From speaking engagements, sponsorships, and submitting for awards to client care, public relations, and industry associations, the toolkit for brand awareness is large and a key function of the AEC marketer's responsibilities. Dig into effective brand awareness tactics with Middle of Six principals Wendy Simmons and Melissa English as we explore this topic, including assessing fit for your firm, getting buy-in, and reporting on ROI of a brand awareness campaign.
CPSM CEU Credits: 0.5 | Domain: 6
Podcast Transcript
Welcome to The Shortlist.
We're exploring all things AEC marketing to help your firm win The Shortlist.
I'm your host, Wendy Simmons, and each episode, I'll be joined by one of my team members from Middle of Six to answer your questions.
Today, we're chatting with Melissa English.
Hey, Melissa.
Hey, Wendy, thanks for having me on The Shortlist today.
All right, Melissa, you are back to talk about a very exciting topic, building brand awareness, a topic near and dear to my heart.
Yes, brand awareness is something we're always working on as marketers, and it felt like a great, timely topic because now more than ever, with increased competition and seeming like there's less work to be had, we need to help our firms stand out.
So it's something we're always thinking about, and I wanted to discuss this topic with you today.
So Melissa, what are some brand awareness tactics that marketers should consider implementing?
Well, there's a big, long list.
Some of the top ones that come to mind for me are award submissions, speaking engagements, content like blogs, public relations activities like press releases, earned media, paid media, sponsorships through professional associations, and client care campaigns.
And they all have different benefits.
Do you have some favorites on that list, Wendy?
They're all good, and it definitely is what keeps a marketing team pretty busy.
I mean, obviously, we don't have proposals on the list, which is one of the huge areas of focus for our marketing team.
But these are all the additional elements that are opportunities for you to tell your story and dig deeper into what makes your firm so special or unique or why they should win.
So I definitely think you have captured that element.
You know, I might add to this, and it's sort of related to the speaking engagements, is just industry involvement, being part of different organizations, maybe having a role as a board member or in a committee.
It's a way to develop brand awareness by having your people out in the community and engaging with other industry experts and kind of shining a light on your firm in a way that's really genuine, very natural in that way.
I'd add that to the list.
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up industry involvement and professional associations because that's not something that is only reserved for the staff doing the work in your firm, but you as a marketer can get involved and beyond your SMPS chapter, you can get involved with the professional associations that are affiliated with the work your firm does.
I've personally found it really rewarding being on committees for say, A4LE, the Association for Learning environments, which is the group for the K12 environment, APWA for public works.
I think it's great to get exposure to leaders and other firms.
It helps with the brand awareness for your firm, but also as your personal brand.
I mean, I know we're talking more about for your firm, but I think there's an important point to be made, as you as a marketer in your professional career, brand awareness and building your personal brand helps you in your career going forward.
On the topic of industry involvement, have you had a lot of success getting really busy leaders in your firm involved at that level, or do you have any tips on that?
I think one of the best tips is finding something that is of interest to that person.
Maybe they're not the person who's going to be on the board of a non-profit, or they're not going to be the person who's on a committee for APWA, but maybe they are just a great designer and you want an opportunity to show that off for them.
One example I'm thinking of is NAOP has a group called the Community Enhancement Committee, and they do a big community service project every year.
And that was somewhere where I had success in the past of getting people in my firm involved that had great design skills.
And it was a way for them to contribute in an authentic way.
I'm thinking of someone who's a landscape architect, and she just did a great job of procuring plants and then designing something on the fly.
And it helped her personal brand as a professional, it helped the firm's brand.
So I think finding the interest and passion for your staff and helping guide them to opportunities that might allow them to flourish there.
Yeah, that's so good.
I mean, we want to be involved in, everyone is already so busy, so we can be very selective about, you know, where you're spending your time in a place that you really are going to enjoy, get value out of personally and professionally, and it will make it feel less of an extra effort.
I think another example of that would be on an awards committee or a jury for an awards program.
I think that's one that a lot of people love to look at other people's work and comment on it and get inspired by that.
So I think that's another one that might be an area that you can undercover some passion for teammates that you work with.
How do you see all of that list of brand awareness opportunities filtering into a marketing plan?
Ooh, that's a big question.
I know.
Sorry.
Take it from whichever piece that you want to take it.
Well, I think depending on what types of goals you have, you can set your goals around that.
