Aren’t you generating enough architect leads? Are you expecting results by 2022, but things don’t feel like going well? You may just need to take a more strategic approach. Marketing for architects is a challenging task, regardless of whether you’re an architect or a marketing professional, since the industry isn’t that connected to lead generation strategies. At least, not for most people handling the process.
Although common strategies like creating a website, working on branding, planning, and using digital channels work, it is necessary to adapt everything to the niche.
In addition, not all lead generation strategies you read online will actually be useful to generate more sales qualified leads.
The best thing to do is to set two sides: What you should do and what you shouldn’t. This includes discarding lead generation strategies that won’t be good for your business.
Below, we will be going over the strategies you need to consider for your marketing plan.
What You Should Do for More Architect Leads
Starting with the basics, let’s focus on how to actually generate qualified leads and then move with the factors holding you down:
You Should Create a Plan
Although this may seem obvious, your company doesn’t have the time to stop everything and see where everyone is in the scheme of things when things get hectic.
This is particularly important when there are multiple people involved. To avoid confusion down the road, it is better to get off to a good start with a solid plan.
This includes setting goals and objectives for marketing. Things like how successful your marketing plans must be, how much money you plan to make, and the timeframe in which everything will be accomplished.
And these are only a few guidelines that every architecture marketing strategy should follow.
For some advice, it is easier to plan any project if you break it into smaller pieces.
This will allow you and your company to stay focused and not get overwhelmed. It will also make it easier to see the progress you’ve made.
Define Your Target Audience
Not everyone is an expert when it comes to marketing architects. Marketing amateurs make the common mistake of not targeting the right audience. This involves owners that are approaching lead generation alone.
To start properly, you must know that only a small group of people should be attracted to your message. Thus, you must first identify whom you want to reach with your marketing strategy.
Buyer personas are a great tool for this purpose. A buyer persona, which is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customers, is based on market research and real data about your customers.
You will need to consider the customer’s demographics, behavior patterns, and motivations when creating this.
Who is searching for this information? Which type of visitors are you trying to attract? Clients, firms, or other architects? You can be more specific the more you give. This information combined will give you a good idea of your audience and how to aim your lead generation efforts.
Improve Your Website Performance
A great website is one of the most important tools for inbound marketers. It is essential to have a website that provides all the potential clients need and converts them into actual leads.
You can give them something to look at and still provide them with plenty of useful content. You want them to return to your site more often, so ensure you keep the content flowing.
When creating an architectural marketing website, there are some things you should be aware of:
- There are many ways to spread the word about your company and the services that you offer.
- Analyzing keywords is a great way to optimize pages and create links that are related to the terms visitors are searching for. This will make your site more visible in search engines, which means more people will visit your site.
- You should ensure that your website is always up-to-date, particularly information about your products or services.
- You can also include surveys and forms on your landing pages that visitors can fill out in return for the information they have given you. This will allow you to convert these visitors into leads and clients later.
A blog is another important part of any strategy, even when lead generation experts often neglect it.
Blogs are one of the best inbound marketing tools for attracting visitors and keeping them coming back. This is an easy and quick way to provide educational content that answers visitors’ questions.
So, remember this: More value, more chances of high-quality leads.
You Need to Utilize Social Media
Social media has made the world a better place. It’s everywhere, on every device, and it won’t be going away anytime soon, which businesses appreciate today.
Sites such as Facebook and Twitter can be used to attract people to your site as long as you create a well-optimized social media strategy.
For starters, social media platforms can be used to communicate with customers and visitors. This is the same marketing strategy that architects use to market to other professionals.
You can also reach new people via these social media sites by sharing your content. Your content will be more widely shared the more people you meet.
The platforms are usually visually apparent. Although it lends itself to architecture, very few companies master it.
For your company, we recommend LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Start by posting one per day and focus on these alone since they are the most used when it comes to businesses and services.
As your audience grows, you can post more often or add more platforms.
Send beautiful photos of the projects that you have worked on. Photos of your working process and mood boards are great!
In the captions, explain why these photos inspire you. Your followers will get a better idea of you and your work style if you post more. Building the following that can turn into leads is the key here.
Stay in Touch with Prospects
Let’s say that you have attracted visitors to your site, turned them into leads, and closed the deal. This will make them clients. It’s that simple. Mission accomplished.
