142: Crafting an Effective AEC Marketing Plan: Aligning Strategy with Growth Goals

In this episode, we're diving deep into the world of AEC Marketing Plans. Ever wondered how the best in the AEC biz align their content marketing with their big-picture growth goals? Or maybe you've been tempted by the latest marketing fad and need a little guidance to stay on track? I've got you covered! 

Join me as I unpack the secrets to creating a marketing plan that truly resonates with your AEC firm's vision. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just getting your feet wet, this episode is packed with actionable steps to elevate your marketing game. So grab your notebook, and let's get started!

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Chapters

• 0:03 Content Marketing for Firm Growth
• 10:07 Goal Setting, Marketing Syndrome Avoidance

Transcript

Hey there, friend, welcome back to Marketers Take Flight. Let’s talk about your marketing strategies, and specifically how to avoid shiny-object syndrome when it comes to your online marketing efforts.

You’ve heard me talk on previous episodes about how the first step in creating a content marketing campaign is to identify and understand your specific firm’s growth goals. And, if need refresher, go back and listen to episode 72, How to Set Digital Marketing Goals. 

In today’s episode, I am going to share a few ways to make sure that the limited time and resources you have to spend on your online marketing efforts, align perfectly with your firm’s growth goals, so you’re not wasting time or money chasing the latest fad or shiny-object! This one is going to be fun because it was suggested by one of my founding students for my new course, Content Marketing Clarity, which is opening for enrollment this February. While I am creating the course, the founding students are providing me with feedback. And, one such question from a student was around aligning marketing content to the firm’s goals and where to find those goals. 

So, today I am going to dig a bit deeper about why to align your content marketing campaign to your firm’s growth goals, general types of growth goals, and some places to find your firm’s growth goals. 

Again, if you’re a regular listener of Marketers Take Flight, you’ve heard me talk endlessly about starting with your firm’s growth goals before you begin any new marketing campaign. This is because, marketing should support, or dare I say, drive the revenue growth of the firm. Marketing includes strategy and tactics for branding, lead generation, and specific promotions. Although in most AEC firms, marketing spends most of their time on proposals. But that’s an entirely different podcast episode!

But for today’s purposes, let’s leave proposals and specific pursuits out of the discussion. When I say marketing, I mean marketing in the traditional sense. 

When a marketing manager has a clear understanding of how the firm wants to grow, she can develop strategies that positions the firm in that marketplace. In other words, the business goals of the firm, gives you, the marketing manager, a purpose and defines exactly what you want your marketing efforts to achieve. 

Let me give you a few examples, so you can understand what I’m talking about. 

Your firm might have both short and long term growth goals. Some of those goals might not be relevant to the marketing team, but often they are. Some common strategic goals include:

•                  Expand geographically – This includes opening new offices, pursuing new clients, or acquiring firms in new geographic regions. An example could be that your firm wants to expand into the Texas transportation market by winning work with TxDOT. 

•                  Expand services – This includes adding new service offerings by acquiring firms, hiring new talent, or creating strategic partnerships. An example of this would be adding new services like interior design or landscape architecture if you’re an architecture firm. 

Once you have identified your firm’s strategic goals, you can begin to create content marketing goals to align. This helps to ensure that your marketing efforts are contributing to the firm growth goals and as a bonus, this often makes it easier to get leadership buy in to not only the marketing campaign, but for the budget and resources it will take to complete the campaign. 

I hope you’re with me here – You and I both agree that a content marketing campaign needs to start with the firm’s growth goals. 

But now, you might be wondering, where do you find those goals? Well, there are two general places to look. 

First is your firm’s strategic plan. Most AEC firms have a written strategic plan that identifies how the business wants to look 3, 5, or possibly 7 years out. The most frequent time horizon I’ve seen is 5 years out. This plan outlines how the firm wants to grow and what that growth looks like. 

This plan is often developed by the executive team and may include other associates or principals. Often times, the plan is developed with an outside consultant to facilitate. 

Sometimes this plan is shared with all employees and sometimes it’s just shared with key managers. Sometimes just part of the plan is shared. 

So the first place to look for your firm’s growth goals is to ask if your firm has a strategic plan and if so, can you see it or at least get access to growth goal sections. 

Ideally, as the marketing leader, you’d be a part of this strategic planning process and assist in market research and goal development. 

So the strategic plan is one place to look for your firm’s growth goals. This is the ideal place to start because it has those longer-term goals that content marketing is perfect to support!

Another place to look is any type of annual business development or sales plan that your firm writes. The nature of these types of annual plans are often more short-term, so not as ideal but still a good place to look. These plans often contain the clients and specific projects your business development will be pursuing. This will give you a starting place to come up with content marketing strategies that will help position your firm’s expertise for those clients and specific pursuits. 

But what if your firm has no strategic plan AND no annual business development or sales plan? 

Find a new firm to work for. 

I am only sort of kidding here. If there are no plans for growth, no amount of marketing is really going to be successful. So there is some truth to going to look for another firm. 

But, if you are happy there and/or have been hired specifically to start a marketing program, then you can start to get an idea of growth ideas by interviewing your firm leaders.

Start with creating a list of the markets, regions, and industries your firm is currently working in. Then, make an appointment to interview your firm leaders. Tell them you want to make sure that you’re spending your time, energy, and marketing budget to craft marketing strategies that will support the firm’s growth goals. Here are some questions to use when you interview your firm leaders:

·        What markets/regions are we interested in? Why are we interested in them? (Make a long-list to start.)

·        What markets/regions do we know and have good relationships with clients (former or present) and teaming partners?

·        What markets/regions are growing? What is driving that growth? Is that growth sustainable (at least long enough for us to get into it)?

·        Are there barriers to entering those new markets? If so, do we know what they are and how to overcome them? If we don’t know, how do we find out?

·        What skill sets, and projects can we take to new markets/regions that are growing?

After interviewing your firm’s leaders with these questions, hopefully you’ll start to see a pattern of common growth areas and some of the growth areas will rise to become a priority for your next content marketing campaign. 

So there you have it, the way that I avoid chasing that shiny-object marketing syndrome, is relying on my firm’s growth goals. All of my content marketing campaigns align to at least one growth goal. 

And, now you know where to look for your firm’s growth goals and/or how to interview your firm’s leaders to understand how they want the firm to grow, especially important if your firm doesn’t have a strategic plan. 

So if you know somebody who could suffering from shiny-object marketing syndrome, please share this episode with them. It might be incredibly valuable, just what they need to hear to get back on track. And I would so very much appreciate it. Just grab the link, text it to a friend, and hopefully, they’ll get a lot of insight from it as well. 

Thanks for being here, my friend, Bye for now.