We want to win X number of awards for our firm this year, and then you can start building out what that looks like.
And I think with an award, that should be something you're thinking about in the pre-positioning phase.
Like, is this going to be a really interesting or noteworthy project that I know that everyone on the team is really excited about?
So it'll be something that will have all these great stories, and we can start planning from that from the get-go.
If you are building these into your marketing plan, it will also help shed some light on resource planning, right?
Which is part of a marketing plan.
So how much time do you need for these awards?
How many are you going to go after?
What's that client care program look like?
And the extent of in-house marketing resources needed to implement that properly.
And down the list, you're going to need some sort of internal or external resources to get this all done.
So you should be thinking about it very holistically.
And be realistic.
I mean, we all can get really excited and think about all these cool things we could do, and wouldn't it be so awesome if we did X, Y, and Z?
But being realistic about, you know, looking many marketing departments, your proposal workload is a big portion of your time each week.
And so what is realistic of what you can carve out time to make happen for the year?
And you want to set goals that are achievable.
You also want goals that are a stretch to make you push forward.
But I think being realistic about what you and your team can accomplish is important, too.
You know, I'm just curious here how a marketing team might prioritize their resources.
I mean, it's not going to be as simple as if you could only do one thing, here's what we would say.
But how do you kind of get that right mix based on your firm?
It's not all on marketing.
You want to look at the mix of the other people within your firm that are supporting this effort.
Absolutely.
That was what came to mind for me is look at your team.
What are they interested in doing?
If no one in your firm is a great public speaker and they don't enjoy doing it, that's probably not the best path of a marketing tactic to pursue, because on the flip side, you get someone a speaking engagement and they do really poorly, then that's going to reflect negatively on your brand, and you don't want to do that.
So I think there definitely needs to be some time taken to think about what are the skills and strengths of the people on my team and what would they be willing to do for supporting marketing efforts and tactics.
Yeah, some things may come very naturally to people.
You may have a principal who really embraces thought leadership, is always having a wonderful idea that they want to share.
They just need some support, fully developing it so it can be shared publicly.
So understanding what particular strengths and skills are, will make it a lot easier for the marketing team to implement that.
Yeah, and kind of on that same vein, thinking of tactics that you can get multiple benefit out of.
So if you do have a strong speaker who loves to go to conferences and present, then having someone, either one of the other engineers is attending the conference, or a few as a marketer is attending the conference, then sitting through that session and making a blog post out of it, picking a certain element of that presentation, and writing an article for a special section in the Daily Journal of Commerce.
So looking at opportunities that give you multiple benefit from one big effort, I think is another great tip in how to figure out what you should be doing, and what tactics make sense for your firm.
I like what you're saying.
You're going to leverage one effort into additional brand awareness opportunities.
You had on your list PR, for example, in earned media, which is fantastic.
Sometimes it can be hard to get.
So an early step towards that is just doing some really good content on LinkedIn that shares your expertise and is in a smaller format that you can put out there and you know will be seen.
I mean, there's some value to that too.
So you can scale some of these efforts to fit what your resources are.
Yeah.
And I think another great point is then that gives you a chance to kind of test out how it performs with your audiences.
Are your followers engaging with this content?
Did it fall flat and no one commented on it?
No one engaged with it.
So I think some of the content that you put out on your own social media channels is also a way for you to test things.
That reminds me, you did a great job recently of creating a blog post that turned into a DJC article, which turned into a presentation.
None of that wouldn't have happened without that initial spark of, hey, we want to share this.
This would be really helpful for our clients.
We see them struggling with this.
And then it just kind of grew into something more and more.
So, good success there.
Yeah, and I think that sometimes we get hung up on that.
Well, I already talked about that, so I can't talk about it again.
But I think you got to change your mindset of, how can I build on that?
Or how can I adapt the content a little bit more specifically to this specific audience?
So, don't get hung up on, I already talked about that, because I think every topic's been talked about, and it's you're bringing your perspective to it.
So what about awards?
Some firms, I mean, they go into awards season, and it's a major effort.
Others dabble, and maybe some years, they have something and others, they don't.
You have any thoughts on how a firm would decide, is that a good use of our time and energy?
What's the ROI on submitting for an award?
Well, yeah, I mean, I think first and foremost, the work you have to be doing has to be of a high enough caliber to be award worthy.
