Digital Marketing for Architecture - The Ultimate Guide for 2023
The world as we know it has moved to digital marketing in 2022. The architecture industry, however, is yet to embrace the reality of digital marketing to its fullest. However, in 2023, it’s about to change.
With hundreds of architecture companies making their moves towards digital means and artificial reality to showcase their plans, you can’t stick with traditional marketing for long to give your competitors an edge. But first, let’s understand what digital marketing for architecture is.
Photo by Nick Morrison
What Is Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is the technical name for internet marketing. It includes the process of using different social media platforms to interact and sell products to a specific target market.
With digital marketing, you can promote your business and reach more customers through advertisements and social media promotions. Typically with these gimmicks, customers are the ones who reach your website or lead generation form through digital marketing means.
Different industries and businesses embrace digital marketing in various forms and collections. Depending on your analysis and business, you can either go with all of them or strike the right balance in between.
Moving out of Traditional Marketing
Architecture businesses, in the past, have always relied upon word of mouth more than any other form of marketing. Even the traditional marketing approaches were neglected by the industry.
However, it hadn’t been an issue a few years back as your competitors were also not inclined to put much effort into marketing and were busy making sales pitches. But, that’s changing in 2023.
As most of the buyers in the architecture industry in 2023 are Millennials, they’re expecting to understand the market online. They’ll be searching for designs, flooring options, brick prices, furniture, and everything from their mobile devices and will expect you to keep up with them. If you aren’t beating the competition, your competition will beat you.
A significant difference between the traditional and digital approaches in the architecture industry is how your customers perceive you. While a suitable recommendation can be a form of great advertising, a bad one can destroy our year-long reputation like wildfire.
With your potential customers learning and accepting you at their own pace, they can carefully analyze these testimonials and content at their merit with the help of SEO content marketing writing services.
Content Marketing for Architecture
Most digital businesses start with content marketing. Architecture is no different. With more than 68% of online interactions starting with search engines, it’s essential that your business ranks on the search engines in specific keywords to generate maximum organic traffic.
While the choice of keywords is determined by the industry you’re in and the competition, the content must be top-quality. As these contents will be the gateway to your business for potential customers, they need to provide value without being promotional.
As mentioned, Millennials mostly start their journey by learning about the industry that they intend to invest in; your content marketing strategy should reflect that. As an architecture business, you must determine what your potential customers search for and what they might find valuable.
For example, if you specialize in interior designing, you may want to write long-form blog posts about flooring options, wall decorations, design options, and furniture. On the other hand, for your office design business, you want to generate content about open factory designs and professional decorations.
Furthermore, don’t get limited to your own blog. Embrace guest postings, social media posts, videos, and other content strategies that can generate results for your business. You also can do whitepapers, infographics, and case studies for lead generation purposes.
SEO Strategies for Architecture
Content marketing is only a part of search engine optimization (SEO). Numerous different factors contribute to SEO in the architecture industry. Such as
Website design
Website design, especially speed and structure, plays a major role in SEO supremacy. Being in the architecture business, you must appreciate how search engines consider structure a critical ranking factor. You can check your website speed and technical limitations through Google PageSpeed Insights and Search Console.
User Experience
Search engines don’t want their users to land on a page that doesn’t offer a great experience. If you want to dominate the SERPs, you must consider user experience as an important factor.
Domain Authority
Building domain authority demands extensive efforts. You need to build backlinks, outbound links, and internal links, to try and get them mentioned by authoritative sources. Domain authority is also a critical ranking factor.
Keywords
Depending on the competition, your industry may already have whales ranking on short-tail keywords like “vinyl floor” or “wall textures”, but you can target long-tail keywords like “interior designers in Milwaukee” to rank higher. While these keywords may not attract as much traffic as the short-tail ones do, they’re great for buyer intent searches.
Page Titles
Every page on your website including blog posts, case studies, terms & conditions, and others should have appropriate titles. If they don’t, the search engine algorithms will generate a different one, which may not be as compelling. Always make sure to include the main keyword in the title.
