Building stronger AEC partnerships through collaborative marketing

The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is built on personal connection. Projects aren’t just about blueprints and budgets. They’re about people. 

Moreover, the journey from concept to project completion isn’t one that any AEC professional embarks on alone. Architects conceptualize designs, engineers optimize their plans, and construction professionals transform ideas into tangible things. It’s an incredibly collaborative field, so why shouldn’t that collaboration extend to marketing?

Expanding your reach through collaborative AEC marketing

Collaborative marketing is an opportunity for project partners to team up and create something bigger than what they could do alone. Instead of competing for a share of the AEC audience, companies can actually combine their unique strengths to reach more people, save money, and create more exciting marketing campaigns. 

Collaborations are incredibly versatile. They can range from a project update published on both social media accounts to a full-blown, meticulously planned campaign. The goal is for your efforts to be equitable, like AEC partners teaming up on project photography in collaborative portfolios and utilizing licensing software to split the cost. When you collaborate with your project partners, you’re not just sharing resources — you’re creating a mutually beneficial partnership that can unlock even more business opportunities.

When you regularly connect with your partners, vendors, and teammates, they begin to see you as more than just another contractor, architect or engineer. They see you as a trusted partner who understands their vision and challenges and is committed to making each project successful.

These personal connections are worth their weight in gold. As design-build and progressive design-build models gain traction, the collaboration between general contractors (GCs), architects and engineers becomes increasingly crucial.

The power of collaborative content

Collaborative marketing initiatives, like co-authored articles, can significantly enhance the relationship between GCs and engineers while providing numerous benefits:

1. Showcasing diverse expertise: By combining the knowledge of both parties, collaborative content demonstrates a comprehensive understanding of projects, highlighting each partner’s strengths. 

An engineer may be able to expound on top-down balanced cantilever construction in great detail but lack the ability to demonstrate its constructability. At the same time, a contractor can likely explain the challenges of employing this method to build a segmental bridge span over protected wetlands but not have the technical language to explain the engineering minutiae effectively. 

Collaborative marketing recognizes that they are both vital to this hypothetical narrative. Creating content that excludes one perspective is like telling a story and starting in the middle instead of the beginning.

2. Improving communication: Any time separate entities collaborate on messaging, you’re given a chance to improve communication and work out any kinks. This can be extremely helpful early on in a project as it ensures your project team leaders are all reading from the same playbook.

3. Building trust: Just as working together on marketing materials fosters trust and understanding between GCs and engineers — which can translate into smoother project execution — partnering with reputable brands can also enhance client trust.

When you’re the new kid in school, it’s a lot easier to make friends if you’re hanging out with one of the popular kids, right? It’s the same in business. Let’s say you’re running a small engineering firm. You’re good at what you do, but not many people are familiar with your brand. Now, imagine you’ve partnered with a general contractor everyone in the industry knows and respects. If you distribute a joint press release, suddenly, you’re not just that small firm nobody’s heard of. You’re the firm that has the powerhouse GC’s stamp of approval. Clients who already trust and respect them are more likely to give you a chance. They figure if the big guys trust you, you must know your stuff!

This credibility boost is incredibly helpful when you’re trying to get your foot in the door in a competitive market. You’re borrowing some of that trust and reputation another company has built up over the years. It’s a shortcut to credibility, but you have to be able to offer them something in return. If you’re the “little guy” in this scenario, I recommend you offer to draft and distribute the press release on the team’s behalf. This incentivizes them to partner with you on marketing. 

4. Expanding reach: Co-created content also amplifies your message, allowing both parties to tap into each other’s networks, potentially reaching new clients and markets. 

Collaborations are a popular B2C model, like high-heeled Balenciaga Crocs or Dolce & Gabbana x Skims, that can be just as effective for B2B. It’s like having a backstage pass to a whole new audience. When brands team up, they’re essentially swapping VIP audience tickets. Your marketing message gets louder, travels further, and feels more authentic because it’s coming through a trusted source.

Strategies for effective collaboration

Now that we’ve discussed the benefits of collaborative marketing for AEC firms, here are a few practical ways to maximize the impact of your collabs:

1. Align goals: Create shared objectives that blend the expertise of the GC, architect and engineer, ensuring the content addresses market needs and showcases the value of integrated teams. In other words, identify your key messaging to ensure alignment. 

