Marketing Sustainable Design Services - Three Keys to the Future
Many architects are asking me how to change their marketing approaches to sustainable design services, since green building experience and expertise no longer confers specific competitive advantage, even to those who have been doing green projects since 2000 or 2005 and who have lots of LEED certified projects to their credit.
This concern is a reminder that nothing stays static in this business. What do firms need to do to maintain their focus on sustainability, but gain more advantage from this form of branding? I think there are three key steps to take right now.
Raise the Stakes
Stop resting on your laurels and start reinvesting in building the sustainable brand. That means getting your people out to conferences as presenters, especially where the client base is likely to hear them. Commission white papers on key sustainable topics. Write articles and op-ed pieces for leading client-focused trade and professional journals. Publish a 60-to100-page hardbound book on each of your projects, as many leading European firms do, and get it in client’s hands. With some practice, this can be done well for $25,000 or less per book; for a $50 million project that brought $4 million gross revenues in the door, this amount can be budgeted easily and is a lot cheaper than continuing to spend tens of thousands each on the vain pursuit of endless projects against equally credentialed competitors.Narrow the Focus
One key tenet of professional services marketing strategy is that you can’t be everything to everyone. You need to be something really special to a few key clients. For example, a firm might be known for doing museums and libraries in higher education. Keep that focus but extend the geographic reach of your business. Take as examples how HOK Sport and Ellerbe Beckett dominated the sports arena business. After all, key decisions on such projects are often made by a handful of influential experts, as compared, say, with higher education classroom/office buildings or dormitories, with which large numbers of firms have experience and which are often subject to wider influences. With this narrowing of focus, you’ll find that it’s more possible to place your experts at the top of the field and to get them key speaking and presentation assignments. Library directors like to talk with library design experts, museum directors with museum experts, etc.Become Fully Engaged in the Conversation
Sustainable design is evolving quickly into categories such as the 2030 Challenge, Living Building Challenge, Zero Net Energy Projects, Regenerative Buildings, Max Green goals, etc., each of which has various categories of experts, thought leaders, along with new practices, technologies and systems. In the Living Building Challenge, for example, you’ll have to focus as much on sustainable design for the water cycle as for the energy cycle. This creates both opportunities and challenges inside the firm, but gives you new chances to reassert, reclaim and reinvent your sustainable design expertise. Each of these practice areas has passionate advocates, so find people in your firm who care about each of these issue areas and get them into the conversation. Use social media to follow, participate in and then influence the discussions that are taking place daily.
I’d love to hear your comments on how your firm is staying up with sustainable design, green building and high-performance projects. If you want advice on how to deal with these challenges, email me and we’ll set up a call to discuss how I might help you.
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