February 23, 2010 – 11:23 am
I’m not talking about the Winter Olympics, but a recent marketing rule of thumb that I read. I came across 6 Rules of Thumb for marketing in the A/E/C industry (Architecture/Engineering/Construction) while reviewing for my upcoming CPSM exam. The rule was that engineers spend less in marketing because their are not the prime on projects, they are the second tier of the project. Architects have to market to a wider market of construction companies, business owners, commercial realtors, bankers, and the general public while most engineering firms market to architecture firms. Obviously this rule has it’s exceptions, but it brings up a good point. Know where you stand in the transaction and how your pipeline for new work is filled. If you are fed new work through other firms, than you need to nuture your relationships and help make the firms you work with happier and life easier for them to ensure they will continue doing business with them.
Other rules of thumb in the book, Plan It by Lisbeth Quebe include:
- 2/3 budget allocated to personnel costs with 1/3 to expenses
- 2/3 budget on activities that place your firm in contact with potential clients, 1/3 communications
- Small firms spend more than larger firms (percentage wise), unless in a niche market
- Multiple offices costs more
- Maintaining a client is cheaper than finding a new one
The author reminds us that each of these rules has there exceptions except for the last one. It is always easier and cheaper to maintain a current client than to find a new one. Remember as part of your marketing plan, you need to communicate with your brand community (current clients) and not just your potential clients. Also, one of the biggest parts of maintaining current clients is customer service – how you answer the phone, how your staff deals with problems, and the overall perception each of your clients is left with when a job is completed.
February 18, 2010 – 5:54 pm
Recently a few run down buildings in the neighborhood were torn down. The first is an apartment complex just across the street from our office building. It looked like it was falling down before Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and it only got worse. Occasionally, a porch would fall down and expose more of the wreckage inside. The apartments had been in the news many times as a derelict building that outraged neighbors. Now the rubble is a sign of growth and starting over and no longer a reminder of despair and a home to rats and other unmentionables.
The second building was a former commercial property a few blocks up the road from our office. Since we moved into our office in 2003, I do not recall the building ever being utilized. Until the day it was torn down, it was riddled with graffiti and inhabited only by the homeless. This is another sign of progress.
We are pleased to be rid of these buildings and share our joy with you.
February 16, 2010 – 10:30 am
It’s Mardi Gras here in New Orleans. Even if you’re not here in the Crescent City, take a minute to relax and we’ll have a toast in your honor. Les bon temps roule! (That’s “Let the good times roll!”)
February 11, 2010 – 11:12 am
I recently read an article in SMPS’s publication Marketer, about the 10 red flags to notice when hiring a web design firm. (You can download a pdf of the entire publication.) I totally agree with most of the red blags, eight of them in fact. I appreciate an article like this because it helps my firm stand out from those firms out there that are cheating clients and tempting them with low prices that only come with poor results or work change requests.
The two red flags that I have concern about are grey areas really. I understand where he is coming from, but I think the viewpoint is too much Us vs Them. When we work with a client, we use the word “we” meaning “client+us” and many times we take a partnership role with our clients. The more we help our clients succeed, the more we succeed with reoccurring business, better relationships, and referrals from clients.
- They ask you to pay for something that has already been developed.
I totally agree that is unethical and my firm only does custom work and we stand behind the development process. I agree that is a system or database is created for one client that they should not resell it to another client for the same costs.
However, some web firms develop complex custom solutions to offer their clients because an off-the-shelf product does not exist. Our parent company is in the planning stages of a Content Management System (CMS), online payment and membership database system that they can offer to non-profits and associations for a low cost. The initial investment on our end is between $35,000-$50,000 of work. We are looking at offering it to our clients for $5,000 in hopes that we can get 10-15 future clients to cover our costs.
- The procurement method is sole source. The author suggests creating an RFP to get the most bids possible for a project. I totally disagree with this method because the better companies generally do not respond to RFPs. In my 9 years at this firm, we’ve done 3 RFPS including 2 in recent months.
I agree that you should interview 2-3 firms for your project and get their proposals, but many times an RFP does not cover everything you want, takes too long to engage, and does not allow the firm to help you. Many times I’ve met with a client that wants one thing, but after asking why and how it will be used, it is not the right system and we have a much cheaper solution. RFPs in the design & marketing arena do not allow firms to be flexible especially in the A/E/C markets because your own RFPs are so black-and-white many times. You can get disqualified from an RFP for suggesting an alternative to the work.
The red flags that I agree with include:
- They don’t ask the most important question, “What are you trying to accomplish?” A firm with experience getting results asks more than just your favorite colors.
- The proposal contains ambiguous language. After years of refinement, our proposals detail out the project scope without stifling our design team. This protects us and the client by making sure everyone knows the expectations and has a document to fall back on to if needed.
- The project scope is not clearly defined. The proposal does not need to be a 10-page thesis, but it needs to cover the bases and make sure it includes your needs. If you need file upload functionality, password-protected areas or other needs. Again, this protects the client to ensure they get what they want and need, but it also protects the design firm from a client that keeps adding to the project. In the end, you own the design, not the editing capabilities. We do have exceptions to this especially when we work with internal marketing departments that maintain their own websites and marketing materials.
- They should have done it the first time around. You can not know this until you engage, but checking references can be the telltale sign. The author states that if a design company does not do part of the contract the first time, you as the client, should not have to pay to fix the problem. I could not agree more and this again goes back to the project scope.
- You don’t have or own the work product. This can be a complicated issue, but we try to keep it simple. Our clients own everything on the web server from code, images, and downloads. We own the working files to make the design. It is similiar to a photographer owning the negatives while you own the prints.
