Effective marketing requires a multi-prong approach. Instead of spending all your time on one sect, like social media or SEO for example, it’s important to maintain several different avenues. Ready to discover how to market your architecture firm the right way?
A unique brand identity is integral for almost every business regardless of industry. As an architect however, your emails, your branding, your ads, need to be as moving as your designs. Architecture is all about emotion, aesthetics, and personalization and the same needs to be true for how you market yourself.
This can prove difficult for many architecture firms. Many companies rely on word-of-mouth referrals and use their website as nothing more than a business card and miss the opportunity to attract, delight, and inspire potential and existing customers. The reality is that 60-80% of the buying process is over before a prospect even speaks to a salesperson.
We understand the struggles that arise from trying to balance running your architecture firm with studying the latest marketing tools, software, and trends, and questions about how to advertise architectural services. But understanding how to market your architecture firm doesn’t need to be a checkbook-breaking, laborious ordeal. Once you familiarize yourself with a few key elements of architecture marketing and work with the right partner, you’ll be amazed at the kind of growth you’ll see.
Effective marketing requires a multi-prong approach. Instead of spending all your time on one sect, like social media or SEO for example, it’s important to maintain several different avenues. Ready to discover how to market your architecture firm the right way? In this article we will cover:
- Architect Websites that Inspire
- SEO for Architects
- Paid Advertising for Architects
- Social Media Strategies for Architects
- Copywriting for Architects
- Email Marketing for Architects
- Marketing Automation for Architects
- Account Based Marketing for Architects
Architectural Marketing Ideas
#1 - Architect Websites that Inspire
Architecture is all about emotion, aesthetics, and personalization and the same should be true for how you market your firm. An effective and impactful architecture website should serve multiple purposes. Primarily, to inspire potential clients.
When people visit your website, they should experience what it feels like to walk through one of your creations. Standard, templated websites don’t tend to cut it when you’re talking about high-end architecture. Instead, you need an interactive site with motion that evokes strong feelings and helps your prospect begin to realize their vision with you as the architect. For example, video content, animation, 360-degree virtual tours, and 3D visualization tools will set your site apart from competitors.
An inspiring website is also one that possesses a cohesive brand identity. Having a consistent tone, colors, graphics, and images create a seamless experience for your visitors that exudes a subconscious feeling of connection and assurance.
#2 - SEO for Architects
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, at its most fundamental level is the practice of increasing traffic to your website through organic search engine results and improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines. Most of this is done through utilizing keywords that fit your niche.
The better visibility your pages have in these search results, the more likely you are to garner attention and attract prospective customers to your business. While you want to attract visitors, it’s also important to remember you want quality over quantity. Quality visitors are those who are genuinely interested in your service or product.
For example, you might google “where to buy an apple,” and be served content about where to purchase Apple products instead of the organic apples you’re trying to find at a local farmer’s market. This means keywords need to be hyper-specific and contextualized to your business.
SEO for architects starts with keyword research. With keyword research, we can identify which search terms people are using to find architects, how often they are using those search terms, and how difficult it will be to rank for those terms.
For example it will likely be easier and more effective to use a keyword like “luxury architecture firm in Atlanta” rather than “best architecture firm.”
It’s worth mentioning that unlike a one and done investment, such as your newly created website, SEO is a long term digital marketing strategy. It’s a consistent and ongoing process. Since the algorithms are always evolving, it’s important to stay on top of best practices and search engine changes to ensure your website is always optimized.
Ranking on the first page of google isn't easy, but it can be achieved over time with an SEO strategy.
#3 - Paid Advertising for Architects
Unlike SEO which focuses on organic traffic and search engine rankings, paid ads are a method of paying for ad space to reach a larger audience and increase traffic.
Although paid advertising for architects costs more than SEO, paid ads are an effective way to get your company’s name out there. Paid ads are typically displayed to users on other web pages to increase traffic.
The different categories of paid ads, like PPC for example, also have the benefit of allowing customizations to ongoing campaigns. Social media is also a great way to target potential clients by running ads on Facebook or Instagram.
Ranking for architecture terms can be competitive. Unless you're ranking in the top three positions for all relevant queries, it makes sense to pay for certain search terms. For example, if you are ranking #1 for "modern architect in [location]", but you are on page two for "architect in [location]" you may want to purchase the latter until your position improves with your SEO strategy.
As an architect, your business is highly visual. You should be engaging in prospecting and remarketing ads with video ads on youtube and display ads on Google. This can help you attract new consumers and stay top of mind with leads throughout the conversion funnel.
