Are eCommerce trends changing the way clients find your architecture practice?
Image by Arnel Hasanovic via Unsplash
I’m asking because Covid-19 has impacted typical Christmas shopping habits in 2020, with more people planning to complete their gift shopping in October and November (49%); and 69% planning to get started on their shopping before Cyberweek in late November (both stats from Power Retail’s Trajectory Report 6.)
That same research identified these new consumer trends:
79% of respondents said they would rather be healthy than wealthy;
81% agree that brands should give back during the holidays;
85% want to shop to support the economy; and
79% would rather get shopping advice from family and friends vs. major influencers.
Of course, buying Christmas presents online is entirely different to researching and then deciding to commission an architect, but it raises some useful questions for practice leaders, such as:
are you aware of how many of your new inquiries and projects come from your Website?
do your Referral or Website channels account for more of your new business?
are those proportions changing over time, and if so, are you refocusing your marketing accordingly?
Where is your new business coming from?
For many practices, Referral is the number one source of new clients, but Websites are starting to rise in the rankings as consumer behaviour changes across the board. Shifts towards eCommerce in retail and other sectors have prompted changes in consumer expectations around what they would like to and should be able to access online, from information to expert knowledge to services that they can research and purchase directly from websites.
This is leading to more businesses establishing the capacity to transact with customers online, and new types of eCommerce functionality being added to various online platforms – from product and service websites to social media platforms such as Instagram.
You may think that architecture is sufficiently different from other types of service providers meaning that it won’t impacted by these changes, but that’s not necessarily true.
These shifts will affect architecture because changing consumer demands and expectations will reshape the way that your future clients seek out the types of services you and your competitors provide. This is especially true in the residential sector where we are already seeing the launch of flat-fee architecture services such as Architopia, and custom home builders that offer everything from free consultations to site appraisals to material selections to on online portal for customers to manage the entire process, such as that offered by 4D Homes and others.
(The procurement of commercial and public architecture - which tends to occur through submissions and tenders - may also be impacted by these changes, although perhaps to a lesser degree).
Because there is no specific research about the way that consumers currently find information online when they are embarking on a new residential project - but we know anecdotally that there is a lot of online activity on websites, in Facebook groups and across social media generally, especially in early scoping process when decisions are made about which design professional to use - you’ll need to dive into your own practice data to work out whether you should fine-tune your marketing around Referrals or Websites, or both.
What data and analytics should you examine?
The Seeking Digital Dashboard by Cat Skreiner sits on top of Google Analytics and gives you easy access to key metrics from your own website. Details of where to download it from are in the Marketing Metrics tracking spreadsheet (see link, below).
To answer that question, you’ll need to start by looking at two key data sets:
the first is found within Google Analytics (or the Seeking Digital Dashboard if you have already installed it) and it’s called Acquisition. This data reveals how visitors arrive at your website, whether its via organic search, direct, email, paid ads, referral from other websites or social media (and the Seeking Digital dashboard provides easy access to more detailed data about your various social media channels).
the second is information you’ll have to obtain from past and new clients, about how they found your practice and then decided to commission you for their project. Some practices already collect this info as a matter of course as part of their onboarding or feedback processes, which is very helpful for this exercise. If you’re not already collecting it, add this info to your Marketing Metrics tracking spreadsheet, which you can download for free, here.
Analysing these two sets of data will help you understand your most important source of new business right now, and over time you’ll be able to observe whether shifts are taking place. If they are, you can refocus your marketing efforts towards a different channel in line with those shifts.
What can we learn about eCommerce from other sectors?
The trajectory of online transactions in other sectors - which is growing year on year, and was accelerated by Covid-19 this year - suggests that Websites will play an increasingly important role in your future client’s journey to your practice, so you’ll want to make sure that your website is fully optimised for search.
At the moment, most architecture practices are not well optimised for search, so they risk missing out on market share to service providers such as building designers and custom home builders, whose online presence is already tailored to meet changing consumer expectations.
Here’s a simple example: A potential client who is planning a renovation uses Google to search for a string of keywords such as “renovation house inner west Sydney”. (There are several ways that you can identify the most popular keyword search strings, but that’s a whole other discussion!). If your website isn’t optimised for that particular keyword search string, it won’t appear near the top of the results page.
And appearing near the top of the results page is vitally important, because 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search; and fewer than 1% of users click on results from page two or later (according to Ahrefs, a marketing and SEO expert).
In the business services sector (not architecture specifically), organic search accounts for about 70% of traffic, according to SEO and copywriting expert Kate Toon, and she confirms that 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.
Other online search stats from Ahrefs that are relevant and useful for architect practices include:
92.96% of global traffic comes from Google search, Google Images, and Google Maps;
SEO drives 1000%+ more traffic than organic social media; and
69.7% of search queries contain four words or more.
What about paid ads; how do they compare with organic search?
According to Hubspot, a marketing, sales, and service software provider, nearly 80% of users ignore paid ads in search results, and 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search.
ra asserts that only about 36.2% of consumers recognise links that are paid advertisements, but don't click on them. Research suggests that while many search users can’t differentiate between paid ads and organic links, they still prefer to click on organic links rather than Pay Per Click ads.
So what’s the future of online transactions and eCommerce?
Kate Toon quotes Nasdaq projections that forecast that by 2040, 95% of all purchases will be made via eCommerce. That’s a staggering number, and one that architecture is not yet prepared for.
Of course you could take a gamble that architecture will be in the 5% of transactions that don’t take place online, but are you willing to take that risk and forfeit the future online marketplace entirely?
If you’re keen to capture your share of online transactions, you’ll need to understand and implement several key marketing activities, including:
how to optimise your website for online search to attract the right customers in the first place;
how to transact with customers online (and this doesn’t have to involve the exchange of money; it may be the exchange of your expert knowledge for an email address, so that you can continue to build connection and engagement with prospects via your Email channel); and
how to convert some of your website visitors into new clients.
How do you know if you need to take action now, or in the future?
If your existing practice Website analytics and new business data reveals that your Website is already an important channel in the way you attract and generate new clients - or that the Referrals are waning in importance and Websites are rising, in line with broader consumer habits - you should start to take action now.
If you don’t yet have access to the data you need to make these informed decisions, obtaining those metrics and insights is your first priority, going forward.
Fine-tuning your website for eCommerce is a significant undertaking, and you’ll likely need a guide to show you what to fix and how to go about it. You may not realise, for example, that there are more than 200 factors that impact your Google search ranking! Some of these factors are fairly easily understood and manipulated, while others are quite deliberately more opaque.
And the issue of which keywords to go after is another giant rabbit hole with many tangents and burrows to explore.
That’s why - next year in February - I’m running a CPD session for the Australian Institute of Architects about architecture marketing and websites. Ahead of that training, I’m calling for architecture practices to nominate their own practice website for a free review that will take place inside the session.
I’ll look at four or five actual practice websites and examine a range of key metrics that indicate their health in relation to search and eCommerce. I’ll also share a series of free tools that you can use to look into your own website’s back end in the session – and your competitors’ websites! – which will help you to work out how to improve your own results, and which search keyword strings to aspire to rank for.
If you’d like to nominate your website to be included in that review, please send me an email and I’ll let you know what’s involved.
And if you’d like to find out more about my architecture marketing consulting packages - where I can work with your practice in a one-on-one capacity - you can find details about my consulting package Review + Reset here.