“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.”

— Seth Godin (American author and a former dot-com business executive.)

Every project an architect works on is not simply a service, but rather a meaningful relationship. The best way to let your potential clients know about this is through sharing it effectively. Most people refer to this step as “Marketing.” However, it takes years of practice to perfect this skill, as your potential client easily neglects it.  

When architects are investing rigorous time and effort in tailoring their client preferences, it is equally important that it reaches the right audience. Digital Marketing is one such effective tool that will set the stage to convey the full potential of an architect’s work. There are countless tutorials and guides on best practices in digital marketing, but we will be focusing on the challenges that are actually transforming architectural marketing.

5 Challenges and its Solution

Challenge 1: Elevating your website – Low Website Traffic

Now that every architect and architectural practice has understood the importance of a website, it’s essential to know how it works. It is also crucial to utilise the website’s tools to their fullest extent. One of the most common issues every architectural practice faces is low website traffic. Although a practice may be doing well with visitors, converting them into clients can be challenging. There might be multiple reasons for a website to be abortive. However, with a few tweaks and effective tools, it is possible to give a complete makeover.

Solution: – Invest in SEO and website optimization

Challenge 2: Supercharge Your Email Interaction

Nurturing a client-architect relationship takes multiple stages to succeed, especially if it’s an online interaction. Sharing updates through emails for architects is becoming more sophisticated, focusing on personalized content, visual storytelling, and integration with broader marketing strategies. One of the best ways to keep your clients engaged and enhance your digital marketing is to use personalized email content.

• Interactive Email Design
• Automated Drip Campaigns

Solution: Email Marketing

Challenge 3: Engage Your Audience Through Social Media

As digital marketing grows, client-architect interaction has taken on new dimensions. Architects leverage social media to showcase their projects, reach potential clients, and build their brands. These platforms have become especially popular because of their focus on imagery, which aligns well with the visual nature of architecture. 

Solution: Sharing Effective Stories on Social Media  

Identifying your target audience is important when sharing progress with these platforms. The top 3 most-used platforms by architects are:

• Instagram – Its visual focus makes it ideal for sharing high-quality images of architectural work, design concepts, and creative processes.
• Facebook – architects use Facebook to share projects, engage with a wider audience, and participate in architecture-related groups and discussions.
• LinkedIn – It’s a platform for connecting with industry professionals, and potential clients and staying updated on architectural trends and news.

Challenge 4: The First Best Impressions / The Proof of Trust

One of the widely faced challenges among freelance architects is making the first best impression. As important as networking events are, it is equally important to make a good first impression on a potential client. We classify this as an ‘elevator pitch’ or ‘business proposal’. 

Architectural proposals are a strategic compilation of your practice’s history, philosophy, mission, and vision statements. The perfect balance of including this information and not making it too monotonous is a skill every architect learns through experience. 

Solution: 

• Tailor your pitch to show how your expertise can address their specific needs.
• Instead of listing services, explain your approach’s benefits to the client, such as maximizing space, enhancing sustainability, or delivering projects on time and within budget.
• Focus on highlighting your USP (Unique Selling Point) sets you apart from other architects. This could be a particular design philosophy, specialized experience, innovative use of technology, or a strong portfolio in a specific niche.

Challenge 5: Effective Publicizing for Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing‌ consists of two functional aspects – strategies and tools. Earlier we discussed some effective strategies, we will now discuss the tools to implement them. The idea of running a creative business means keeping with the current trends in spreading your USP. A good way to do that is ‘effective publicizing’. But what exactly is effective publicizing? 

They are nothing but paid ADs or in marketing it is known as pay-per-click advertising. It is the digital version of brochures and pamphlets. Present-day architectural business owners have started using multiple social media platforms apart from Google and Facebook.

Solution: 

• The most recent platform of advertising that architects have adopted is LinkedIn Ads.
• To make advertising more natural, Youtube Ads is one of the best tools these days, as it has become one of the most visited platforms for potential clients.

Instagram Ads: As a visually driven platform, Instagram is ideal for architects to showcase their work. Instagram’s advertising is integrated with Facebook Ads, allowing for seamless targeting. Instagram Ads often drive strong engagement, making it easier to connect with prospective clients.

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Digital marketing streamlines the process of networking and maintaining a healthy relationship with clients in this digital age. As it is, the most cost-effective method compared to the traditional way of printing brochures or billboards. Understanding and leveraging digital marketing will have a distinct advantage in an increasingly competitive market. 