And that's not a dig on anybody, but maybe what you're doing needs to be done.
We need to design sewers, but it's not going to be something that's going to get an award.
I think the best award submittals are prepared with, through a collaboration with the staff that worked on it, with the marketing staff.
So do you have people that are going to have the time and energy to dedicate to a winning an award submittal?
Another way to kind of evaluate that, if you're maybe going it alone, is to look at the professional associations you're involved with, look at their past award submittals and seeing what type of work is winning.
Of course, juries change year by year, so that's not the end all be all, but it gives you an idea of the caliber of work or what is the photography look like, how soon after the project is completed, is it being submitted, for example, with landscape architecture.
It's usually like year three when the planting has grown in enough that you can submit for award and having to have that perfect piece where you can get the photographs when it's grown in, but not so much that maybe maintenance is starting to become an issue and it's not looking as good as it could.
So spending some time looking at what's won in the past.
The one thing I do really enjoy about award submittals is the best award submittals are gonna tell an excellent story and that is another way to get great content that can be used for other purposes.
Maybe sometimes when you ask someone to help you write a project description, it becomes a scope regurgitation.
But if you're trying to sell the project to win an award, that might encourage someone to tell you more about the story.
So I think that the content that's written to win an award is great content that can be repurposed for other uses.
If you go through the exercise, and for some people writing is no problem.
It's just like easy for them.
Storytelling comes naturally.
If you go through that process and really answer those questions well, dig in and get the data, everything that that submittal is asking for, you have a gold mine of information.
I mean, it's almost like if we had time, we should do that on every project.
Of course, that's really not possible.
Or maybe some of them just don't have that level of detail.
But get yourself in the practice of those potential award worthy type projects.
You should capture all of that.
Get the client quotes.
Check the box that you have all of the information, because that will turn into 10 different little vignettes you can use in your other marketing efforts.
And that's really valuable.
Yeah, those become great case studies, great stories that your staff can tell at an interview.
So I agree that that content is just a gold mine.
Your comment about the award submittals and the client quotes reminded me of an experience I had where we were co-submitting an award with an agency.
And there's added time that you need to build in for that.
So you might need a letter of recommendation from the mayor of the city.
Well, that doesn't happen in two days' time.
So kind of thinking through those different elements that you're going to need to submit when you're going for an award, maybe their city council has to actually approve that you do this.
So kind of building that in, which then takes me back to even more broader picture of just generally planning ahead, look at all those different awards that might be out there and creating an annual calendar with when's the call for awards typically come out, when's the first round of submissions, is it a two stage process and kind of documenting that and building out an entire calendar for the year, so then you can kind of pick and choose what makes sense or if one studio is really excited to pursue for landscape architecture, ASLA award, and it overlaps with another group, kind of figuring out what's the priority and having those discussions early.
If your accounting system works in this way, we'd recommend setting up a specific marketing job code for these awards and medals, and it could be business development and brand awareness activities all individually, but track your time on awards so you can look back last year and say, oh, we spent 80 hours and this is what we got for that, or who knows, maybe you learn that it was 500 hours of your team's time to go for something.
That's really good information to have and you can then decide and be selective about what you're going to go for or just understand kind of what your commitment is and in chasing those.
Yeah, and that data is really helpful too if you get someone who comes to you at the last minute and says, oh, hey, you know, I think we should go after this award.
And then you can say, well, hey, the last time we did this, it took us 300 hours and it's due next week.
So I don't think that that's going to get us a winning submittal if we only have, you know, 20 hours to do it.
So again, back to data, helping to inform decision making when it comes to what marketing tactics you implement.
Yeah, it can be hard to say no.
Of course, I think we want to go for everything, but we also want to win, right?
And so that's if you're if your odds are decreased because you don't actually have the right time to properly submit for an award, then might be better to no go that one.
Absolutely.
Changing gears here a bit, we had sponsorships on the list that can cover anything from charity golf tournaments and industry associations or special events.
Is it enough to write the check and call it good?
Should you do more?
Well, I think writing the check is definitely a start.
It's a starting place.
I think the best way to implement that tactic is to get involved, be on a committee, volunteer with the group somehow.
Look for turning that sponsorship into more bang for your buck by attending the conference, having people there, getting the attendee list ahead of time, looking for those opportunities to get multiple benefits out of one effort.
