Sounds Like Design's marketing services for architects, at a glance

I’ve been adding tentacles to the octopus that is Sounds Like Design in a largely ad hoc and unstructured way over the past 12 months. That’s the nature of small business in the post Covid-19 era, isn’t it?

So, in an attempt to tidy up – and make it easier for you to find the resources and tools you need to improve your marketing and communications – I’ve just completed a flurry of digital housekeeping.

Basically, I’ve collated my various free resources, guides and paid products into an online portal called CPD Plus.

This portal makes it easier for you to find what you need, instead of hunting around on my website for a handy guide or calendar or tracking spreadsheet that you remember reading about ages ago in an email or via social media, but that you forgot to bookmark or save at the time.

So now I’m ready for the big reveal. Are you?

The online portal contains a series of architecture-specific resources and tools to help you to improve your marketing and communications: some of which are free, and others – such as my CPD workshops and courses – that you can purchase.

And the good news? If you are a Sounds Like Design subscriber, you can click on the image above or visit this link to gain access. Then click ‘Sign in’ at the top right, and enter your login details as follows:

• Username: which is the email you used to subscribe to SLD’s newsletters; and

• Password: the same email (you can change this when you login for the first time).

Don’t worry if you’re not yet a subscriber; you can click on the green button at the bottom – ‘Enter the Portal’ – to sign up.

I’ve added these tools and guides to the Free resources for architects section so far:

• The 2021 awards resources, including the calendar, questionnaire for your clients and the 8 Step Guide to awards;

• The Marketing Metrics tracking spreadsheet, which includes an explanatory video that describes the six channels and how to use the tracker (*see below for more details);

• Climate Emergency resources including my list of ‘25 Things Architects Can Do’; a link to the Australian Architects Declare group’s ‘Guide to going carbon neutral’; and a link to the ClimateClever Business App, to measure and reduce your carbon footprint

• You can also subscribe to and read past issues of The Drill, my weekly round-up of curated architecture news from around Australia and the world; and my Wednesday marketing newsletter, Architects Connect.

CPD Plus also acts as an online shop for my CPD courses and workshops for architects. At the moment, there is just one CPD product available; the recording of the 2021 Awards Workshop which you can find here if you’ve still got awards entries to prepare this year.

Other paid services are currently listed on my website, so this blog post provides a directory for everything, making it the ideal way to share Sounds Like Design’s services with your friends and colleagues (hint: word of mouth is as important to my business as it is to yours, so please share via email or social media, if you find these offers useful!).

Later this year, I’ll launch my three-week marketing course again – it’s called Architecture Marketing 360 and is worth 6 CPD points – and it will be delivered via the online portal.

If you’re interested in taking AM360, please join the waitlist here to be among the first subscribers to receive details and course dates for the next intake.

The other service I provide to architects is my one-on-one consulting package for practice directors and principals who want to overhaul their current marketing activities. It’s designed to help architects achieve two key marketing objectives: to raise awareness of their practice and generate new clients and projects.

You can get more details about the package – which is called Review + Reset – here. Scroll to the bottom of the page to the button that says ‘Please click here’ to enter your name and email address to request further details and pricing. And if you’re interested in going ahead, email me back so I can confirm the next available start date; currently there is a three-month waitlist for the package, because I take on a limited number of new clients each month.

If you’re still not sure which of these products and services would best suit your needs at the moment, you might find the answers in my quiz. It’s called ‘What's your architecture marketing personality?’ and it only takes a few minutes to complete. The results will direct you towards the best option, depending on your current approach to marketing and your future aspirations.

If you have additional questions that you’d like to ask – or you want to get some feedback on a marketing topic or idea – you can join my Facebook group. It’s a safe place to ask anything about architecture marketing: there are no silly questions, just curious architects keen to learn more about how to win more of the right kind of clients!

The group is called Architecture Matters by SLD and it includes architects from around the world (some of the main issues are remarkably similar regardless of location, such as the race to the bottom and cut-price fees; the difficulty architects have describing their value; and the issue of how to differentiate your service from competitors including other architects and other design professionals).

So that’s all of Sounds Like Design’s marketing and communications services for architects in a nutshell, from free resources to highly bespoke solutions for your practice. If you have any questions about how we can help you, please email me and start a conversation.

* The Marketing Metrics tracking spreadsheet contains the six channels I recommend architects use to market their practices, in priority order. It also provides a list of key metrics for you to monitor, so you can track your marketing performance over time. Taking your benchmark figures – across your social media platforms and other channels - and then updating this data regularly is a useful way to pinpoint which marketing activities and platforms deliver the best results for your practice. And once you have access to this data and analytics, you’ll be able to confidently invest more time and money in successful activities, going forward.