| How does an established mid-sized architecture, engineering or construction firm compete against the big boys, the low bids and emerging firms? The competition is fierce. How can your marketing arm bring in new business and keep the business you already have? These are questions that are on the forefront of everyone’s mind, whether it’s employee or senior management. As you know marketing isn’t what it used to be. Brochures, snail-mail marketing, tradeshows, ads in trade publications, lunch and learns, and still the most effective, tried and true method of networking all have their place. |  |
The chief method that new clients are going find you is the internet. Your marketing team ‘must’ be internet marketing savvy, if it isn’t, chances are high that you’ll be out gunned by the big boys or those that ‘are’ savvy. If your team is already savvy, or is becoming so, they know that internet marketing was once a game of keywords and SEOs to fool the search engines into natural rankings. With the ever changing, ultra sophisticated algorithms used by the major search engines the game has given way to science. To gain natural listings, harvest qualified leads that turn into business the new science of marketing is ‘inbound’. The discovery and implementation of strategies that have qualified potential clients reaching out to you!
A primary step towards getting a qualified lead that reaches out to you is differentiating your firm. An element to being different is touting your firm’s ability to design and/or construct sustainable, performance buildings. We have to acknowledge that there’s still a great deal of myth and greenwash out there. The first and foremost myth is the belief that green building costs more. This is simply not the case. In fact green, sustainable buildings can cost less. It’s now pretty much established that performance, sustainable, green buildings cost less to maintain and operate as well as have longer lifespans. I’m referring to initial costs. Yes, a green building can cost less if done correctly. To design and build correctly means only that you have to embrace three concepts.
