There sometimes is a tendency to make things complex to add to our mystique and expertise. And there can be an opposite track to oversimplification, especially if you are trying to suggest that architectural, engineering and construction marketing solutions can be quick and easy (if you use the service you are being sold).
Yet there are three simple and easy-to-follow ideas that you should apply beginning today, and you won’t need a marketing consultant to achieve them. Of course, your underlying business must be worthy — which leads to the first rule.
Marketing success, ultimately depends on your core business values, integrity and (client) value.
If you start off by conducting your affairs with integrity, that is, you treat your employees, suppliers and (of course) clients well, and deliver the product/service you promise, and wish them to be utterly and totally satisfied with your work, you’ll succeed at marketing almost without any effort. If you don’t you’ll fight a constant uphill battle as negative word-of-mouth and departing clients bog down your return. (And yes, you can sometimes profit short-term through questionable practices, but ultimately these methods don’t get you far.)
Your marketing success requires a differentiator that is emotionally appealing and practical.
“Differentiator” means unique — a quality that truly defines your business/practice as the one-and-only in the mind-position of your current and potential clients It doesn’t necessarily mean a truly unique offering.(Avis occupied second place in the car rental business with the “we try harder” slogan, which it used successfully for many years.) An example of a non-differentiator phrase would be: “We offer great customer service.” Truly, almost any successful business must offer “great customer service (see first point above).
In some cases, your differentiator will be obvious. When I started my first regional construction industry publication, Ottawa Construction News, I offered the one and only regular monthly newspaper for the construction industry in our city. When I tried to expand the product into a general business newspaper, the expansion failed, even though the newspaper I then produced was much better than the incumbent (and therefore first-to-market) general business newspaper. I recovered by returning to my uniqueness, discovering I could replicate the idea in other markets across Canada and the U.S.
You need to be consistent, and patient, and persevere .
“Quick tries” rarely work, or if they do, you find they don’t replicate. Patiently building up your business model and marketing/advertising methodologies can pay dividends, but you need to give it time. For example, one of the best forms of marketing is community/association involvement. Sometimes you’ll see fast results, but usually you need to contribute to the community for several months, even years, before your connections are deep and strong enough for success.
There . . . three ideas for effective construction marketing. They are quick and easy to understand, but you’ll see they aren’t magic quick fixes. The fast-and-easy solution generally lives in the world of marketing hype rather than substance.
Video: An Avis television commercial from the heyday of the ‘We try harder” slogan in 1978.
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