2. Develop a joint project announcement press release: Drafting one press release has significant benefits. It ensures everyone gets credit for their work, reduces the time spent on individual press releases, and can help your team avoid potential project detail inconsistencies common in separate press releases. 

If one company sends out its press release first, the media is more likely to cover it. By the time the other project partners send out theirs, the project may be considered old news, resulting in far less or zero media coverage. By collaborating, you’ll ensure the project gets featured and a more comprehensive story gets told.

Pro tip: When you draft your project announcement press release, map out milestones and determine what follow-up press releases you’ll need to develop in addition to the initial announcement. This allows you to plan ahead and create a schedule for future joint press releases.

3. Editorial planning: In addition to traditional press release distribution, marketers can identify key project takeaways to brainstorm potential pitch topics and pitch these to relevant industry publications for bylined articles or other opportunities. This method of editorial planning allows project partners to secure more in-depth coverage and better position their project leaders as subject-matter experts.

4. Awards submissions: Establish an awards program calendar and prepare joint submissions for major industry awards. Awards can be so time-intensive that collaborating on awards to lift each marketing team’s individual load is an easy win-win.

5. Leverage digital platforms: Utilize company blogs and social media to distribute your collaborative content, like thought leadership pieces and other press coverage, increasing visibility and engagement.

6. Focus on real-world impact: Share case studies and project successes highlighting how your partnership has solved complex challenges or delivered innovative solutions.

Implementing collaborative marketing

Like any relationship, AEC marketing collaborations take work. Here are a few key components for building a collaborative marketing framework:

1. Select your partners: Look for AEC partners whose expertise and client base align with your growth goals. Ask yourself, what audience does your firm want to reach? Which partner has an audience that you’d like to connect with or a brand you want to associate with? 

Let’s say one of your partners has a LinkedIn following of tens of thousands, another has a large YouTube audience, and another is an expert in a given delivery method. You may not have the resources to collaborate with them all. Which is most valuable to your firm? That’s your ideal partner!

2. Choose your co-marketing team: Determine which team members from the GC, architecture, and engineering sides will collaborate on marketing efforts. The team should be well-rounded and include marketing/PR AND project leads from each DB partner. Not to mention, everyone should know their role and who is leading the charge.

3. Develop a content strategy: We established in the previous section that there are many ways for AEC teams to collaborate on marketing efforts. Before you start working on a joint press release or social media video, you will want to decide the full extent of your collaboration and ensure that the plan showcases your combined expertise. 

Don’t forget that if you are the “underdog” with a smaller following or a lesser-known brand, offering to perform the bulk of the marketing work or even all of it is a strategic investment. It’s a small price to pay for access to your project partners’ audience.

4. Establish a regular cadence: Commit to producing collaborative content consistently to maintain momentum and visibility. 

5. Measure and adjust: Track the impact of your collaborative content on lead generation, project wins, and partnership strength, adjusting your approach as needed.

Relationship building and repeat business

In construction, your reputation and relationships are your most valuable assets. By investing in collaborative marketing efforts, GCs, architects, and engineers can build stronger, more unified partnerships that win more work and deliver exceptional value to their clients. 

Collaborative marketing allows AEC firms to borrow brand affinity, demonstrate their combined expertise, and expand access to diverse audiences. It’s a win-win-win.

The fact that it also improves resource allocation makes it especially appealing to AEC marketing teams, which are often small and incredibly busy. Approximately 69% of firms have less than 10 people on their marketing teams, according to OpenAsset’s state of AEC marketing report. Collaborative marketing allows these lean teams to pool resources, share costs, and create more impactful campaigns than they could individually.

However, the key to collaboration is finding a partnership that feels authentic and creates genuine value for both brands and their audiences. If you can select the right project partners to team up with on impactful marketing content, you will find the benefits extend beyond message amplification to future project wins.

In an industry where integrated teams are becoming the norm, demonstrating a strong, collaborative relationship through joint marketing efforts can set you apart from competitors and help your team gain a competitive advantage. A client who trusts your team isn’t just going to hire you for one job — they’ll become a long-term ally who recommends you to others and brings you repeat business.

If you want to learn more about crafting meaningful content with your project partners, Reputation Ink has you covered. Contact us at info@rep-ink.com to find out how we can help.