UA1: Office Management
Firm’s Marketing Material
I. OVERVIEW
Maintaining an Architecture practice requires a steady flow of interesting and challenging projects. It is logical and appropriate for firms to take specific steps to attract the clients and projects they need to achieve their practice goals. One key to effective marketing is to be in the public eye, keeping the firms people and projects in view.
The Principals primarily do the marketing of the Firm. Actually, any staff member can do the marketing, but it is basically the responsibility of the Principals to do it since they are the leaders of the Company.
Architects market through networking and contacts, where the marketing
materials relate directly to targeting the customers or the clients. The
marketing also depends upon the type of client.
II. MARKETS
A client may be a Private client or a Public client.
Public Clients:
Public clients are Government based, and the approach to them is more formal. They have their own procurement rules to hire people, and each of the government agencies has different forms to hire people. Also, there are some agencies that act as middlemen between the actual users and the Architects. In such cases, as a basic requirement, Application Forms are to be completed by the Architects.
Private Clients:
Private clients are completely the opposite of Public clients, and the
approach to them is different than the approach to Public clients. The
marketing to Private clients is basically done through introduction and
regular meetings. It also depends on the personality and the marketing
skills of the Architect. Thus, the Architect has to show what the Firm
can do, and in order to show that, a Marketing Brochure has to be prepared.
The brochure should be basically a square flexible format composed of different
types of projects. Separate brochures should be made for different specialization.
For example, Residential Projects should be compiled separately then the
Industrial Projects. It does not make sense showing a client the Industrial
Projects when he wants to build a residential building. Thus, there are
chances that one might lose a client by wrong marketing.
III. MARKETING TOOLS
It is thus very important to target the customer directly, and to do quality work. Marketing Materials should have all the qualities to sell. It is also good to do award winning projects and even publishing in the newspapers, books and magazines. Also, with the advancement in technology, most of the Companies advertise on their websites where the entire data is stored and can be viewed by the general public, making the viewer aware of the work that the Company does.
All these aspects, when carefully taken into consideration, makes the
client get a good feel about the Company, and satisfies him that he has
selected the right Company for his Project.