Ok, up until now in the Marketing For Architects series we've been doing a lot of theory.
Now it's time to start putting this into action.
In this article we're going to identify who our ideal architectural clients are so we can go and get more of them.
Knowing who your ideal client is, is essential if you want to market successfully to them.
After you go through & apply what you discover in this blog post your marketing and client getting is going to be so much sharper.
Your ads will perform better.
Your webpages will convert better.
You'll get more inquiries about your services.
More people will want to do business with you.
All because you will have specifically identified who your ideal client and and then be able to go and get more of them.
General, broad speaking marketing doesn’t tend to do too well because by trying to speak to everyone you end up speaking to no one.
Being general is the enemy of good marketing.
But to create super specific marketing that converts people into clients we need to know who we are aiming for in the first instance.
In addition, if you find watching video better than reading an article simply scroll on down to the bottom as there is a video version of this blog post down there.
This affects pretty much every aspect of your marketing.
It dictates what content you write for them, what videos you create, what you put on your website, etc.
It’ll tell you what searches they make on Google so you can market to them there.
You’ll see what topics or groups are they a member of on Facebook.
It determines what audience we can target with our Facebook advertising.
It dictates how you make your sales presentation and what to address in it to convert people into clients.
Basically this is the building block of all your marketing so don’t skimp on doing this exercise which I call the Client Avatar.
I’m going to go through what you need to do to create your own Client Avatar and an example from my own business Bespoke Home Design.
Well we create a Client Avatar by looking at the characteristics of our ideal clients and building a fictitious persona of this person.
We start building this avatar or persona by firstly looking at the demographics of our ideal client.
So ask yourself the following questions:
Are they male or female?
How old are they?
What’s their marital status?
Do they have kids and if so how many and what age are they?
Do they have grand children?
Where do they live?
How well educated are they?
What’s their occupation & job title?
What’s their annual income?
Any other relevant info about them such as hobbies?
Next we want to look at where they get their information.
So what books & magazines do they read?
What blogs or websites do they frequent?
What trade associations are they members of?
What conferences do they go to?
What gurus do they study?
Now we move on to psychographics.
So what are their goals & values?
This is important because we want to align with those goals and values with ourselves & with our business.
What do they stand for and stand against?
What challenges do they currently have with their potential projects?
What are their pain points?
And we need to address any objections they may have in doing business with you.
And finally what is this persons role in the decision making.
And we repeat this exercise for every type of client you may have or want.
I actually have 4 client avatars:
Let me give you my avatar for the first one there and I’ve named her Samantha.
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Marital Status: Married
#/Age of Children: 2/ages 3 & 4
Location: Barnet, London
Occupation: School teacher
Annual Income: £30k/year
Level of Education: degree
Other:
Books: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Home-Improvement-Design/zgbs/books/6158312011
Magazines: http://www.allyoucanread.com/top-10-home-magazines/
Blogs/Websites: Houzz, Pinterest
Conferences: N/A
Gurus: Kevin McCloud
TV: Home improvement shows like Grand Designs, Amazing Spaces, Phil Spencer & Kirtie Allsop, Fantasy Homes By The Sea, Property Brothers, Homes Under The Hammer, Diy Sos: The Big Build, Property Ladder/Property Snakes And Ladders/Help! My House Is Falling Down, Treehouse Masters
Samantha wants to…
Samantha's values…
Samantha is challenged with….
Samantha’s pain points are…
Objections to this sale:
Role in the Purchase Process:
Another way of doing this is registering your website with www.Quantcast.com.
Install the pixel code they will give you for your website and over time it will build a detailed avatar for you based on the people who visit your website.
Here’s a shot of my website Bespoke Home Design from Quantcast:
So now that we have this information we can use it to get our marketing in front of them.
This is the secret sauce for marketing for architects.
Knowing who you want as a client means you can now find them pretty easily.
We can find them on Facebook pretty easily using the demographic information we based our Avatar on.
You can put ads in front of them on Google because we know what they are searching for.
We can advertise in Trade Journals if that's where they hang out.
Basically this avatar helps us find our ideal clients so we can get in front of them.
It'll also tell us where we can find them where our competition isn't to be found.
