How to generate a steady stream of the new clients and projects you love for your architecture practice

(This article was first published in July 2020 and has been updated with a link to the Lean In Session recording - scroll to the bottom for details)

Did you see the “FB whinge”* last week where an architect was letting off steam about responding to prospective clients?

She said: “To have spent more than 50 hours meeting people, writing proposals, following them up etc over the past 5 weeks - and to have capitalised on NONE of that time as yet - is pretty depressing, apart from the obvious negative effect on the business i.e. no new work coming in!!”

The conversation that unfolded around that post got me thinking about ways architects can streamline their lead generation processes - making them less reliant on the director/principal to execute - and also to ensure that the potential clients you DO choose to meet with are your ideal clients, in terms of budget, brief and shared values.

25 Things is one of the Lead Magnets for Architects on my website

There are many ways to go about this, and I’m brainstorming here, so feel free to let me know via the comments below if you have other suggestions, and I can compile them in a second post on this topic.

• Define your ideal client: and the types of projects you want to attract into your practice (including sector, size, location, budget, how many per month/year etc), so that you recognise them when they present themselves. Having a clear idea about the types of projects and potential clients you want (and don’t want!) will help you sort wheat from the chaff in your inquiries.

• Use preventative marketing: Once you’ve decided on your niche/s, use preventative marketing messages on your website to explain who your service is not ideal for. Speaking directly to the potential clients you wish to work with (and describing those who are not a good fit for your practice) will make it easier for your ideal clients to recognise themselves in your messaging.

• Add a Lead Magnet to your website: this piece of valuable and downloadable content should clearly focussed towards your ideal clients. It serves a few purposes: when a prospect hands over their email address to download the document, that starts a dialogue between that person and your practice (which you can then continue to nurture with a series of emails). The document explains your processes, approach and unique selling proposition, with pictures! And the act of downloading is a “micro-conversion” which sets up a transactional relationship, where knowledge and skills are valued and exchanged between prospective client and architect.

• Add value by redirecting clients who aren’t your ideal: If a potential client isn’t ready to proceed yet, or not quite sure what they want (or not ideal in some other way), refer them on. You could redirect them to a client-focussed service like Our New Home Coach or Undercover Architect, or to another practice in your referral network that may be a better fit.

• Capture the power of testimonials: use words and phrases from your past clients to speak to future clients. Describe the nature of the problems your clients presented; how you identified additional issues; how your design solutions addressed them; how you added unexpected value and/or saved your clients’ money; and what they enjoy most about the finished project. Has the result changed how they live? entertain? stay organised? function as a family? Let your past clients tell your future clients how your service improved their lives, to capture the power of referrals.

• Create an online questionnaire / intake form: use a free app like Survey Monkey to ask prospective clients about their budget, brief, site, timeline, goals, values – everything you’d like to know before you start investing your quality time with them. Not only does this help you sort wheat from the chaff, it will give you great market intel about what clients are seeking – and their budgets – to help you shape your marketing materials to suit.

• Offer two options for your first client meeting: free at your office, or $xx at their site. Explain that your time is valuable and you can come to them for a fee. (If they argue the toss here, are they really your ideal client?!)

• Create a low-cost service: ie site selection or feasibility or masterplan-your-house, with a price point of $2k or so, and enable prospects to dip their toe in the water with your practice, to get a feel for your approach and ideas. Detail your fixed-price service on your website to make it transparent and accessible to prospective clients. You don’t have to give away your design concepts in these services; think them more as a way to build trust and rapport between you and future clients. Some clients might baulk at spending tens of thousands on a major architecture project without establishing any prior relationship, but many will be happy to start the conversation with a small fee (and again, if they are not, are they your ideal clients??)

What’s a marketing funnel (aka Customer Journey)?

The Marketing Funnel, aka Customer Journey, for architecture clients. Image by Sounds Like Design.

The best way to think about how to attract and win new clients (which in marketing terms is called lead generation) is using the concept of a marketing funnel, which is also known as a customer journey. This process describes the stages of consumer behaviour from cold prospect to client, which I’ve defined as Awareness, Consideration, Decision, Commission and Ambassador.

The intention is to get as many interested prospects as you can to enter the wide mouth of the marketing funnel at the top – to build Awareness and Consideration – by attracting them on Social Media, and via Publications and Awards to visit your Website (make sure you have strong Calls to Action on Social Media to invite prospects to make the leap to visit your website).

Once they arrive at your Website, they can access rich and informative content that specifically speaks to their questions and concerns; addresses their pain points (“but architecture is so expensive!!”), and demonstrates that you have the expertise to help solve their problems.

Then, as people move through the funnel or journey – to the Decision and Commission stages at the narrow spout at the bottom – you should provide marketing collateral via automated processes. These marketing materials should build upon the sense of knowledge, likeability and trust you’ve started to create on social media and via your lead magnet and email, in a way that is streamlined to save you time and effort.

When you look at your Lead Magnet through this lens, it becomes part of a numbers game, and you can start to invest your time and energy into each of the marketing funnel stages according to the volume of people in each one, and the mathematical likelihood that they will become future clients.

So in order to master lead generation, it helps to have a clear understanding of how many of your initial inquiries will typically convert into clients. For example: you might need to generate 100 Lead Magnet downloads to convert one prospect into a client. And for those 100 enquiries, you might only need to produce three fee proposals (or Evaluations). These are dummy figures and they will of course vary from firm to firm, but having data to track and observe how prospects progress through your funnel is vital.

And you probably already know that Referrals and word-of-mouth are much better generators of new clients than trying to convert cold prospects, so you might actually find it more useful and profitable to invest your time and energy into collecting testimonials and disseminating those as marketing messages, AND asking your past clients to become Ambassadors for your practice, rather than trying to generate new cold leads.

If you’d like to get a better sense of how cold prospects are currently finding your practice – by that I mean which of your current marketing activities such as Social Media, Publishing, Awards etc are driving traffic to your Website – please come to my free Lean In presentation at the Institute next Tuesday, 4 August 2020.

(You can watch a free recording of this session and download the free Marketing Metrics tracking spreadsheet via the CPD and Training page.)

Ready to access Sounds Like Design’s business development and marketing services?

I offer three services to architects, ranging from 2-hour Acupuncture Sessions to the 3-month Review + Reset consulting package.

• If you haven’t explored my six-channel system, you can get a feel for how it works via the free Marketing Metrics tracking spreadsheet – and a video that describes how to use it – here.

• If you’d like a short, sharp injection of expertise – to talk about any business development or marketing issues you’re grappling with – you can book a 2-hour Zoom Strategy Session here. You can choose the topics we discuss, and tap into my knowledge, experience and connections to access insights that are customised for your practice.

• If you’re interested in expanding your mindset and skillset around Business Development and Marketing using the system I developed specifically for architects, you can take the 3-week Architecture Marketing 360 CPD course. You can purchase the self-guided program and start right away, here.

• If you’re interested in working with me directly, you can find details about our 3-month consulting package Review + Reset here. (I have a waitlist for new Review + Reset clients, and that’s what I aim to help you achieve for your architecture business, too).

• Lastly, if you have any questions about this blog post, or any of my services, please click here [Amie add the mailto: hello@soundslikedesign.com.au in here] to email me. I’m always happy to hear from architects who want to improve the way they communicate their value to future clients, and grow the market-share pie.

  Feel free to leave a comment below or share this article with a friend or colleague, if you think they’ll find it useful. 

* At the request of the architect who posted on Facebook, I’ve removed the link from this post.