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O P I N I O N
Flexibility in the face of COVID
We need to remain flexible for the foreseeable future as we continue to determine what is resonating with our clients.
A t the beginning of every year many of us spend a lot of time developing a marketing plan that we use to guide our priorities and drive strategy throughout the year ahead. During your monthly or quarterly reviews of your marketing plan, there may be adjustments to those priorities based on new information you receive that impacts your firm’s goals, or new clients or opportunities that arise. But what happens when the new information is the global pandemic that we are currently facing? If your firm is anything like ours, you pushed your marketing plan to the wayside as you found ways to support your colleagues and their clients as they faced new challenges COVID-19 has presented.
Katie Crawford
Having a reactive approach is not new to marketing professionals, despite most of us preferring the ability to develop a proactive approach based on industry trends and the needs of our clients. COVID-19 forced us to initially halt almost all non-pandemic related marketing and communication materials as we determined what services our clients needed immediately. We then had to adjust to an increase in electronic proposals, virtual meetings, and shortlist interviews, all while prioritizing employee communications. As we adapted to working remotely with some of
our marketing and business development staff furloughed or on reduced hours, we also had to adapt our marketing strategy moving forward. Our business development staff, like many in the AEC industry, rely on conferences/tradeshows and in-person meetings such as an occasional meal or round of golf to cultivate relationships that result in opportunities and leads. Like many other firms, we explored alternative BD opportunities including implementing external webinars highlighting technologies we
See KATIE CRAWFORD, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER OCTOBER 12, 2020, ISSUE 1363
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