These effective platforms offer detailed analytics, allowing architects to understand what content resonates with their audience, which campaigns are effective, and where adjustments are needed. This data-driven approach leads to more informed decisions and better results.

The post How Architects Can Conquer Common Digital Marketing Roadblocks appeared first on Archipreneur.

If you type “marketing strategies for architects” into your search engine, you’ll see page after page filled with articles that offer all sorts of marketing tips. Many among these sound legitimate, but may or may not work for you because there are a number of variables. For example, your firm size, location, area of expertise, specific deficiencies and strengths. All that needs to be considered when creating an effective marketing strategy for architects. This is why having a mental list of marketing touchstones is far more useful than any hand-me-down strategy you might find online.

#1 Integrate Marketing into Your Business

One of the reasons why many architecture firms with marketing departments struggle to get their message across is because marketing is still seen as an expense and a fast lane for bringing in work. When marketers underperform, it is often due to the lack of interdepartmental integration. The most effective marketing strategy for architects efforts are those that develop organically from a clear firm-wide vision. They reflect the principals’ awareness that marketing departments have to be fully integrated into the firm’s day-to-day activities. Therefore, enable your executive-level marketing professionals to bridge the gap between the design, marketing, and sales departments.

For example, Phil Harrison, CEO at Perkins + Will, hired Allison Held as CMO to forge interdepartmental relations and to establish a cohesive direction for the firm. Held now communicates directly with the firm’s leaders. She advises all levels from the corporate to the local, and gives real-time feedback from global sites where the firm plans to expand. Her team works with the big picture while remaining sufficiently connected to everyday activities. It is organizational alignments such as this that provide two-way information channels through which business owners reevaluate their strategy to keep their business on the right course.

You need to understand who you are and who your ideal client is. Then the idea of marketing as a natural extension of your work ethics, company culture, and service quality starts to make sense.

#2 Be Authentic

One of the best and worst pieces of marketing advice any business owner can get is to be authentic. The old “be yourself” marketing adage sounds corny and particularly hypocritical when followed by a list of rules that offer a magic formula for success. Following rules and being authentic seem to be polar opposites, right? Not necessarily. While I strongly believe that authenticity should be rooted in any marketing strategy, it also means breaking the rules. So, re-write them to fit your own strengths, and be willing to fail over and over again. Authentic marketing is both a short- and long-term game, the aim of which is to increase revenue, and more importantly, stay true to the company’s identity and to your clients.

Grow while having fun

If one of your main concerns is attracting talent, make sure potential employees see your business as a place which will allow them to grow, learn, and enjoy coming to work. Show your team having fun with a project; give shoutouts to interesting people you met through collaborations; let your most innovative design speak for itself. With these approaches, your marketing reflects that your business is about great work and the people who make it all possible.

Growing a business is often a painful process which requires taking on jobs which do not support your plans for the future, but rather pay the bills. Nonetheless, on your website and on social media, you might showcase how these “misaligned” works relate to your core values. This curated presentation will engage prospective, higher value clients and attract projects more similar in scale, type, and value to your long term goals.

#3 Create Conversations, not Campaigns!

One of the most common pitfalls young companies fall into is making their marketing content sound like a sales pitch. An effective marketing strategy accomplishes lead generation and conversion. But its main purposes are also to establish market recognition. In addition to demonstrate expert standing and to build long-lasting relationships with clients. Create specific content around ideas, projects, and clients. Like blog articles about relevant industry topics. Instead of talking about yourself or using vague terms like “quality service” and “beautiful project”. This will likely resonate more with your audience than content reaffirming your firm’s success and coolness. Above all, you want your audience to engage with what you share.

#4 Become a Thought Leader

Becoming a thought leader within your industry allows you to not only participate in conversations. But also position yourself with a higher degree of authority to build trust in your company. Speaking engagements are an excellent way of networking. You can reach a large number of people at the same time and catch the attention of potential clients. Meeting people in person is the best way of establishing valuable personal contacts and far exceeds any other form of communication.

Share unique opinion pieces on Linkedin and guest blogs on other sites. Develop or contribute to podcasts. Publish white papers, case studies, and “insider” industry reports that deliver valuable content to your target audience. These are excellent vehicles for establishing trust based on giving without immediately asking for something in return. Make your social media channels a place where peers and clients are sure to find unique content. Create content that they want to read, save, and possibly share.