So, sponsoring and writing the check is step one, but to have the most success, I think you should look for other opportunities to get involved with that organization.
Maybe a good rule of thumb is if you are making a financial contribution, then we also want to see the one, two or three other items that the team is doing to support that organization.
So, that's not just a one-time easy answer on a check, but instead, we are also hitting this group and contributing to the project or with our team's expertise in these three ways.
Another comment about sponsorships is that your firm principles are probably going to be approached by a variety of organizations asking for donation dollars.
So, really keep that critical eye when those opportunities come in front of you.
I know sometimes it's hard to say no, but if you have a plan that you've set in place and you've got a limited budget, you need to make sure that you're spending those dollars where you can see the value.
Certainly there's opportunities to support things that come up throughout the year, but I think an easy way to say no is to say, well, we already plan our sponsorships at the beginning of the year, and so we've already got our budget allocated.
That was one tactic I used in the past where it was difficult for folks to say no, and so if we just say, well, we already have our budget and we plan that in December, so maybe contact us for the following year.
Yeah, that's great because it's very true, and everyone can appreciate that you're planning in advance, that it's not just completely ad hoc, and leaving maybe a little room in the budget for those opportunities that might be new, and I would go back to what we talked about in the episode about planning for success is, are these sponsorships aligning with those clients and projects that were on that list, whether it was the 10, 20, 50, things that you're targeting, there should be some alignment.
We gotta connect the dots.
Otherwise, there's a bit of a stretch to make that a go.
Yeah, and that's definitely if it's not, the decision's not held with you and the marketing department kind of putting that back to the leadership team.
Can you help me understand how this might be benefiting the marketing tactics that we agreed upon last year?
Can we hit on client care, maybe just at a super high level, because I could imagine we would go into much more depth on this in a separate episode.
But is client care sending out a Christmas card?
Is that how you define that?
Well, I mean, certainly acknowledging your clients at different times of the year around holidays is one way to do client care.
I was really excited to hear what you have to say about client care because I think you have a real knack for that and have had a lot of success.
But I think one of the main goals of a client care campaign is to let your clients know that you care about them, that they're important to you and making it something special and memorable, that's tied to your brand, that's tied to what you do.
Could you talk a little bit about some of your favorite client care campaigns, as Mila would also like to hear as she's barking in the background?
Yeah, right.
So client care, kind of that phrase, I think about a gift program at some point, kind of a bigger impact.
But as my strategies have evolved over years, we actually think of it with many different fingers to that.
So one finger may be that you are engaging with and supporting a client on any given day.
You may be sharing some information or connecting with them in the network and just being part of their community.
So that's one element of client care.
It might be that we're just very aware of what our clients are doing and when they have successes and we're supporting that and commenting it on social media and maybe sending a gift when they move their office.
I mean, all of those little elements in it will be very specific to a client.
We know what they're experiencing.
That's a very meaningful way to do it.
And then we have other client care opportunities, including usually a bigger gift or it's not always a gift.
It can just be an opportunity to message and share and treat and reward.
I mean, all of those elements, one time a year that might go to all of our clients.
So there's the day to day.
There's very specific, unique to each client.
And then there's kind of a bigger program.
That's how I look at full client care.
Something I saw over this past year and a half is a lot more emphasis on giving back to the community as part of a client care, foregoing the bottle of wine and giving back to a food bank in your community or something that's going to benefit the community as a whole.
So that's one area where I've seen the tide changing a bit from gift giving as a client care program to more of a community engagement element as a way to show your clients that you care.
Yeah, and I think you can measure some success in that of of your program of what kind of feedback do you get?
I don't know for sure, but sometimes those gifts that feel like sort of the obligatory holiday basket, you know, they're probably appreciated.
But did anyone really notice or comment to your project team?
I've certainly had an experience where a cookie basket, simple thing, like was overwhelmingly successful.
Like we had emails coming flooding the door.
Like this was the best thing we ever had.
That's wonderful.
Like, let's keep doing that.
But if you're not getting any response, if it just feels like it goes out into the ether, and did you really make a connection?
Did anything happen from that?
I'd reevaluate those opportunities.
I think that's an important point that the gift, if you go the gift route, is something that's bespoke to your firm.
That's not just something you can order on the Harry and David website, but it's something tied to your brand.
It's memorable.
So if you're going to make that investment, make it something special.
