Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES VOLUME 34, ISSUE 6, DECEMBER 2015
CAREERS ISSUE18 STORYTELLER-IN-CHIEF
22 GETTING TO KNOW SMPS CEO MICHAEL V. GEARY, CAE
28 WHAT MAKES YOU WANT TO COME TO WORK?
30 LET YOUR CAREER FLOURISH SIDEWAYS, NOT JUST UP
CONTRIBUTORS
9 Effective Event NetworkingLINDSAY L. YOUNG, MBA, CPSM, is a marketing consultant with nu marketing in Haysville, KS. Reach her at 316.680.3097 or [email protected].
10 Writing for the Win: Don’t Just Write the Story, Celebrate the Outcomes
Past president and president-elect of SMPS Virginia, TRACEY A. GOULD, M.S. IMC, is the director of marketing for Noelker and Hull Associates and a 1st Place Zweig White Marketing Excellence Award recipient. Reach her at 520.907.1977 or [email protected].
14 Brand Marketing to Boost Your Firm’s Marketing ROI and Visibility
SYLVIA S. MONTGOMERY, MBA, CPSM, is a senior partner at Hinge, a marketing and branding firm for professional services. Montgomery is a co-author of The Visible Expert, Inside the Buyer’s Brain, and Online Marketing for Professional Services. Reach her at 571.238.5378 or [email protected]. or follow her on Twitter @BrandStrong.
16 How to Build a Webinar FollowingBILL READER is corporate marketing director at NTH Consultants Ltd. in Northville, MI. NTH is a geotechnical, environmental, and facilities engineering consulting firm. Reader can be reached at 248.324.5252 or [email protected].
18 Storyteller-in-ChiefMarketer contributing editor NANCY EGAN, FSMPS, focuses on image and content development for firms in the design community. She writes on workplace issues, urban design and architecture, and professional services marketing. A past president of SMPS, she can be contacted at 310.943.7294 or [email protected].
21 Sidebar: Think RésuméNANCY EGAN, FSMPS, and MARJANNE PEARSON
Marketer contributing editor MARJANNE PEARSON is recognized as an industry pioneer in talent, leadership, and business strategies for architecture and design practices. She can be reached at 510.452.1460 or [email protected].
28 What Makes You Want to Come to Work?MICHAEL T. BUELL, FSMPS, CPSM, is the client development director with CCI Mechanical, Inc., in Salt Lake City, UT. He is also a national speaker, adjunct professor at the University of Utah, and co-creator/faculty of SMPS’ Business Development Institute. Buell can be reached at 801.541.3440 or [email protected].
30 Let Your Career Flourish Sideways, Not Just UpKARIN DOUCETTE is regional inside sales manager of a 10-person team with Jacobs in Asia. She works primarily in Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, and Malaysia. She can be reached at [email protected].
34 Off to a Good Start! Preparing New Coordinators for Success
JENNIFER K. MCGOVERN, CPSM, is mid-Atlantic regional marketing manager at VHB in Vienna, VA. She can be reached at 571.389.8171 or [email protected].
37 Bookshelf: Successful Project Management for A/E/P and Environmental Consulting Firms, Second Edition by Ernest Burden
SCOTT D. BUTCHER, FSMPS, CPSM, is vice president of JDB Engineering, Inc., in York, PA. Butcher is a trustee of the SMPS Foundation and was the 2014–2015 Foundation president. He can be reached at 717.434.1543 or [email protected].
39 SMPS Member SpotlightKAREN B. CARR, CPSM, LEED AP, is director of marketing & business development with Stafford King Wiese Architects in Sacramento, CA. Reach her at 916.930.5953 or [email protected].
40 My Turn: Sometimes It Takes Courage to Help Clients Envision the Future
DAVID ZATOPEK, AIA, is a practicing architect and a vice president of Corgan in Dallas, TX. Zatopek’s areas of practice include master planning and design for higher education, technology, civic and cultural clients. Reach him at 214.757.1677 or [email protected].
