Digital Content in the A/E/C Industry: How Marketers Can Leverage Content to Drive Sales Goals

VHB utilizes several digital marketing and visibility strategies that support positioning for projects and further developing our business through curated content, engaging social media posts, and targeted campaigns and e-blasts. These efforts provide opportunity for focused messaging and communication interactions with clients and stakeholders. We often implement pursuit-focused visibility to position for a project, especially when we have limited opportunity to communicate directly with a client, want to strengthen the introduction of a new service, or more broadly bolster VHB's brand perception in the marketplace. As one marketing example, our digital campaign pages serve as excellent messaging medium, providing flexibility in communicating to a narrow or broad audience depending upon the topic. Campaigns are further complimented, and messaging reinforced, through targeted email campaigns and our social media platforms. We recently had a visibility and business development strategy for our NYC office – an office that had dozens of hires over the last year, including several, key strategic hires. We also added multiple new services lines to the office and had several major, game-changing project wins that expanded our portfolio. Our office was previously largely thought of only in the environmental space.  We created a press release based off a tailored digital campaign page that garnered earned media coverage to help elevate our brand in the marketplace. It linked to social posts with a targeted email campaign. Because it was created for a very specific audience of clients and stakeholders, users arrived at this page through a direct link. The campaign page is also cross linked on our NYC office page. Beyond pursuit positioning, we also utilize campaign pages for pre- and post-conference visibility to boost connectivity with clients and other conference attendees. We also market and communicate broader industry insights on key issues affecting our clients and communities, such as offshore wind, affordable housing, and digital project delivery.

In the AEC industry, we must think strategically about how we can successfully position ourselves for key projects and connect with our target clients. Digital content is a key component of that strategy. At VHB, we utilize multiple platforms and delivery methods to reach our target audiences in ways that resonate with them and keep our firm top of mind. To strategically leverage all forms of digital content, we are mindful of which channels we utilize for specific target audiences and how each audience responds to different types of content. As a best practice, prior to any submission going to a potential client, VHB team members internally strategize the best delivery means for the highest response rate to build and grow relationships with our clients. For example, if our target audience is a prospective new client, we create and distribute content across a variety of channels that drive them to our website and our key staff’s LinkedIn pages to highlight our qualifications and detail the broad spectrum of services we offer. We can do this through targeted eblast campaigns, Thought Leadership pieces, leave behinds, brochures, video campaigns, and other various materials with QR codes to drive our audience back to intended company landing pages. This is especially effective for private-sector clients (like developers, energy clients, healthcare providers) where it is beneficial to tailor each response to meet specific requirements and preferences. For longer-term clients who are generally familiar with our team and qualifications, but our goal is to strengthen the relationship, we create customed, visually appealing content –tailored to the unique client challenge at hand – via email, digital brochure, or a LinkedIn post to reinforce our team strengths, firm capabilities, and quality performance on past projects. For our public-sector clients (like DOTs) who are less likely to respond to traditional advertising vehicles, digital content is essential for connecting with them to further position ourselves for future growth and increased client relationships.    

To build a robust visibility campaign that maximizes .com marketing funnels, it helps to work backwards. Consider the communications model of source > message > channel > receiver. I want to understand that final piece - my receiver/audience - from the beginning and know what content is most valuable to them and where they prefer to get it. That informs every other step of the process. The receiver (audience) can be further segmented via demographics and research about how different audiences prefer to interact with content online, how much time they spend reading or viewing the content, and more. This informs every step in the funnel. For instance, we know that many high-level decision makers prefer email over social media for news about our company, so in a visibility campaign before a critical new project pursuit, we might include e-blasts in the campaign mix with a call-to-action that leads to additional .com content. When they reach the website page, we know this audience spends longer on a page before bouncing, so we include additional links to thought leadership content, relevant project experience, or other news in a sidebar.

As in many industries with a large-scale project focus, AEC industry marketers face the challenge of creating content that serves both brand-building and sales-generating purposes. Unfortunately, much marketing content focuses solely on top-of-funnel communications, neglecting touchpoints closer to the sale that also are in need of marketing support. To effectively leverage marketing content to drive sales, marketers must (1) fully understand the entire marketing funnel from initial brand awareness to post-sale servicing; (2) collaborate with sales teams to identify content that directly aids the sales process; (3) develop sales-aligned content in partnership with salespeople (and even key clients); and (4) ensure easy access to this content for sales staff to deploy as needed.

While working for DCPS to recruit and retain teachers and employees, I used what I call the "poor man's version of Geofencing." During my time, colleges around the country were closing their education departments, and we saw historic lows in the number of professionals applying to be educators. I used digital marketing to target colleges throughout the state to encourage students to teach in Duval and consider Jacksonville their new home. I used keywords to drill down my audience and targeted schools with lower career placement rates. This yielded a spike in applications for DCPS. Digital marketing must be attractive and truthful and display benefits to those you target.