Yeah, I guess I just want to underscore that client care doesn't really mean a gift, but often it's kind of going above and beyond to make that connection.
Might be visiting with someone or having a lunch and just really listening to them and then responding to what their needs are and capturing that so that you're aware how you can support them in the future.
Key point right there is that part of the client care goal is to listen to your clients.
It's times for you to interact and engage with your clients where you can find out what's on their mind, what's important to them, what's keeping them up at night so that you understand their needs.
All right, I feel like we hit on this brand awareness topic at a good high level.
These are all things we could go into more detail.
Should we just address this week's listener question?
Yeah, I think that would be great.
I mean, we wanna hear from our listeners on what they'd like to know more about and pick our brains about.
So let's hear what we've got this week.
Okay, so this question is, how can I explain the value of brand awareness to my firm's principles?
Yeah, I think that there's a real varied understanding of what a brand is to firm leaders that don't really understand what a brand is to ones that think it's just your logo and your color selections and others that understand that a brand is what you are to your client in their mind, how they perceive you, what you want to be perceived as.
So yeah, ROI is really, really hard in this one.
And of course, principles, running a firm, thinking about the dollars, they would love you to put this into a number.
How can you really measure what true, wonderful brand awareness and pre-positioning is when you are selected first without a competition, you get your full fee because you are the top choice.
I mean, that's what we're going for ultimately by building brand awareness and having that respect, and you're just coming in as the top choice.
So that's maybe challenging to describe to a principal, but knowing that that is really the goal you're moving towards and looking at what's the investment here and how can you increase it over time.
You don't have to do everything at once, but to get to that position where it's a direct award, the firm of choice.
Or even maybe you're working in the public arena, so there's not the option for direct award, but that client comes to you and says, I see you guys are really the experts in low-impact development, and we're thinking about releasing an RFP.
Could you help us figure out what we should be putting in that RFP?
So there's different ways to measure it, but that's a result of you did all of these things to put forth your expertise in stormwater management, and now the clients we're targeting are coming and asking for us to help them compose their RFP or develop the scope of work that makes sense or set what the budget is realistic.
So I mean, those are anecdotes that you can give to show, this is the value of the things that we did.
We set this goal to win these stormwater management projects, and these are the things that happened as a result of our tactics implemented.
Yeah.
If you're leading your marketing team, be sure to capture those stories throughout the year, whether it's in an e-mail file or a OneNote that you can refer back to.
So it's very easy to tell those stories to the principals when you're making your plan for next year.
It might be hard to go back and think like, oh yeah, what were all the opportunities or ways that this worked well?
Capture them when you hear them and then you'll be well served for better explaining the value of the brand awareness.
Yeah.
I even include that type of question in a debrief, win or lose debrief, but what did you know about our firm?
Why did you select us?
And sometimes those kind of brand awareness stories come through in a debrief with a client after a project award.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I guess maybe one other element to add to this question before we wrap up is just that going through the exercise yourself as the marketing professional to answer the question and explain the value and to tell those stories and to map out what the next plan is, is really great discipline to get into.
It's not strategic at all to just go for everything or do every opportunity or sponsorship that comes across your desk.
Right?
Let's slow down, make a plan, analyze it and then share your expertise and experience with the principles to say more of this, less of that, here's the value.
I mean, I feel like you'll just have a lot more confidence moving into each year as you're implementing these, if you thought through it at that level.
And these are people that run businesses.
They use data and financial information to make decisions.
So the more data and backup and metrics you have, the stronger your case will be when you make that with your leadership group.
I think one day we'll have to answer the question, which is, I don't really have a voice in the room when these decisions are made.
How do I get in there?
And we have some thoughts on that, but we'll say that for another time.
Melissa, thank you so much.
It's been fantastic talking about brand awareness, and we will see you next time.
Thanks, Wendy.
The Shortlist is presented by Middle of Six and hosted by me, Wendy Simmons, principal marketing strategist.
Cattle Davis is our producer with graphic design and digital marketing by Alison Rose.
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Bye.
The Shortlist is a podcast that explores all things AEC marketing. Hosted by Middle of Six Principal, Wendy Simmons, each episode features members of the MOS team, where we take a deep dive on a wide range of topics related to AEC marketing including: proposal development, strategy, team building, business development, branding, digital marketing, and more. You can listen to our full archive of episodes here.