About
1.
President's Message
2.
CEO Message
3.
From the Editor
EMERGING TRENDS
Hot Trends in A/E/C
4.
5.
FEATURE
Cheerleading and Coaching. You Need ’em Both.
6.
DOMAIN 6
Charting AI for AEC Marketers: Optimizing Utilization with Trends, Tools, and Tips
7.
DOMAIN 6
Channel Your Inner Strategist
8.
FEATURE
How to Transform Yourself from Pack Mule to Unicorn
9.
MEMBER PERSPECTIVE
The Importance of Taking Time Off
10.
MEMBER PERSPECTIVE
The Anatomy of an SMPS Volunteer: All-in with Heart, Mind, and Vision
11.
FROM SMPS
Amplify A|E|C Recap
12.
SMPS Connections. Capturing Each Other’s Hearts and Respect.
DOMAIN 6
Channel Your Inner Strategist: From Reactive to Pro
By Dawn Wagenaar, Strategic Brand Consultant, Ingenuity Marketing Group
Share:
A casual Google scroll of marketing statistics shows that influencer marketing is a top trend for 2024. This article is about the influence that A/E/C marketers must have within their firms to propel marketing forward.
Having confidence and influence to recommend strategies to A/E/C firm leadership is critical for career and marketing success. A recent short poll asking SMPS members about their level of confidence to recommend research, for example, showed that only 10% of responding marketers were “extremely confident.” This poll was conducted before a presentation about research strategies to see if recommending research is a proactive strategy at firms. Lack of confidence among marketers is potentially a reason why marketing is reactive at some firms rather than strategically aligned with business goals.
How do marketers improve their influence and confidence to pursue the best marketing strategies for their firms?
How do marketers improve their influence and confidence to pursue the best marketing strategies for their firms?
Experience is a great teacher, however, there are ways to channel the inner strategist and accelerate influence while you are growing. It starts with cold, hard facts and continues with demonstrated success at improving the firm’s top line.
Let’s look at a few ways to transition from reactive firm marketing to leading the proactive strategies that all A/E/C marketers crave.
Be Curious
Be Curious
Being strategic requires curiosity about the firm’s goals and how they are profitable. Since marketing is often for the pipeline a firm needs three to five years from now, marketers need to understand growth potential. Ask questions about which sectors or industries are static and which are primed for growth.
The goal is to understand where the firm is headed and why, informing the marketing strategy and aligning it with stated business development and growth goals. Whether marketing is for emerging niches or for growing an office in another city or state, curiosity is paramount to the ability to recommend the right marketing solutions.
What happens when marketers are not curious?
What happens when marketers are not curious?
Marketers may jump at popular marketing tactics that lack internal firm data to convince leaders of their tactical value. This approach quickly erodes influence.
How to Be Curious
How to Be Curious
New Grads/First-Year Marketers
Ask to ride along on a sales call or attend a client meeting to “observe.” Get to know niche leaders or principals and ask them where they would like to see the niche grow. Show interest in the firm’s work and build trust with leaders.
Early Career Marketers
Ask about niches with the most growth potential. Conduct thoughtful research and share it with firm leadership. Do a SWOT analysis demonstrating the need for marketing where the firm lacks presence or a client base (but wants it). Tie that research to recommended tactics that lead to new opportunities.
Experienced Marketers
Understand the business reasoning behind existing activities. Make sure the firm has clear and measurable business goals that marketing can accelerate. Demonstrate your willingness to compromise while measuring the value of questionable marketing tactics (good use of money or not?) for future marketing discussions.
Find Your Champions
Find Your Champions
Only a few internal champions will support the marketing department’s growth and influence. Some firm cultures are also unfamiliar with marketing value. That’s ok.
Marketers can identify champions within the firm who ‘get’ marketing and are willing to try some things to build their own careers and influence. For example, there may be an up-and-coming project manager who is all over LinkedIn and building a great network. By supporting the PM’s goals to drive new or recurring business, marketers can proactively support business growth, too.