#5 Get Published

There is no way around it. Regardless of what marketing strategy you choose to use, getting published will always have an immense impact. Hence, on raising awareness about your work. Research relevant media outlets. These can vary depending on geographic area, audience type, and themes. Furthermore, find a way of establishing contacts without resorting to cold calling or sending unsolicited pitches. You don’t have personal contacts with bloggers and editors? But you want to pitch a story about your recent project? Then make sure you have great visuals and a concise project description matching the publication’s editorial tone. Because news outlets want to generate views, images and headlines are key to attracting eyes. You will need professional looking photos and/or great renderings. Moreover, it is important for your personal website to be accessible. This means having a well-structured platform with big, bold images, and intuitive navigation.

Content is king

Many digital publishers now use more content marketing-led approaches such as native advertising. Increasing in popularity, native advertising relies on creating content relevant to your industry. Remind readers of your company and helps establish a presence on other websites beyond your own. For instance, interviews and features can be more an effective marketing strategy for architects when compared to newsletters, press releases, and other forms of traditional outbound marketing.

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If you align your marketing with your business, you will build trust with your clientele. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge your shortcomings – it will make potential clients confident in the legitimacy of your strengths. Experiment and find your own marketing formula. Stay human!

Further reading: 9 Creative Business Development Strategies for Architects and Designers

The post 5 Important Marketing Touchstones for Architects appeared first on Archipreneur.

Usually strapped for cash, startups need to prioritize their projects and work ‘lean’ before they can create a comprehensive marketing strategy to include professionally managed social media channels. Early on in a startup’s development, its CEOs and founders have the burden of acquiring clients, marketing their brand, and building every aspect of their business.

Each social media platform has its advantages and ways of reaching different audiences. They also have different algorithms that can be more or less effective in tracking down your key demographic, industry leaders and potential partners, as well as providing accurate data on how much traffic they generate to your website.

With over 400 million users, LinkedIn is a primarily business-oriented social networking site where professionals can connect and stay updated on news relevant to their industry. People with LinkedIn profiles are mostly looking for or posting jobs, or they are using the site to establish useful contacts with peers and prospects. You can add contacts on LinkedIn and create a profile of your own company that describes your field of work, accomplishments, interests and relationships.

The platform is also especially useful for B2B marketing. According to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2015 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends for North America, 63% of marketers report positive results in using LinkedIn. More than 8 in 10 B2B marketers use the site to market releases of new products or services. Architecture firms and startups can also make use of this potential.

As with any social media platform, there are a few etiquette rules that need to be respected to appropriately use the site. Before we address the best way that archipreneurs can utilize LinkedIn, let’s first focus on some of the undesirable practices that will hurt your brand and yield poor results.

It is considered bad form – and bad business – to send cold pitches to your LinkedIn contacts and spam them with direct messages selling your products or services. In addition, posting funny videos and entertaining content should be kept to Facebook. The general rules of using LinkedIn are pretty straightforward, but there are a few tips and tricks for how to get the most out of your presence on the platform.

Become an Influencer

Update your profile regularly and post updates. Join groups and engage in conversations on topics related to your expertise and areas of interest – this will help you establish yourself as an expert in your field and promote your brand. The best content is original, addresses topical issues in your industry, and helps resolve them.

You can also publish long-form content (longer, in-depth articles) directly on the platform, which may eventually result in an opportunity to become a LinkedIn Influencer. Once you become an Influencer, you will receive a follow button so that people can receive updates from you even if you are not directly connected.

Find the Right People

There are two distinct approaches to building a LinkedIn network. One is to accept invites from everyone; the other involves strategically choosing to whom to connect. Your visibility on the platform increases according to the number of connections you have, meaning that the chances of you showing up in keyword searches (for example, for ‘archipreneur’) will increase the more connections you have made. This can be valuable, since the more first level connections you have, the more second level connections you will be able to see.

The approach that you finally choose will depend on the type of service or product you offer. As networking is one of LinkedIn’s strongest features, you should pay attention to establishing relationships with the relevant people. The first thing you should do on LinkedIn is make yourself discoverable. Customize your public profile URL so that you’re easier to find, rather than keeping the randomized URL automatically generated by the platform. To connect to specific people, you can reach out directly, send connection requests or ask for referrals.

Groups are possibly the best way of expanding your network. Encourage your employees to use LinkedIn. This will increase the likelihood of potential clients learning about you.