What many architects and businesses don’t consider is that there’s more to it than that. While the clients you get are important, it is equally important to continue building these relationships long after your projects have been completed.
Keeping clients in touch with them through follow-up calls or a simple email with relevant content that appeals to their buyer persona is essential.
Retention of the relationships that you have established during business transactions is important. This could lead to great referrals to other potential clients, future deals with old clients, or even upselling clients you already have closed deals with.
Customers who are happy and have a strong relationship with you will be more likely to return for future business transactions.
Answer Questions Left on Your Website
Many clients have the same questions, and they are often neglected by companies whenever they are trying to find the answer.
We are certain you can answer all of these questions without having to think too much, and, in the process, you gain a solid audience and followers who will be eager to work with you thanks to your attention.
Therefore, answer any questions that keep popping up on your blog or on your website page. Even those from social media can enter here.
Answering all of these questions will help you create content search engines love. You will not only be helping customers, but you will also improve your SEO.
These pages should be used during the lead-generation process and shared on social media.
The idea as an architect is to be focused on answering questions about the person you are working with, the process, and why you are the right person for this job. It is possible to break down the industry keywords so that everyone understands what you are talking about.
You might also showcase research. Blog posts and pages should be created that address all of these questions and not only use one of the pages on your website.
Clients will be more likely to hire you if they visit more pages and see valuable answers.
Build Trust
It is important to make a good first impression. Trust is built with potential clients by having a professional website and well-branded marketing and lead generation campaigns. Basically, you’re working on this with the previous things to do.
Potential clients will not trust a website that is filled with grainy, pixelated photos. Instead, make sure it looks trustworthy, secure, and well-maintained. This is your company’s face, after all.
A way to build trust is by being authentic. People are attracted to people.
Your clients will relate to you if you share your story. Your personal story can be used as a selling point in social media and other marketing campaigns besides your site.
Ask your sales team and members to share their stories as well so you can connect with everyone and build relationships.
Nurturing Leads After Getting Them
Turn people into clients while you sleep. Create lead generation forms you can send once a potential lead takes action but doesn’t complete any process, like requesting a quote or contacting you.
You can then embed these forms into landing pages. This will create a database with potential clients’ data.
Targeted Facebook posts can be used to drive potential clients directly to these landing pages. Once they opt-in, you can send them an automated email campaign to help focus your architect leads.
If you are unsure about what to include in those email messages, just continue where they left it, or use the pages from blogs and other parts of your website.
To answer their questions, you can link to the pages in your emails as long as you know they will find what they are looking for. Also, they don’t have to be sent in one email. You can start with the most important information or pages that are most popular.
Use Video Marketing
People are visual. As much as some like to read, this isn’t the main focus when it comes to business.
Therefore, focus on video marketing since it is a great way for people to see behind your website. Using this method, you can also build trust with your potential clients, and lead scoring and quality will improve.
There is no need to create new content. Turn your most popular pages on your website into YouTube videos or use Vimeo in case you just want to add them to your website.
Let your passion for what it is you love to take control. Your video will reflect it, and that’s exactly what you want.
Potential customers want to see that you take pride in your work. It will be amazing how easily you can communicate this through the video once you are relaxed.
Show What You’re Capable Of
Do not be ashamed to brag about your knowledge and how you are able to help your prospects.
Clients are looking for the best in architecture, and since it isn’t a niche where mistakes are acceptable, you need to show your experience.
Demonstrate that you are an expert in your field. Blog posts or videos can be created about your experience as an architect, which will help you better utilize your previous lead generation strategies.
You can write content about the theories and facts you learned at university. Explain industry terms and how they relate to your job.
Talk about the meaning of specialized certificates and the work you did to obtain them. These certificates could be displayed in your email signature or pages where they add value.
This will not only prove that you are qualified but also demonstrate how reliable you are.
These certificates are often confusing to clients who don’t know what they mean. Customers will appreciate your assistance from the beginning and how you go over every detail, even if it feels insignificant.
What You Shouldn’t Do If You Need Architect Leads
Done with what you must do; let’s move for the don’t do it part.
This is usually more difficult than actually following the lead generation strategies that work. Why? Because it is easier to make mistakes than avoid them.
