Skip to main content
Branding

Building a Better Builder Brand

Your company’s brand is an experience, not just a series of pretty sales pieces.

Many AEC firms still cling to the notion that their brand is simply a logo, website, the business cards and brochures. Coincidentally, these are also the majority of the firms that have an extremely short backlog and trouble establishing a presence in the marketplace. Some companies, however, realize that their brand is at work in every single point of contact the public has with their company. They realize that a brand is more like an ongoing opinion, held solely by the customer and only navigated by the company though touchpoints, strategy and the aforementioned marketing tools.

A well-executed brand will ensure a positive experience of these critical interactions:

  • How do they find out about your firm?
  • What are their first impressions when visiting your website?
  • How do you plan to engage prospects at your website, trade show booth, etc. and convince them to get in touch with you?
  • What will convince them that you are experts in your field?
  • When they become customers, what type of experience will they have?
  • What experience do you provide when they encounter problems with your product?

Paying attention to these moments in courting a new customer become even more critical when you only have a 5-6 month backlog. As competitors start lowering their prices, your once “valuable” service can quickly lose its perceived value. Even the strongest customer relationships can dissolve when budgets are tight. If your brand is overlooked, and the above interactions are not tended to, you are left to compete mainly on price. This causes even the largest and most established companies to focus on undercutting each other into bankruptcy.

Quality of work can become homogeneous to the typical customer, so your real leverage is through the experience, which does not have to cost an exorbitant amount of money. As technology makes your company more accessible through websites, third-party articles, blogs and reviews, the customer experience is increasingly being molded by social media. What fuels social media? Customer interactions. What fuels customer interactions? Your brand.

You see, it’s far more than a logo and some flashy business cards.

Patrick King

Patrick is the Founder of Imagine and advisor to places on brand strategy and creative. His insights have been published in Inc. Magazine, SmartCEO, Washington Business Journal, The Washington Post, and Chief Marketer, among other publications, and shared at conferences throughout the US. He also has an amazing sock collection.

8 Comments

  • Jill says:

    I could not agree with you more!

  • Wow! This could be the most interesting info I have found on this subject on the net. Would you consider hosting guest posts from others?

  • We are Eric Harr Social Media — and we believe passionately that social media can unleash the greatest good our world has ever seen. We showed it in Haiti — and we are seeing it everyday among the over 10 million people we reach each month. We help individuals build their brands and brands build their business by coalescing the strengths of traditional and social media. We leverage the most powerful social media platforms to help our clients boost brand equity, win new customers, transform current customers into vocal evangelists — and catalyze social change. Bottom line: we do good business with good people as we do good in our world. Social Media For Social Good. Who’s with us?

    http://www.ericharrsocialmedia.com

  • I really like the fresh perpective you did on the issue. Really was not expecting that when I started off studying. Your concepts were easy to understand that I wondered why I never looked at it before. Glad to know that there’s an individual out there that definitely understands what he’s discussing. Great job!

  • I must say that by and large I am really impressed with this site.It is easy to see that you are chuffed about your writing. Trust all your future posts turn out as well.Cheers!

  • Nicely stated. I believe many people hear the word product sales and head for your hills. Regardless of whether they do not wish to be the types selling or becoming marketed to; it is just an inevitability. But marketing is a way of living and men and women need to just grow up.

  • I think you could pick up that comment and use it as a blog post. What you wrote is great advice any way that you look at it.

  • Addie Medhus says:

    Hmmm that was unusual, my short review got eaten. Nonetheless I desired to say thank you for the update.

Leave a Reply

© 2004-2023, Imagine. All rights reserved, whatever that means...