face it, as I said before, the digital world is taking over, but that simply opens more marketing possibilities for you.
Marketing can definitely be a huge, costly ordeal, but it can also be a simple, efficient endeavor.
At minimum if you follow the simple guide above you will have a great start to your architectural marketing strategy. Be patient, and as your success increases, you can also keep building your marketing plans!