6 SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
Writing for the Win: Don’t Just Write the Story, Celebrate the Outcomes 10
Brand Marketing to Boost Your Firm’s Marketing ROI and Visibility 14
How to Build a Webinar Following 16
PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITY
For far too long, writing in the A/E/C industry has been largely focused on project features and superficial elements of the story, as opposed to reporting on what really matters—the outcomes and benefits provided to our clients. As communicators, marketers, and writers, it’s critical we put on our reporter’s hat from time to time and write about what really matters: value. This is often easier said than done.
Features vs. Benefits
Think about this from a client’s perspective. Any firm can design an 80,000-square foot, three-story ambulatory surgery center comprised of brick and concrete with eight treatment rooms, two imaging suites, a well-lit lobby with ample daylight, and 100 parking spaces. Right? But can every one of your competitors do so and reduce patient waiting times by 20 percent? Or improve average patient recovery times by 38 minutes? And prove it? This is how you can demonstrate the real value of your firm’s services. So how do we get there?
The Information Food Chain
In most cases, marketers are at the end of the information food chain—usually the last to know. We’ve all been there. We’re often the last to know that a project has been
started—much less completed. How many times have you found out about a project a year after completion and exclaimed, “When did we get that project? I could’ve used this in a recent proposal!” While the reasons are many and varied for marketing not being in the know, one reason is glaringly obvious—marketing is often not looped into the process from the get-go. If that is the case, how can marketing begin to know what the positive outcomes of a project are to effectively promote it and win more work?
Dive Deep for the Owner’s Real Goals and Objectives
In order to measure the positive outcomes of our firms’ services on a project-by-project basis, we need to have a clear understanding of the owner’s goals with measurable objectives from the very beginning of the design process. (Think like a public relations professional!) However, this is challenging, as architects, engineers, contractors, and designers aren’t trained to think like PR pros. Designers are enthralled with the actual process from day one, and marketers don’t have a seat at the design table. Therefore, designers do not dive in to define actual measurable objectives, as it’s not top of mind or taught in most design schools.
For example, Client A tells your architect it wants its new building to help the team work faster. That’s one goal for the project. As service providers and designers, we shouldn’t accept this as the owner’s final answer. Dive deeper. Define what “faster” means to them. How much faster? In what time frame? What subset of the staff? All of these deep dive questions help to define measurable design objectives, which then enable the design team and marketers to effectively capture actual outcomes later.
Other examples of measurable objectives obtainable during the design process include:
Client X wants its staff to be able to work faster with its new space, initiating 20 percent more jobs annually by 2016
Client Y wants to reduce square footage 10 percent per employee by 2016
Client Z wants to reduce wait times 40 percent by 2020
Marketing and Design Should Collaborate from Day One
Collaboration with marketing early in the design process results in better design—and project case studies. Who would’ve thought marketers could have such a
Writing for the Win: Don’t Just Write the Story, Celebrate the OutcomesBy Tracey A. Gould, M.S. IMC
10 SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
hands-on role and positive impact on the design process? It’s quite simple. Include marketing in pre-planning, charrettes, and programming sessions with the owner and the design team. Keep them in the loop throughout the entire design process. Not only will they have a better understanding of the project to craft a better story later, but they can add true value to the design and the project team by offering insight on how to get to the root of the owner’s goals and objectives—which results in better design.
Crafting insightful project stories that demonstrate real value, benefits, and positive outcomes will compel decisionmakers to want to learn more and move them along in the sales cycle so much faster. Owners don’t want to read about materials, scale, and lighting, per se. They want results—real, measurable results. They want to know how you can solve their problems through design. These are the real stories that should be evaluated and celebrated within promotional collateral, proposals, interviews, as well as online. This is what our clients and decisionmakers really want to read about. This is what will motivate them to selection and get you to the win. n
Spanaway Lake High School addition, Spanaway, WA; for Erickson-McGovern Architects. Andrew Buchanan, www.subtlelightphoto.com.
MARKETER DECEMBER 2015 11