So, take a bit more time going over this section and take some notes as well:
Not Researching Out About B2B Appointment Section
When architects decide that it is time to focus on lead generation, they often start with B2B appointment settings. This is a great place to begin.
Setting appointments can produce predictable, tangible results that will make your firm a well-known name. However, this success is not without a catch: you have to execute it well, which is often the most difficult part.
It is common for architects, especially new ones trying their own independent businesses, to get excited about the prospect of setting up a new appointment-setting program.
However, you must have a solid foundation to build your pipeline before making cold calls or even thinking about architect leads.
Thus, spend at least two weeks narrowing down your leads and preparing your sales representatives (SDRs) for their first calls. These weeks can save you months of wasted effort in the long term.
Because it allows you to concentrate your efforts only on qualified leads, initial research is an essential component of lead generation that is often left out. This takes us to the “don’t do it” of the subheading.
Qualified leads will fit your target client’s definition and could turn into one in a few weeks or months. By asking strategic questions to qualified leads, SDRs can determine whether they are qualified.
Allowing High-Quality Leads Exit Your Pipeline
Once you have qualified a lead, it is impossible to predict how long it will take for the project to become a reality. So, you need to continuously work on them, which is something most people forget.
It is rare to find a prospect who requires an architect right away. You’ll need to spend a lot of time nurturing your leads before you can discuss a partnership. This takes us to the lead generation strategy we mentioned.
However, we know it can be tempting for a lead to tell you it could take years before their next project will require an architect, and you will decide to drop this option because it isn’t a short-term project.
Well, learn this: Good projects are those that wait.
You just need to stay in touch with your lead, engage them with customized email messages and marketing collateral and wait patiently for them to schedule an appointment. You might be in the news within a few years after your lead chooses you to head their new project.
But instead of this, people do the opposite. They often neglect those potential leads wondering if there will ever be a project in the first place. They don’t consider that it can be a strategy from the client to see if you are interested enough.
Many architects lose qualified leads because they are only thinking about the clients with projects starting tomorrow. This is a big mistake and if you want more clients, keep the leads in your pipeline no matter how long it takes.
Overlooking Material Collateral
Architecture is a visual industry. You don’t need to describe your building plan when you submit a proposal. Instead, you should show them blueprints, mockups, and 3D models.
During a cold call, you could tell someone about your new skyscraper design using steel framing and blue glass facades. But it’s much easier (and far more impactful) for you to send them marketing collateral.
There are many types of marketing collateral. It can be a brochure, a digital infographic, or a banner. This combination of images from your architecture projects and professionally written copy creates a powerful sales tool.
Marketing collateral also adds value both to your inbound and outbound lead generation programs.
If a lead wants to know if you have ever designed a modern lounge space like theirs, they can request a case study that shows each step of the project.
A pitch deck with images from past projects and details about a possible project can be displayed during a sales presentation. A company overview can be embedded on your “About Page” for anyone who stumbles upon your website.
There are many possibilities for marketing collateral. You’ll see a significant increase in lead capture and engagement when you integrate collateral into your sales strategy.
Collateral helps you to explain concepts that are difficult to translate into words. Don’t forget marketing collateral if you want to make the most of your lead generation efforts.
Prioritizing Web Form Over Function
For you and your staff, design is second nature. Not the first.
You are able to design buildings that blend seamlessly with their surroundings, pay tribute to the architecture around them, and grab the attention of everyone who passes. You also know how to create beautiful buildings without sacrificing functionality.
Following this, websites must achieve the same balance.
A visually appealing website may showcase your design skills, but if it is not to search engine optimization (SEO), there’s no point in it.
It acts more like a brochure than an inbound leads generator. Your website will attract potential clients if you use keywords, internal links, information, and other SEO principles. These SEO features will help you get higher search engine rankings.
If you want to be found by your ideal clients, it is important that you appear on the first-page search engine results pages. Consider how many times you have clicked to the second page in search engines, and you will notice there’s no way you will get leads if you are ranked there.
If you need some ideas to avoid this mistake and work around your SEO, just keep in mind that long-tail keywords are better. Some like “architect professionals Louisiana” can be more useful than “architect company” alone.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Architect Leads
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Architect Leads Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Architect Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.