#4 - Social Media Strategies for Architects
One of the most important aspects of marketing an architecture firm is a robust portfolio. Highly visual social media platforms need to convey your aesthetic and inspire potential customers with a smart internet marketing for architects campaign.
When it comes to social media however, it’s better to focus on a few channels and produce high quality content for that specific channel rather than to sign up for every social media platform available and do a subpar job on them all across the board.
It’s also important to choose your primary social channel based on your target demographic. These will likely be vastly different depending on your architectural speciality, and type. For example, TikTok has a very young audience, many of which are not in the market for a newly constructed home.
In terms of developing a social media strategy for architects, or social media marketing, it’s useful to research specific channel demographics in order to identify which platforms to focus on and how to tailor content to that audience. The below information is a great starting point:
- Pinterest: Age 30-49/78% female
- Twitter: Age 30-49/68% male
- Facebook: Age 25-34/56% male
- Instagram: Age 25-34/57% female
- LinkedIn: Age 46-55/51% male
#5 - Copywriting for Architects
Influential copy cements your brand identity, highlights your strengths, and tells your unique story. If you’ve overlooked copywriting, you’ve overlooked a myriad of possibilities.
Good copy serves multiple purposes. It supports your SEO strategy, encourages sales, inspires calls to action, and establishes your social media presence.Quote:
The Experts
Beyond supporting these essential assets, copywriting is fundamental to brand identity. Your company deserves storytellers, voice enhancers, and craftspeople who understand that the power of the written word is subtle, fantastic, life-changing, and best of all, how well-written copy can convert and help you better execute your architecture marketing plan.
Sure anyone can put a few words down on a page, but the art of copywriting combines the ability to generate traffic with the power of creating an emotional connection with your customers.
#6 - Email Marketing for Architects
Email marketing is often an underutilized, underestimated marketing channel. People tend to think that because so many people get a million emails a day and often don’t open many of them that it's an ineffective tool.
The truth is that email marketing reaches a highly qualified audience, and a captive audience that has already expressed interest in a particular company. Sending out a monthly email with inspiring designs, company updates, or new trends, can be a great way to stay top of mind with your audience.
It’s also worthwhile to consider adding a value-add in email marketing pieces every once in a while, such as a free consultation.
#7 - Marketing Automation for Architects
The path to conversion for architects is longer than purchasing shoes or a new suit. It’s obviously a much larger purchase. Your audience is shopping around and weighing options which means you need to capture their information and nurture them with content that is more engaging, more impressive, and more personal than your competitors.
You can achieve this through marketing automation. Think about it like this, someone comes to your website and is inspired by your portfolio. They aren’t ready to inquire yet, but they sign up for your emails.
Over the course of three months, they get a series of emails based on their engagement actions. First, you send them an interactive 3D tour of your most prized design concept. If they engage with that we may assume the prospect enjoys visually engaging content. Based on that action we might send them a video teaser reel of other impressive concepts. If, by chance, the prospect didn’t engage with the interactive tour we may consider that they may prefer a different medium, and send them a white paper on post-modern versus neo-futurist architecture.
Once marketing automation is set up, there’s minimal work on your part involved. So, three months down the road, when the prospect is ready to talk, they will think of you and not your competitor since you’ve spent the last 3 months providing them with valuable content and information.
#8 - Account Based Marketing for Architects
If you’re an architect, you should be engaging in account based marketing. Account based marketing is all about personalization, it’s the art of identifying something in common (much like you’d do on a first date). For example, if a hot lead loves vinyl records, you send them a custom vinyl record with tracks that evoke the mood of their desired concept.
Converting a lead into a deal, especially in architecture, must be done with this kind of dedicated personalization. There are a few different types of account based marketing: one-to-one, one-to-few and one-to-many. One-to-one is creating something personal for just one person. One-to-few is creating something for a small group of people with something in common that still feels personal. One-to-many is creating something for a decent sized group of people with something in common.
One-to-one account based marketing can be a valuable tool to help close leads as an architect. Companies that go above and beyond to create personal experiences stand out, and that's what account based marketing does.
More Marketing Resources for Architects
Each of these marketing techniques requires some trial and error, expert know-how, and a little bit of wizardry. It can be overwhelming to get started when you’re unfamiliar with the best marketing approach to take.
Depending on the type of architecture firm in question, not all these avenues may be the right fit and many will need to be tailored to your specific company or location. That’s why it’s helpful to find a knowledgeable partner to take marketing your architecture firm off your to-do list.
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