2015 is just around the corner – and along with it, an architecture, engineering, construction marketing landscape defined by new challenges and new opportunities.
For today’s architecture, engineering, construction (A/E/C) firms, this evolving set of tools, trends, and techniques can look like a double-edged sword. On one hand, they can mean a range of new strategies firms need to learn and implement to keep up with the competition. On the other hand, emerging trends and transformations can represent entirely new ways to achieve a powerful competitive advantage and stake out new ground in the marketplace.
So what do these A/E/C firms need to know about marketing in 2015? Just as we did last year, we’ve identified key trends to watch in the new year.
1) Responsive Websites
The mobile revolution has crossed the “halfway mark” in the United States, and is well on its way to becoming a truly global trend: Pew Research reports that 58% of American adults have a smartphone and 42% of American adults own a tablet computer.
In this radically reconfigured computing and web-browsing environment, the audience for your firm’s website has also transformed. They’re on the go, looking to access information quickly and intuitively – and from a range of different devices. Whether they’re navigating on the four-inch screen of a phone or a widescreen desktop monitor, they expect your site to work naturally.
In the past, meeting this demand would have meant designing completely separate sites for every form factor: a tremendous expense. But not anymore. Today, “responsive design” enables websites to recognize the size of device a visitor is using and render appropriately, displaying an optimal design for any device: from phone to tablet to laptop to big-screen TV. Check out the screenshot below of healthcare consulting and design firm, FreemanWhite’s, responsive website.
(Responsive website)
As recently highlighted in ENR’s Marketropolis column, in order to successfully reach clients going forward, A/E/C firms will need to embrace responsive design. If firms fail to capitalize on new form factors, audiences will turn to online information sources that are easier to read and engage with regardless of the device they use.
2. Agile Marketing
Agile marketing is an approach to marketing inspired by the principles of agile software development. The goal of an agile methodology is simple: it allows for iterative development, while encouraging rapid and flexible response to changing circumstances.
Agile marketing involves continuous testing and improvement. Indeed, agile is a continuous cycle where you conceive, execute, implement, review, and adjust based on experienced, real-time results.
You can imagine why such a process is important. Swift implementation and constant testing are hallmarks of a high functioning marketing department in 2015. It’s not enough to implement a solution – you have to evaluate the solution and ensure that it is working as effectively as possible.
What does this look like in practice? One component is close monitoring of marketing performance data, including web analytics, email analytics, and social analytics. By understanding why certain blog posts, email campaigns, or social shares perform well and why others falter, you can adjust course and improve your marketing success. Today, marketing automation software can help facilitate these facets of an agile marketing strategy.
3. Ongoing Generational Shift
The demographics of the workforce are changing – rapidly. More than a quarter-million Americans turn 65 every month, and Millennials are continuously taking on more responsibility within firms. Today’s young professionals have generally grown up with the Internet, and consequently they carry a new set of expectations and preferences in the workplace.
One of the most striking ways we see this trend manifest is in how professionals engage with information. The Reuters Institute Digital Report finds that people are consuming media in dramatically new ways: online media is overtaking traditional media as the primary source of information in younger generations.
As younger professionals rise within clients’ and prospects’ organizations, it becomes increasingly urgent to provide them with information about your services and expertise in formats that they will actually use. This means blogs, email, social media, online video – digital information sources that audiences may access easily whenever and wherever it is convenient for them.
Not to mention, that the bookend issues of succession planning and recruiting within a limited talent pool are also heavily influencing these generational dynamics within the workplace.
SEE ALSO: 3 Themes to Stimulate Your Firm’s Growth through Architecture Marketing
Of course, these demographic shifts have implications for your own firm, as well. Senior management needs to consider how they will pass on the brand that they have built to rising employees. Often, this knowledge will consist of many different topics and details: from brand differentiators to style guides to logo usage guidelines to social media policies.
Moreover, firms should watch for signs that they may need to redefine their brand for a changing marketplace, such as dated differentiators or an aging website.
4. Marketing Becomes Even More Data-Driven
An ongoing trend in architecture, engineering and construction marketing – and the marketing world as a whole – is the increasing importance of measurability. We touched on the importance of tracking marketing campaign performance above, as a facet of agile marketing, but it deserves close consideration in its own right. Metrics aren’t just a means to an agile marketing end: they’re increasingly necessary to make effective decisions and maintain a competitive edge at every level of a business.
By leveraging marketing analytics, your firm will be able to measure the effectiveness of each marketing channel. Organizations at the forefront will act on that data to optimize their marketing mix. You may find that it is prudent to place less emphasis on certain channels, going forward, because they are not effective for your business or area of the marketplace. Likewise you may find that an unexpected channel drives more traffic than expected, and that your firm should be devoting more time to it.
Measurability continues to become a core pillar of marketing, and the organizations that capture and act on that data will be better positioned for success in 2015. The data you collect here may make an impact beyond your marketing function, as well: you may find a problem area of particular and unexpected interest to your audience, perhaps signaling an industry niche with an unfulfilled need. The more data you collect about your audience, your firm, and your marketplace, the better prepared you will be to make decisions about the direction of your business.
5. Social engagement
Meaningful social engagements are still hard to grasp by most A/E/C firms. When it comes to online networking, LinkedIn continues to be the best platform for professional services. But just having a passive presence will not provide your firm with the results it may desire. It all starts with developing good individual profiles, a robust firm page and active engagement of key team members in relevant groups (yes, that means sharing information published by other sources, commenting, and offering perspectives).
Our research has shown that about 60% of professional services buyers check your firm out on social media before buying (see the figure below). An active social media presence also works hand in glove with your blogging and SEO efforts. Sharing valuable content is the currency of social media. It will draw web traffic and increase the impact of SEO through the links that follow.
6. Content Marketing
Last year, I identified the proliferation of content (video, blogs, webinars, speaking, writing, social sharing) produced by A/E/C firms would be the #1 disruptive prediction for 2014. And, 2015 will be no different. There is significant evidence that A/E/C firms are producing educational content – although many are being dragged kicking and screaming.
For most Baby Boomers and Gen X leaders, creating content has become a generational disruption: they've never done it before, don’t care to do it at all. For these A/E/C leaders, rejecting this disruptor is less of a choice. Rather, it’s the embracing of the content creation that will build winning reputations and winning professional services brands.
Professional services firms are built on personal chemistry and trust. For architecture, engineering and construction firms this will continue to be the core foundation in 2015 – albeit in person and virtual.
Learn more about measuring the success of your online marketing efforts in our free ebook, Online Marketing for Professional Services.
On Google+ or LinkedIn? Follow us +HingeMarketing and join us on LinkedIn.
Related Stories
Architecture Marketing: 5 Tools to Measure Success
New Research on 2015 Professional Services Marketing Priorities
How to Find the Best Keywords for Optimizing Your Website Content