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O P I N I O N
M ore than one-fourth of firms in the AEC industry don’t have a formal marketing plan, but that doesn’t make it OK not to have one. Do you need shoes on your feet, a roof over your head, and food on your plate? If you don’t have a plan, start working on one! Do you need a marketing plan?
If you have limited time, a limited budget, or need to work on the actual implementation of marketing, don’t spend months putting together a 100-plus page plan. Here’s what you really need: ❚ ❚ A definition of who your clients are ❚ ❚ A statement of who you want your clients to be “If your firm doesn’t have a marketing plan, or has one that is very outdated (think 2015 or earlier), starting from scratch can be a daunting task.”
If your firm doesn’t have a marketing plan, or has one that is very outdated (think 2015 or earlier), starting from scratch can be a daunting task. A textbook definition of a marketing plan includes a situational analysis, which often necessitates a lot of research, a strategy or action plan, forecast (also may include a lot of research), and budget. AEC industry firms often focus heavily on the research component, looking up market economic reports, research on methodology, and industry data benchmarks for a variety of situations and actions. Zweig Group is a big proponent of using research, but with the amount of information available on the internet, it’s easy to get caught up in this phase and take months to accumulate and assess all the available data.
Christina Zweig Niehues
See CHRISTINA ZWEIG NIEHUES, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER April 16, 2018, ISSUE 1244
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