Measure Return on Investment

Although it’s very difficult to track ROI on LinkedIn, you can measure the quantitative and qualitative effects that the platform have on your business. Quantitative effects relate to the number of connections, requests, profile ranking, post views and company page followers. Qualitative measurements relate to business proposals, likes and comments on your updates and posts, engagements and recommendations.

You can also measure your website referral traffic from LinkedIn to see if your profile is driving visitors and group members to your company’s website. Keep track of the number of leads from LinkedIn and see which topics people gravitate towards, and uncover the demographics of your followers by accessing your page’s analytics through Google Analytics. Include CTAs (calls to action) in your content, and share links to blogs, webinars, courses and eBooks.

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For anyone trying to expand their influence and establish their brand, LinkedIn is an incredibly valuable resource. How has LinkedIn helped your business to grow?

The post Grow Your Architecture Firm with LinkedIn appeared first on Archipreneur.

The majority of architects still don’t see marketing as a hugely important part of their business. Studio principals often fail to incorporate marketing into their business strategy and underestimate its impact on their businesses.

How can you utilize your past projects to acquire new clients? Does your work speak about your philosophy, way of doing things, your interests and passions?

By taking marketing seriously, you can tell your story and differentiate yourself from the competition. Online marketing in particular has changed the way that small- and medium-sized firms can compete in the AEC industry.

Social media is an important element of your marketing strategy. It relies on the principles of inbound marketing, which focuses on attracting clients by establishing a non-interruptive presence online by educating, building communities and establishing leadership. Although traditional marketing tools such as landing pages, newsletters and emails are still effective marketing tools, engaging social media profiles can make a huge impact on the way your business is perceived.

As architects start to use social media, it becomes important to figure out which of the platforms can be the most effective for their specific niche. The endless sea of options can make it difficult not to waste energy on too many things. Poor social media choices can tarnish your brand and make you invest huge amounts of time without getting results.

Instagram is proving to be a powerful tool in content marketing. It is a smartphone app that people use to share images and videos. You can start your own account by following other architects, clients, and magazine and blog editors.

According to a recent study by Forrester, Instagram users are 58 times more likely to like, share or comment on a brand post than Facebook users, and 120 times more likely than Twitter users. This is largely due to the fact that Instagram is more casual than Facebook, it is primarily visual and doesn’t have the timeline structure that makes people hesitant to like other people’s older content.

On Instagram, image is king. With over 400 million users, the platform has become a global community and one of professional marketers’ favorite tools.

Simplicity makes Instagram effective. Photos, videos, infographics and memes can all be shared to create a type of ‘storyboard’ that can be much more powerful than long-form sales emails and pages. You can offer them behind-the-scenes insight into your daily operations, as well as snapshots from events, travels, construction sites and your personal life. You can present your projects from pencil drawing board to bricks and mortar and expand awareness of your passion projects.

Hashtags can be placed underneath images to help potential fans find your content. You can even follow hashtags yourself to better engage with users and competitors, and figure out how your fans respond to individual words and content. Backlinking is not possible on Instagram, except in your bio, which dictates how you use the platform.

Growing a social media following is a must these days, but unless you are an established architect, it’s going to take a lot of work. You can use various social media growth services that manage to attract potential customers and clients by focusing on specific targets or niches. This usually means targeting the followers of similar designers, your past projects, or influencers that your clients pay attention to.

Instagram integrates very well with other social media platforms. Since Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, the two social platforms have integrated their content, allowing users to easily expand their following by merging fans from both platforms.

Plan your Instagram posts. Create a calendar and create content upfront as this saves time. Schedule and automate Instagram updates using one of several tools available online such as Later, ScheduGram and Latergramme. These services allow you to post from a browser or mobile apps, upload multiple images and videos, edit them and organize your Instagram posts. Curate your page by acting as an editor.

Use trending hashtags, but don’t abuse them. Hashtags make your content discoverable and allows you to connect based on common themes and interests, but if you include more than a few hashtags, you might come off as desperate and attract the wrong kind of followers. The more specific your hashtags are, the more targeted your audience will be.

While Twitter hashtags usually relate to a topic, Instagram hashtags are more focused on locations, descriptions of images, tools used to capture them, and a broader story behind the image. Create hashtags that relate to your brand but don’t necessarily include your brand’s name. Hashtags should be as short and intuitive as possible.

