Marketing in today's economy and era of being connected has created new and exciting ways to bring potential customers to you. It has also caused the old techniques to dry up and become stale. Networking is not what it used to be, hobnobbing with the elite and famous does not always offer a great ROI. Architecture is a market you do not see advertised everyday. Many investors have gotten into the habit of hiring a project manager and totally missing out on the important step of an architect being involved first. So you are asking, how do I get into that missing step? How do I advertise or market to the right target market? Here's some architecture marketing advice that will help you solve those problems!
Your Website
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| Image by Flickr user Paul McCoubrie |
This is the foundation of your marketing and branding. It will be the most important selling points for your company. It offers insight into who you are and what you do. It allows potential customers from any geographical location to check out your services and past projects, as well as gives them direct contact information to reach you.
This is where all of your SEO and SEM and inbound marketing will target leads to go for further information. Everything you build out will be drawn back to here, so it has to be amazing.
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Hire a professional web designer
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Use professional photographs, taken by a photographer not your partner
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High quality and green content- hire experienced content writers
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Ensure your site it SEO & SEM friendly
SEO & SEM
These are both important in getting potential clients to your website. When someone wants to find something, they use a search engine, even if it is just looking for a phone number. They are going to Google, Bing, or Siri to find what they are seeking. You want them to see your site and brand pop up when they search.
These are things you want to have implemented and tracked from day one. Using analytics is imperative so that you know what is working and what is not. You analytics can be setup to be automated into reports that are easy for you to read and understand in a short amount of time. This way you can glance at the reports and see where you need to delve deeper into the numbers.
Inbound Marketing
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| Image by Flickr user O Palsson |
You should have heard this term if you are searching for marketing ideas and tips. But what really is inbound marketing? And how is it different than other marketing?
Inbound Marketing pulls people towards your website rather than using ads and emails to attract them, it creates an environment that makes them want to click through to read more about you and your company. In 2013 57% of companies using inbound marketing drastically increased their business, and doubled their leads with consistent repeated use of inbound marketing.
Marketing has changed because people have changed. No one these days wants to see advertisements, or have someone cold calling for a service they are not interested in. But the use of inbound marketing allows the consumer to choose to find out more information. How do you get them to choose your website?
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SEO/SEM
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Blogging
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Attraction
You attract by blogging and social media, using optimized keywords. You convert those leads with amazing landing pages, calls to action and forms on your awesome website. Then you close those conversions with emails, workflows and lead scoring. Afterwards you delight them with social media, smart calls to action and exceptional customer service that exceeds expectation.
Now to stress the most important aspect in all this, blogging. Blogging is serious because it works. The average company that blogs has 55% more visitors, 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages. That is HUGE.
Once you have your foundation of a website and you begin to post great content with blogs and spread the content with social media then you have to turn your visitors into leads and leads into customers.
Offering Something of Value
This is your best way to turn visitors into leads. You offer something of value to them, so they feel they can trust you with their contact information. And there you have now converted them into leads. Now how do you turn these leads into customers?
Turn Leads Into Customers
Once you have your leads converted then transforming them into customers takes targeted marketing. Developing targeted, automated emails, and nurturing social media interaction. After you have converted these leads into actual customers, your job is not quite complete.
WOW Them!
Just because you snagged a customer does not mean you stop whoo'ing them. You want to exceed their expectations so that they will in turn promote you and your brand to their family, friends and co-workers. This means giving exceptional service and continued engagement through specific tailored messages and social media.