- Your website is not W3C standards compliant. Wow, I’ve yet to have a prospect/client ask this one and I am impressed that he is knowledgeable about this need. We build our website with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and our websites are always standard compliant except for modifications we must make for Internet Explorer.
- There is no content management system (CMS). One of the greatest powers of a website is that it can be updated so quickly and you should have the ability to do that. Our client’s websites are updates in many different ways from WordPress CMS to similar methods such as Adobe’s Contribute or we maintain some of our clients websites. We let our clients decide which is the best method for them.
- They tell you, “You get what you pay for.” I have mixed feelings about this statement. In the end, if you only pay $500 for a website, you probably will not have a website that does what you want and look the way you wished it would if you would have paid more, but you do not need to spend $50,000 for a website in most cases. The budget should fit your needs and desires. Our firm only does custom design work and we specialize in the construction industry so I know we are not the cheapest, but many times I’ve heard of clients getting estimates over $15,000 for a basic brochure website. Find a design firm that you are comfortable with in regards to their experience, capabilities, price, and personality. Read more about doing work with people you like on a past blog post.
What do you think about these red flags? Do you have any of your own flags that you’ve found to be helpful?
February 9, 2010 – 10:53 am
Our parent company, Design the Planet, wrote a great post this morning spotlight the transition from newspapers to websites. The recent Super Bowl win by the New Orleans Saints was a great showcase of this change.
As part of the celebration, WWLTV.com posted headlines from newspapers & websites from around the world. Of the 43 headlines grabbed, about one-third of them were from websites. This is a sign of the nearing end for newspapers.
The posts continues with questions about how the new iPad and Kindle will change the market and how it will effect our children’s scrapbooks.
Read the entire post on Design the Planet’s blog.
February 9, 2010 – 10:14 am
Do you have a banner or sign with your company logo on your job sites? If you don’t, you should. It’s cheap advertising. For a few hundred dollars, you can print a couple of signs to advertise your company. This will help build your brand with your customer base because they will see the type of work you are doing as well as help you recruit employee. All that with a simple sign with your logo and you should add your website address.
If you are posting a sign on your construction sites; can you see it at night? Many have been challenged with creating a sign that is visible 24 hours a day especially when much of the area’s infrastructure is in pieces. No one would want to run a generator all night just to light a banner. Have you thought of reflective banners? The reflective material shines bright in the darkest hours of the night and it only costs 10-15% more to print.
Here is a sample of a banner that our large format printer, Crystal Clear Imaging , made for us to show our client show well it works. We took this picture in our office at night with the lights off and you can see how bright the sign appears with just a simple flash. We zoomed in so you can see my hand holding the sign to get a true appreciation how dark it was in our office. If you’re outside the New Orleans area, don’t fret. Crystal Clear Imaging can print your banners and ship them to you. They do it all the time. Give them a call & tell them the Brand Constructions sent ya.
You can see how dark our office was when we took the image.
February 2, 2010 – 12:53 pm
In a recent article post on Construction Marketing Ideas’ blog, the author discussed the need to have good communications with prospects and clients. When asking clients what they value most, many responded with quality, keeping promises, and complete, accurate communications.
This is a given for many of us who have been in business for a few years, especially if you’re in marketing or business development. One thing the author adds, is that “when you are making your presentation, your audience knows you have the technical capability to do the job — they want to assess whether they would enjoy working with you.”
This is HUGE. Are you well liked? I remember attending a presentation for a business referral group I belonged to simply entitled “Are You Fun to Refer To?”. If you are a pain to deal with or just boring, people do not enjoy doing business with you and your company. Think about who you deal with each week, do you like your vendors? I thought so. If you have a vendor you do not like usually it is because your boss requires you to use them or that vendor offers something no one else can.
In a recent conversation with a client that primarily does public road construction, we talked about customer service. The next question was why do they care about customer service in public work since it comes down to lowest bidder. They said that their committment to customer service on the public, lowest bidder side of business builds their reputation in the private sector. They mentioned a New Orleans contractor that only does public work and everyone in the area hates working with his company because every job has numerous work change orders and at least one lawsuit. He gets the job because he is generally the lowest bidder and they are actually working on changing the procedure so lowest bid is not the only criteria.
Besides their reputation, our client also mentioned that excellent customer service just makes life easier. They do not have to field phone calls from screaming people or spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers just to get their money. Our client proudly stands by their name and enjoys having a good reputation for good, honest hard work in the market.
January 26, 2010 – 11:06 am
When you plan out your goals for the new year and sketch out how things will shape up, do you consider how you will market your company or communicate with your clients? Do you have a budget for marketing? How do you know you won’t go through the entire budget in 4 months?
Sample of our brand marketing calendar.
Over the years we have refined our plans and have developed a brand marketing calendar. Here is a sample of our calendar for 2010. It includes how we will communicate or “touch” our clients, our prospects and the channels we will utilize throughout the course of the year.
This calendar helps us stay on task on a weekly basis and plan out our budget for the entire year. It may take some extra time to plan out now, but it will save numerous hours down the road by eliminating last minute decisions, late charges & rush fees, and overall hassle. We still leave 10-15% in the budget for the end of the year for great opportunities that may arise.
Contact The Brand Constructors to help you set up your company’s brand marketing calendar and get on track for 2010.
January 25, 2010 – 9:06 am
I would be remiss as a New Orleanian and a New Orleans company if I did not post this today, Who Dat!
Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints for making it to the Super Bowl. Best of luck and remember you have an entire city rooting for you.
