AEC Marketing Is About Mattering - 3 Ways to Make Sure You Matter

Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) firms, like other professional service firms, are knowledge-based companies. And AEC clients are knowledgeable engineering and technical people, often searching this crowded marketplace for the right partner or solution to help address their organization or project needs. It’s with this in mind that we must recognize that marketing knowledge-based services to smart, technical audiences is about much more than making self-promoting marketing claims.

Effective AEC marketing is rooted in building connections with clients

based on knowing the challenges and issues they are facing.

Effective AEC marketing is rooted in building connections with clients based on knowing the challenges and issues they are facing, understanding the key trends affecting their industry, and showcasing your firm’s distinct expertise and ability to deliver the most effective solutions. The very nature of AEC firms and their clients requires marketing communication efforts to go beyond just making claims to clearly demonstrating subject matter expertise and firm capabilities. In many ways, marketing your AEC firm is not about your firm, but demonstrating how your firm best serves clients. And it's not about marketing to them (because people don’t generally like feeling marketing to), it’s about mattering to them.

So, why does your firm matter? How do you connect with clients on key industry issues? How do you convey your firm’s distinct value? How are you demonstrating your expertise and showcasing your capabilities?

Here are three ways to make sure clients see your firm as relevant, distinct, and compelling – essentially to make sure your firm matters to them.

1. Understand What Matters Most to Your Audiences: Conduct Research

The first step is understanding what matters most to your clients and how they view your firm. Many AEC professionals believe they know their clients very well through their day-to-day interactions -- what is important to them, what are their pain points, and how clients view their firm compared to competitors. I’ve found throughout my career across different industries and companies, that in addition to maintaining strong client relationships, focused, objective research can bring fresh facts to light, unveil meaningful new insights, and reveal a deeper understanding of client viewpoints.

Objective research can bring fresh facts to light, unveil meaningful new insights, and reveal a deeper understanding of client viewpoints.

For instance, I recently conducted research for a professional services firm in which we asked the same set of survey questions to clients and internal staff. When we asked, “What attributes do clients most value about Firm X”, we saw wide variances between what clients believed about the firm and what the internal staff thought they were known and valued for. The research provided an objective view and identified attributes the firm certainly possessed but needed to communicate more consistently and compellingly to clients.

Research can be conducted using a variety of methods depending on the scope and available budget, including on-line surveys, in-person interviews, focus groups, and more. It can also be tailored to different learning objectives and topics, like perception of your firm in the marketplace, satisfaction with your work on projects, identifying the most pressing challenges clients are facing in a specific industry vertical, or how clients learn about and evaluate firms like yours.

While there are multiple topic areas and techniques for conducting AEC research, the common denominator is that well designed research will provide you with fact-based and objective information to understand your clients more deeply and from which you can make better business (including marketing) decisions.

2. Define Why You Stand Out + What You Stand For: Brand Differentiators + Positioning

To matter to clients, your firm needs to be differentiated and elevated from your competitors in a relevant and meaningful way (otherwise you are a commodity). This means identifying your Brand Differentiators and defining your Brand Positioning. Your Brand Differentiators are the attributes that make you distinct from competitors and compelling to clients. Most firms have three to five relevant and true Brand Differentiators. Your Brand Positioning is the unifying idea about who you are that you want clients to believe when they think about your firm. To be most effective, your Brand Differentiators and Positioning must be true, relevant to your audiences, and differentiating from your competitors.

Your Brand Differentiators and Positioning define

why you matter in the marketplace.

By defining your Brand Differentiators and Positioning you are essentially articulating why you matter in the marketplace and providing the strategic direction for your communications with clients. Supporting this strategic direction with consistent communications will distinguish and elevate you from competitors and help solidify your firm’s reputation. Note though, that to be effective you will need to do more than claim differentiation. You will need to prove it. On to point three.

3. Meet Clients at Their Points of Interest: Content Marketing + Thought Leadership

Traditionally, marketers would interrupt some form of communication content that the audience was interested in with their marketing message, like a commercial on TV or an ad in a publication or on a digital property.

Now, savvy professional services marketers, including those in the AEC industry, are deploying content marketing and thought leadership programs that showcase their viewpoints, demonstrate their distinct approaches to problem solving, and provide insights and value to clients. They are not interrupting communications the audience is interested in with their marketing message, they are meeting clients at shared points of interest and delivering meaningful content on relevant, engaging, and interesting topics.

For example, search across the social platforms of a few top-tier AEC firms and you will find content like “How Remote Sensing Technology Can Help Monitor Pipeline Leaks”, “Offshore Wind: Achieving Worldwide Potential”, and “The Five Elements of Modern Library Design.” By knowing the key issues and trends that clients are facing and delivering thoughtful content on topics that interest and engage (that matter to) client audiences, these marketers are effectively demonstrating their knowledge and capabilities.

Thought leadership content connects firms with clients

on shared topics of interest.

Whether it is delivered digitally via a web story or social media, a presentation at an industry conference, in a trade publication, or a webinar, thought leadership content connects firms with clients on shared topics of interest, demonstrates (rather than claims) expertise, and positions your firm as a subject matter authority.

Mattering to clients means starting with a focus on them, not you.

Mattering to clients means starting with a focus on them, not you. What is most important to them, what issues are they facing, what solutions will be most effective for them. It is about connecting their issues and challenges with your expertise, insights, and solutions, not making rote marketing claims. Instead of starting marketing efforts with the idea of “What do we want to tell clients about us?” try starting with “What are our clients’ key issues and what do we do better than anyone else to help solve them?” This approach, along with research, Brand Positioning, and expert content will help to ensure that in a crowded AEC marketplace, your firm matters.

Michael Racis is a Fractional CMO, and Founder of Blueprint CMO + Strategic Brand Advisors, LLC. He has developed brand strategy, positioning, thought leadership programs, and marketing plans for fast growth middle market AEC firms, the nation’s largest electric cooperative, and leading global brands like J.P. Morgan, Chase Bank, Intel, and Evian. Learn more at blueprintadv.com.