You can research large Instagram accounts that operate in your niche and offer sponsored posts. These accounts usually feature an email in their bio. You can contact them and ask for their sponsored posts rates.

You won’t be able to track how much traffic to your website is generated through Instagram. Experts advise using customized shortened links in your bio (Instagram doesn’t allow linking in the comments). You can check the data at the shortener service and make the link lead to your landing page tailored to your Instagram following. You can use the link to offer free content and eBooks, newsletters, blog posts and other social media channels.

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Archipreneur.com has just started its Instagram account and is now proud to announce 1,000+ followers. We share architecture photos, projects, advice and motivation on how to start your own architecture business, and sometimes just our travel pictures – of amazing architecture of course! Follow us on instagram.com/archipreneurmag.

The post How Architects Can Use Instagram to Promote Their Work appeared first on Archipreneur.

Architects in general have a tendency to underestimate the importance of marketing in creating and running a successful business. Even those who claim to understand the role of marketing in acquiring clients and building relationships, they often fail to fully utilize its potentials. Principals of small architecture firms often get caught up in trying to keep their practices afloat and end up treating marketing as a luxury that they will be able to afford once they achieve stability, thus missing the true role of marketing as being a catalyst for growth. Architects need to apply marketing to their practices from the onset and treat it with the same amount of dedication as they do with their floor plans, sections and 3D models of their building designs.

Marketing is a complex discipline, but its fundamentals can be broken down to a few simple concepts. As long as you keep these in mind at all times, your marketing efforts will be more successful, and easy to analyze and adjust. You need to be able to answer these three relatively easy questions and communicate them effectively to your audience:

Who are You?

In order to define your place in the industry and your target demographic, you need to determine who you are and what you do. Vague phrases about quality services, multidisciplinarity and “cutting-edge design” on your About Us page will not provide any useful information on what your company actually does. What do you stand for? How is this vision reflected in your office culture, design, and the type of projects you take on?

What Need Do You Fulfill?

Answering this requires you to formulate a value proposition. A value proposition explains how your service or product can help to solve your client’s problem and must be formulated in a concise and clear way, showing concrete results where possible. Even if you offer great value, if you fail to communicate it, your business will not attract new clients.

How are You Different?

Being able to differentiate yourself from your competition is a huge advantage. This is not easy, but your efforts have to go beyond mere sound bites. It can be achieved either by simply offering services in a more organized, client-oriented and reliable way, or by creating a unique, game-changing product or service.

Once you can answer these three questions, your marketing efforts basically filter into four-step process:

1. Attracting potential clients
2. Converting visitors to leads
3. Closing the deal
4. Cultivating relationships

These steps may seem straightforward, but there are several schools of thought on how to apply them. With the recent widespread adoption of social media and online tools, marketing has expanded to exciting new ways that architects can engage with and build an audience, and then successfully convert them to leads.

Today’s users have much more control of their media, and this has leveled the “marketing playfield” by offering businesses the opportunity to organically reach audiences by using relatively affordable channels and winning them over with engaging content. This phenomenon has introduced the concept of  “inbound marketing,” which contrasts with the traditional “outbound marketing” in almost every significant way.

Before coming to a verdict as to which is better, let’s see what each entails:

Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing includes traditional advertising practices, cold calling, email and newsletter blasts, sponsorship, and word-of-mouth referrals, to name a few. It is generally known as an interruptive marketing practice that has become less effective in the last few decades. Spam protection tools and blocking techniques, along with the development of new communication trends through social media, have empowered users and limited many of the elements of outbound marketing.

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing embraces new media tools, and promotes creating and sharing content that appeals to specific demographics. Publishing the right content at the right moment is at the core of inbound marketing. It focuses on building communities and relies on organic search traffic. It uses blogs, social media, calls-to-action and landing pages to convert visitors to leads.

Data is also an important element of inbound marketing as it uses surveys and social monitoring to find out where your target audiences are and what they want.

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Most architecture firms will not have to choose between inbound and outbound marketing. Despite hyperbole from proponents of both concepts, they actually work best in combination. You will probably need to keep sending out newsletters and press releases, publishing in magazines, and attending seminars and conferences. However, inbound marketing will allow you to track your return on investment (ROI) more easily, and thus build your reputation. Just remember, there is no single marketing solution that works for everyone.

To learn more about how some of the leading architecture firms use social media, networking, blogging and other marketing tools, check out Archipreneur’s book on new business models for architects, “The Archipreneur Concept”.

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