Proof of data is powerful for A/E/C firm leaders. The goal is to show incremental evidence of marketing success beyond comfortable tactics such as setting up events and writing proposals. By focusing on your champions, you may discover that the exponential growth of a champion’s LinkedIn contacts led to several referrals and two proposal wins. That is real influence.
Of course, time is limited, so choose eager champions who are collaborative and have the best chances of success.
What happens without firm champions?
What happens without firm champions?
Without support from leadership or niche experts, marketing does not gain traction and will remain an afterthought. The worst-case scenario for marketing is knee-jerk firm reactions to lost business or eroding market share.
How to Develop Your Champions
How to Develop Your Champions
New Grads/First-Year Marketers
Connect with and follow niche leaders on social media. Listen carefully in meetings to determine who among the team has actual influence to support, maximize, and measure results.
Early Career Marketers
Recommend personal branding for a couple of high-growth niche leaders who need to prove themselves in their market and increase business. Start small by improving their LinkedIn profiles and social media presence. Create opportunities for them to speak or publish in trade publications to boost their visibility. Track leads from these engagements and leverage PR in sales conversations.
Experienced Marketers
Stay connected to the influential leaders in the firm and be aware of who is next in line for succession. Build niche plans that elevate proactive niche leaders and grow the niche. Create a sense of “fear of missing out” among your firm’s niche competitors.
Play to Win
Play to Win
Proactive marketing is organized, strategic, and measurable. It is successful out of the gate because it satisfies firm growth goals while building upon past efforts.
For example, if a particular conference always brings in leads, get behind it and maximize it. If the firm is struggling to grow a service area, take it on as a personal mission to help it meet that goal. Marketing can identify and enhance what is working well for the firm, accelerate results, and measure sustained impact. If an activity that the firm “has always done” is losing momentum or value, have the data to show that it’s time to phase it out. Likewise, if a new tactic shows great promise, have the evidence ready to prove it.
What happens when marketers don’t play to win?
What happens when marketers don’t play to win?
By allowing the bus to run without a driver, marketers will become the dump zone for urgent yet unimportant activities that leave them stressed and creatively defeated. They will lose focus on measurable tactics that demonstrate marketing influence and effectiveness.
How to Play to Win
How to Play to Win
New Grads/First-Year Marketers
Ask about the firm’s marketing plan. If there isn’t one, set this as priority number one. If there is a plan, jump in to achieve or maximize its goals. This will help set priorities, approved by the firm, to make the best use of time and resources. It will also set the tone for measurable results and influence.
Early Career Marketers
Organize the marketing plan as a dashboard or personal goal sheet with high-priority projects and tactics designed to produce measurable and high-impact results each quarter. This dashboard will support time management and the ability to delegate, push off lower priorities to later dates or say no to “extra” requests.
Experienced Marketers
As the keeper of the pipeline dream that makes business development and wins so much easier, question ideas for their strategic value and maximize for more impact, or give a polite “no thank you. And here’s why.” Once you can comfortably say no and move the conversation forward, you are positioned well for strategic influence.
Pro Tips
Pro Tips
Marketers are in charge of their own careers and destinies in the challenging and fascinating A/E/C field. There will be times when going with the flow is more beneficial and times when pushback and questions are pivotal to firm success. Stay curious. Rely on past success with internal champions. Play to win.
Here are additional tips to earn influence like a pro.
1. Manage daily energy.
Some days it will feel like nothing got done. That’s ok. The important thing is to maintain positivity and jump back in tomorrow…and take time off (really off) to sustain creativity and health.
2. Establish respect.
Follow the golden rule and respectfully set boundaries on professional etiquette and communication within the firm. This will enhance the firm’s reputation in the long run.
3. Measure and report.
When marketing has a win, translate the data. Show why it matters to leadership and the firm. Whether marketing is tied to actual leads or can be connected to new referral sources and niche leader influence, take credit and communicate the value at least quarterly. Offer a final round-up of results as part of next year’s planning!
Ready to rock it like a pro? Let’s do this.
Dawn Wagenaar
Dawn is Principal of Ingenuity Marketing Group in St. Paul, MN.
Her firm provides professional services marketing for the A/E/C industries, senior living, and accounting.
Connect with Dawn on