The messaging in our ads and how we put our business across needs to align with the values of our avatar.
We must address their challenges and pain points in our messaging.
And finally address any objections they may have to doing business with us.
And that’s it in a nutshell.
Having at least one of these for your business is a serious asset and you can pretty much guarantee your competition does not have one, so get yours together and deploy it.
If you have any questions of comments on this blog post I love to hear them, please post in the section below.
If you find watching video easier that reading a blog post then this is for you!
My name is Declan Connolly, founder of Affluent Architect.
I’ve been designing homes since 2000.
I started my own practice in 2009.
And now I teach Architects from all over the world how to generate Custom Residential projects for their practices.
And after all that, I can safely say:
The ‘normal’ way of educating potential clients on the benefits of hiring an Architect…
...is NOT THE ANSWER to getting great clients & projects.
If that worked Architects wouldn’t find themselves in the constant battle of:
❌ Talking to people only interested in free advice…
❌ Writing proposals for people who only use them as a fee shopping exercise…
❌ Being underpaid & treated like a commodity…
These problems happen because Architects haven’t been taught something crucial:
How to articulate the value of their services in a way that impacts their clients on an EMOTIONAL level.
Instead, they try to ‘logically’ educate potential clients on:
❌ Reasons to hire an Architect…
❌ Project process…
❌ How they deliver their services, etc…
But high-quality clients don’t care about these things.
In fact, they view these things as OBSTACLES to them getting their new home.
It’s like when someone books a flight for a holiday.
They don’t care about the number of rivets in the plane & the stitching in the seats.
All they care about is enjoying their holiday at the end destination.
Similarly, all that matters to the potential client is the new home.
Along with all the lovely lifestyle benefits it will give them.
All the ‘logical’ based approach does is position Architects as a ‘set of plans to get the permit’.
So, here’s how we fix this.
My Architects attract creative residential projects with clients that pay top dollar for great design.
And the key to this is my proprietary A.V.I.D. Method (Articulate Value & Influence Design Method)...
…which creates marketing messages that emotionally connect with their potential clients.
This A.V.I.D. Method has been developed by trial & error in the real world since 2009.
And it’s the only method specific to the single-family residential market for Architects on the planet.
It’s enabled me & my Architect students to:
✅ Work with celebrity clients on their new home like Mark Owen from the pop band Take That...
✅ Work on jobs that have been featured on the TV Show Grand Designs…
✅ Work on homes worth as much as $18.75 million…
And the secret to this is something I learned when I was struggling to get decent projects for my practice.
I had hit a brick wall and decided to study how past Architects managed to do it.
And who better than Sir Norman Foster himself.
He got started in the high-tech industrial market.
Which is a super-competitive market against far bigger and more established firms.
Sir Norman Foster didn’t go and try and ‘logically’ educate potential clients.
Instead, he described what his target clients’ businesses would be like AFTER they built one of these buildings.
And once I applied this same principle to Custom Residential it completely changed the game for me.
Describing a potential client’s life AFTER they have built their new home is what gets their attention.
✅ It instantly creates trust & respect because we are describing what they really want...
✅ It creates an air of 'exclusivity' & ‘uniqueness’ around our services which clients pay more for...
✅ Defines who our target clients should be & where to find them…
However, it must be done in a certain sequence.
And that’s exactly what I’m going to show you on a special Case Study recording.
Where I show you how the A.V.I.D. Method works.
As well as how it creates my students’ marketing for them which saves a bunch of time.
This Case Study also shows you loads of examples of our students' marketing that is working like crazy in the Custom Resi market:
Click Here To Register For Your Free A.V.I.D. Method Case Study
So, if you're sick and tired of being treated like a commodity...
And you want to finally work with appreciative clients who value what you do…
…get paid the fees that you deserve & have a great income for a change…
…and work on fulfilling creative jobs without sacrificing time with your family…
Then let’s get the A.V.I.D. Method working for your practice.
Go ahead and register for your free Case Study right now:
It's going to be ending of mine day, but before end I am reading this great post to increase my experience.
I really have no idea, will you help me?:-c
http://carrotcobweb1.fikket.com/