What is digital marketing in the context of architecture? Learning to create effective digital marketing for architects is a craft of its own. In this article, we’ll outline the significance of digital marketing in your business plan, the benefits, and the top 8 tools you should implement sooner rather than later.
One form of digital marketing is content marketing. For architects, it is the key to showcasing your expertise, building brand awareness, and engaging your desired audience. At Architect Marketing Institute (AMI), we guide you in crafting custom, diverse offerings and communicating with a core referral network. Uplifting your firm’s online presence is absolutely key to winning better projects. Only when you learn to communicate your value will you become the #1 option for clients who can afford dream projects―knowing your client so well you can solve the pricey problem they have, producing high value results for only high value clients.
Importance of digital marketing for architects
The main problem architects have is struggling to communicate their value in a way that attracts the kind of clients or projects they want. If there’s anything stopping you from winning the best projects within a niche you love, it likely could be that you haven’t found a way to differentiate yourself so that you’re positioned higher than the rest of the competition.
How could that struggle be affecting you? Perhaps it’s causing you sleepless nights, a lack of fulfillment, and a certain emptiness professionally and personally. Instead, creating a mindful digital marketing plan could focus on what keeps your ideal client awake at night and how you might communicate solutions to their design-related challenges.
One common misconception is that content should be reserved for just one or two mediums. More traditional marketing methods like Shock and Awe Boxes, printed ads, brochures, and mailed newsletters still have their place (especially the latter, being effective for your Dirty 30 list). The range of content creation in digital marketing for architects is wide from nurturing email campaigns to online newsletters, search-engine-optimized blogs and social media posts, to podcasts and webinars and more.
Benefits of digital marketing for architects
By steadily publishing educational content, you can become a sought-after thought leader. Further, committing to a well-planned digital marketing strategy for your architecture firm is essential to building a brand tailored to clients who will pay you what you’re worth.
While diversifying your offerings, collaborating with industry professionals, measuring and improving your efforts, you can create an influential digital presence that makes your architecture firm stand out from the crowd―keeping your audience engaged and informed while showing your expertise as an architect.
Digital Marketing for Architects: Top 8 Tools and Strategies
Digital marketing makes an impact because it is designed to attract your most ideal clientel who will pay you what you’re worth for projects you are most passionate about. Here are the top 8 ways to create effective digital marketing for your architecture firm:
- Architectural Photography and Videography: High-quality visual content is essential for showcasing your firm's work and catching the eyes of your most ideal clients and referrers. Invest in professional architectural photography and videography to best capture your designs. Share these visuals on your website, social media, and in your blog posts. Browse Architectural Record's photography section for inspiration.
- Podcasts and Webinars: Creating a podcast or hosting webinars allows you to share your knowledge and expertise conversationally. Podcasts and webinars can cover a wide range of topics, from design trends to interviews with industry leaders. Find podcast examples on platforms like Architizer and our Mastermind member Adrian Ramsay’s show TALKdesign.
- Social Media Content: Leverage platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook to share your content and engage your audience. Use beautiful visuals, interesting captions, and relevant hashtags to attract attention and encourage social sharing. For a more in-depth look at social media for architects, check out this guide.
- Blog Posts: An engaging, architecture-focused blog is a powerful tool for showcasing your firm's expertise and attracting potential clients. Consider writing project stories or highlights, how-to guides, client success stories, about design trends and industry news, and at times, taking it to the personal with an inspirational story from your life. (Check out examples written for AMI Mastermind members here, here, and here.)
- Email Newsletters: Regular email newsletters help you stay connected with your audience and share updates about your firm's projects, events, and industry news. You can also use newsletters to promote your latest blog posts, social media accounts, podcasts, or webinars.
- Nurturing Emails: According to Building a Storybrand by Donald Miller, a Nurturing Email campaign is a series of educational emails that offer your subscribers valuable advice as it relates to your services. An effective campaign would be weekly, three nurturing emails followed by a sales email with a call to action. The prospect may not say yes for three weeks or several months, but your ideal client will say YES down the road.
- Lead Magnets: A good lead generation strategy for architects includes the creation of a lead magnet, which we call a “Monkey’s Fist.” This is a valuable piece of free content that attracts high-quality leads/clients, establishing early-on trust. For example, you can offer an e-book or guide centered on advice for home renovation projects, related design trends, building codes in your area, and how to navigate working with contractors.
- Landing Pages: Promote a lead magnet on a landing (web)page in exchange for their contact information, or through target advertising campaigns, or on social media encouraging people to put a certain keyword in the comments, ex. “free book,” if they are interested and then reach out to those prospects in private messages. Once the potential client has provided their contact information, they will receive the free resource/offering. Then you can follow up with them via email to provide more information about your services and schedule a consultation (best case scenario, it should be a paid Low Commitment Consultation).
Content creation and lead generation advice for architects
Want to learn more about content creation for your architecture firm and garner inspiration for blog post topics? By following these steps, you'll lay a solid foundation for your content marketing efforts and drive tangible results to win better projects: https://archmarketing.org/content-marketing-for-architects/
Find out how to attract ideal clients with lead generation here: https://archmarketing.org/lead-generation-for-architects/