Marketing your architecture practice: why it matters and how to do it well

What is marketing? We define marketing as the overarching term for all activities that attract, engage and retain clients and other audiences.

That means all of the communications activities you can think of, including your website and social media, PR and advertising, brochures, awards. It also means all business development activities such as attending events and networking opportunities, getting involved in third-party initiatives, direct marketing, competitions, encouraging referrals and repeat business.

You may research different markets, sectors or competitors. You may – and should – have a strategy and a plan. You have a name and a brand identity. You have a fee structure. You have an approach to your work and to how you do business. All of this is marketing.

It’s the set of processes and activities through which you place your practice in the market.

Why is it important to proactively market your architectural practice?

There are roughly 14,000 architectural businesses in the UK, including sole practitioners. There are around 6,000 practices employing staff and approximately 4,000 RIBA Chartered Practices. The market is highly fragmented, with everyone competing for the attention of clients and other audiences.

Good practice marketing can help cut through the noise.

Some architects maintain they get all the work they need from repeat business and referrals. That’s great, but over-reliance on existing clients and referrals can leave you vulnerable.

Good practice marketing can create new opportunities and spread risk.

But, it should be well planned and resourced.

How can you improve marketing at your practice?

The first step to improve marketing at your architecture practice is to develop a strategy – a framework for allocating resources and focusing activities in support of meeting a goal. We suggest your strategy includes the following:

• A goal (or goals) – high-level, aspirational, but also achievable.
• Positioning – how you want to be perceived.
• Key messaging and voice – what you want to say and how you want to say it.
• Communications design – how you want to appear.
• Targeting – who you are trying to reach.
• Engagement and conversion – how to encourage target audiences to engage.

This doesn’t have to be a huge, complicated project but it does need to be done. Having a strategy provides clarity on what you are trying to achieve. You can then create a plan to help achieve it. The activities and tasks in your plan must support you in achieving your goal.

Tip – In marketing, when we talk about ‘audiences’ we don’t just mean prospective clients, although they are a really important audience. Other important target audiences for your marketing efforts include: existing and past clients; collaborators; other consultants and suppliers; your team and prospective new team members; the media, government and other influencers.

How much should you spend on marketing?

There isn’t a standard or ideal marketing budget for an architectural practice or similar firm.

When you create a strategy and a plan, you will agree on a set of marketing activities and tasks to focus on for the next period. You can then cost these activities up. Whether these costs are realistic or appropriate depends on your strategy and planning skills and on your knowledge of how much things really cost.

Tip – In our recent white paper on marketing budgets for architecture practices, we estimate the costs for common marketing activities. Using these estimates, our calculations suggest a sensible marketing budget is the equivalent of 5% to 6% of turnover. Whether that is affordable depends on your profitability and on your desire and willingness to invest in marketing.