Internal Links
Blog posts aren’t often enough to build an SEO strategy. You need to build internal links. Internal links are anchors that send your potential clients to a different section of the website so that they don’t bounce back to the SERPs.
Meta Description
Meta descriptions are briefs of your page or content that is shown on the SERPs to let the potential customers know about the page they’re intending to visit. If you fail to include meta descriptions, the algorithms will determine that themselves. Which, as usual, may not be as compelling.
Paid Ads for Architecture
As mentioned, paid ads are an essential element in digital marketing. As competitive as the online markets are, if you keep waiting for the algorithms to bless your business, you may not be able to generate business before you lose hope.
Search Engine Ads
Search engines are mostly reliant upon keywords to show their ads. Although app and video ads are being included in the mix, they still aren’t as mainstream as text ads.
To promote your architecture business through search engine ads, you need to find the right keywords. Google Keyword Planner is an exceptional free tool for that purpose. You may either enter your website address to find the relevant keywords or put them yourself. Moreover, if you’re intending to do the whole ad thing yourself, here is the video that I started learning it with.
Social Media Ads
Social media ads are relatively easier to set up. You just need a business presence in the platform and content. Usually, the ad features of these platforms automatically optimize the ads to fit all the screens and operating systems.
Additionally, you can customize these ads further to suit your needs better. For architecture businesses, social media ads may not be as effective as search engine ones.
Social Media Marketing for Architecture
In addition to paid ads, social media platforms offer great opportunities to architecture businesses for brand awareness. As your business mostly revolves around visuals and testimonials, these platforms can help you reach a greater audience equipped with better financials and interest.
However, you have to choose the appropriate platform for your requirements. You may start with YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram as they have the most user base, but keep your options open to pivot towards other social media platforms if required.
Influencer Marketing for Architecture
As word of mouth is still the main source of revenue generation, architecture businesses thrive on influencer marketing. However, finding the right influencers may be a challenge for you.
Consider looking for influencers who are somehow related to the industry and have a great online presence. For example, if a real estate agent has a huge number of followers and often posts online content, they can be a great influencer partner for your business.
Whatever you do, don’t indulge with the wrong influencers. If their content isn’t tangential to architecture, you risk losing money without generating any sales or awareness towards your business.
Email Marketing for Architecture
If you already have an online presence and email list, you can leverage that to reach potential customers. You may also use paid ads and gated content to generate email addresses of potent leads. Email marketing, with an average of 4200% ROI generation, is a great resource for architecture businesses.
However, as your clients are high-value, you may need to include personalization in your emails. If possible, categorize your leads in terms of their position in the sales funnel and intent. Make sure to reach the clients individually to book an appointment or to invite them for a webinar.
Virtual Reality Marketing for Architecture
Although still in its infancy, virtual reality has taken the architecture industry by storm. By generating 3D models of your latest designs and interiors, you can reach a wider audience who hold an interest in visualization and real-time simulations. In the future, you can plan to advertise on the metaverse.
FAQ
1. How do you do digital marketing projects for architecture?
You need to understand your market and niche before jumping into putting your first content. While content marketing, paid lead generation ads, and email marketing works best for architecture, you shouldn’t neglect influencer and social media marketing for your digital marketing project.
2. What are the key elements of a digital marketing approach?
Keywords, ideal customer profiles, and demographics are the key elements of a successful digital marketing plan.
3. How do I market my architecture firm?
Start with content marketing and SEO, and make your way through paid ads and email marketing. If that’s not enough, include social media and influencers in the mix.
The Bottom Line
Hopefully, you’ve understood what it takes to scale your architecture business through digital marketing. While the transition to digital marketing is the hardest challenge, content marketing, and SEO strategies are next to follow.
Paid ads and social media marketing are relatively easier if you understand the technicalities. Moreover, to generate the most ROI, you must fall back on email marketing and virtual reality.
Author: Dan M
