Let Marketers Market! Not Just Propagate Proposals

​Marketing professionals add value to AEC firms. Don't doom your marketers to life as a professional proposal automaton.

A/E/C firm leaders, I implore you to stop diminishing the role intelligent and business-savvy marketing professionals can play in your firm.  Let them improve your ROI instead of just cranking out proposals and qualifications.

I have a dream. 

My vision of a perfect A/E/C marketing world includes:

• A/E/C industry leaders who have eliminated the word “proposal” from the titles of their marketing professionals.
• Marketing team titles will include: Marketing Coordinator, Marketing Manager, Digital Marketing Specialist, Marketing IT Manager, Content Creator/Curator, and Communications Manager.
• Every firm will have a comprehensive Go/No-Go process in place so marketers only submit proposals on projects they can win and that will be profitable.
• With less emphasis on proposals, firms will dedicate more resources toward high-impact marketing activities. For example, project pursuits will be more strategic, higher quality content will be produced, and inbound campaigns will effectively generate, educate and nurture new prospects.

Embracing New Marketing Strategies

Implementing thoughtful inbound communications strategies supported by great content and social media engagement is essential in professional services marketing today.

• Content Marketing. You need great content that tells your clients WHY what you do will solve their problems. Generic Project data and standard personnel bios don't differentiate your firm. Frame your content in issues that are important to your target personas. Make sure to focus on subjects that are important to them - one size does not fit all when it comes to content. Clients are looking for specialists. Provide proof through storytelling that what you say is true. Use inbound strategies to distribute content that is relevant, educational, and/or entertaining. Content is not just a social media tool! Great content also gives your operations and technical team members something meaningful to share during project-related meetings and conversations. 
• Social Media. The need for client engagement and message amplification are why social media is critical to inbound marketing. It takes multiple interactions before you will make an impression, multiple impressions before a prospect becomes a client. Follow clients and targeted prospects through groups on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. Comment on the articles and updates posted by your clients and targeted prospects. If you have an existing or past relationship, don’t underestimate the value of sending congratulations for anniversaries, accomplishments, or endorsing them for skills. Go beyond the standard “Congrats on your anniversary” message, instead write short, but thoughtful messages. Send birthday wishes to your Facebook friends.
• Visible Leadership. Create a body of knowledge within your firm that can be delivered one-on-one or to groups to establish expertise. Work with your visible leaders to develop blog articles, presentations, e-books and/or white papers on technical issues. 

Call-to-Action: Overcome Attitude Inertia

​​Inertia:
A tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged.

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If currently not doing so, A/E/C firm leaders need re-evaluate the role of marketing within their firms. Firms lose out when churning out low probability proposals is prioritized over strategic project pursuits. Winning jobs and making impressions requires creating high-quality, client-focused proposal content.

​We live in the Digital Age. Firms also need to adopt a culture that recognizes the value digital marketing campaigns that focus on:

• Improving their firm’s ability to position and differentiating itself.
• Enhancing and distributing content.
• Expanding the number of prospects in their marketing funnel.
• Bringing in new and exciting opportunities to pursue.

A Brief Rant

A/E/C firms hire marketing professionals with college degrees, strong communication skills, and an understanding of positioning and differentiation strategies. These marketers bring the same level of expertise to their field as architects and engineers bring to theirs. It is unfortunate that many AEC firm leaders dictate the roles and responsibilities of their marketing experts. Despite research and reports that prove the value of inbound and content marketing strategies, many firm leaders continue to resist change. ​

Great marketers know how to transform bland content into supportable value propositions. They can create new content that addresses client and project specific issues. When firm leaders pigeon-hole them into a role where their only management responsibility relates to proposal production, their growth and longevity within your firm will be limited. 

A colleague once approached me because her local office needed someone capable of developing positioning and differentiation strategies, who could manage more than just proposals. However, upon looking at the job announcement, the posting was for a Proposal Manager. I was surprised. They really needed a Marketing Manager who would be responsible for developing positioning and differentiation strategies, content marketing, communication management, and proposal preparation. Instead, they were destined to get a proposal generator, not a true marketer.

