Although some of us want to simplify things and we all want to speed up the path from initial connection to the actual sale, effective marketing for the AEC community in part is about creating additional steps and stages to the relationship. The idea is to reduce the jarring nature of your communication process; and by doing that, take out the fits and starts and improve the trust level between you and your current and potential clients.
Our challenge is to maintain this level of connection without intrusiveness or irritation.
For example, if you develop an effective e-letter or old fashioned print newsletter and fill it with useful content, practical tips and advice, and just a little (but certainly some!) selling messages, and your current and potential clients request and expect it, you can maintain your presence in their mind without forcing their door open or requiring them to worry about your “sales pitch”.
Blogs, properly maintained, can work this way too. You win your way into the hearts and minds of your potential clients and they can see you are around, consistently. However, as Chris Denby warns in this provocative blog posting: Why your architecture firm shouldn’t start a blog?, unfortunately most businesses start blogs and newsletters and let them drop after a few weeks or months.
This is unfortunate, because the value of these forms of communication is in consistency and continuity (reliability).
Mike Jeffries
Follow-up inspection services give you another opportunity to remain in touch with clients as does participation (and leadership) in client-focused community and business associations. (Here I’m not referring to your particular trade or business association, but to the associations where your current and potential clients are most likely to be members.)
Finally, consider how you can use effective marketing communications in the stage between the initial contact with a potential client from advertising or referral leads, and your first formal presentation or sales call. Mike Jeffries in Are you guilty of this common mistake? says you should send an informative, thoughtful marketing package to potential clients in the BEFORE your first appointment. It makes sense to give them information and ideas to think about before you even meet them. And thank you notes, ideally personally hand-written (unless, like me, your handwriting is totally illegible) are great once you’ve completed your meeting.
Effective marketing sometimes takes a few extra steps. Fortunately these steps cost little if any money and, if properly systematized, should require relatively little effort or time.