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Characteristics of High-Growth Firms

Want to learn more about Storytelling? Click Here

Over-investing in marketing strategies that have limited reach means there are fewer resources available for the more effective marketing strategies used by high growth professional services firms. 
Leaders of high growth firms recognize their marketers as key members of project teams. They don’t forget the effort and expertise required to win the project after it has been completed, especially when accolades are being handed out. They recognize that marketing can, and should be, a profit center and not overhead. They put marketing plans and budgets in the hands of marketers they have placed in executive roles, acknowledging that they are the experts who understand how to implement strategies and allocate resources that will grow their firms. 

Quality over Quantity 
Boilerplate proposals are perpetuated by people who place more value on submitting proposals than on winning projects. 
Marketers who work in proposal-centric marketing departments often face an uphill battle when it comes to implementing new strategies. They burn-out preparing the same old proposal hundreds of times each year, using boilerplate comprised of meaningless, blah blah descriptions of people, projects and services. Their hit rate is depressingly low. 

Winning proposals are 100% focused on the client! They need to be strategic, show creativity, demonstrate enthusiasm, build trust. Unfortunately, when firms force marketing professionals to produce quantity over quality, marketers burn out and have little time or energy for managing truly strategic project pursuits.

Professional Development
Universities don't teach Professional Services Marketing.
When marketers enter the industry as proposal coordinators, their primary direction is to cut and paste information that is provided to them, or that currently exists, into proposal templates. Have you read your boilerplate recently? Don't be surprised if it is comprised of "it's all about me", boring, lengthy and undifferentiated jargon.

One of my biggest challenges as a writing consultant is convincing people to let go of their boilerplate. Based upon the massive amount of boilerplate I have reviewed throughout my career, even the well-written content with nice graphics is usually so focused on what AEC firm leaders think is important, that it has little to do with what is important to their clients.
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Research
Developing responsive proposal content is a real challenge for proposal-centric firms. Leaders don't recognize the importance of market and client research. The truth is that even second-hand web research can provide important insight into conditions, competition, issues, people and politics. When in face-to-face meetings, untrained Business Developers/Doer-Sellers often don't understand how to use conversation probing techniques to gather information relating to the client's underlying objectives, goals, issues and concerns. Even when the BD/technical team discovers a great deal of information, too often firms have disconnected handover processes between those who possess the knowledge and those who develop the proposals. 

Clients are now including very specific questions in their RFP's requiring responses not contained within the boilerplate library. Firms with proposal specialists who have been trained to cut and paste, and technical professionals who have never been trained in client-focused communication skills, often have low hit rates.  

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Boilerplate proposals and low hit rates are perpetuated by people who place more value on submitting proposals than on winning projects.

​Implementing thoughtful inbound communications strategies supported by great content and social media engagement is essential in professional services marketing today.

Please don't scare off our new generation of marketing professionals!

am very impressed with the new generation of marketing people entering the professional services industry. They bring a strong educational foundation, are enthusiastic, respond well to being mentored, learn like sponges and are digital natives. I implore A/E/C firms to give them a chance to love this valuable industry. Don’t burn them out churning out proposals that don’t win. Millennials won’t put up with being treated as second class citizens. Very few millennials get married young and start families. They don't have the familial ties and financial responsibilities that have bound previous generations to joyless careers. Treat them as valuable team members, allowing them to provide real value by giving them tasks that engage their intellectual capabilities.

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Having spent almost 20 years marketing professional services, I understand the vision and passion AEC professionals bring to work every day. My favorite job is to translate this vision into stories that win work. It has been difficult for me to see my friends in the industry being overworked, under paid and unappreciated. My vision for a great 2017 is to see AEC professionals go to work happy and leave the office feeling satisfied because they are work in a field they love and for a firm where they can make a difference.
—Debbie