What to do when a thought leader leaves your AEC firm

October 28, 2022

Ascribing authorship of an industry topic to an employee at your architecture, engineering or construction (AEC) firm comes with one glaring risk. What if they leave? That happens. In fact, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, it happens often. The median tenure for architecture and engineering occupations is just 5.2 years, a little higher than the average wage and salary worker. 

While it may be tempting to publish thought leadership articles under your company’s name or a made-up moniker like “Construction Chip” to avoid the problem altogether, there is a benefit to having a visible expert. 

Clients trust original content presented by an individual more than they do information presented by a brand. In content marketing, specifically thought leadership, the idiom “put a face to the name” proves helpful, and companies benefit when their employees raise their own profile. However, if one of your company’s thought leaders decides to end that mutually beneficial relationship, don’t panic. Here’s what you should do instead:

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How to get your employees to share your content (and why it’s so important)

February 5, 2019

How to get your employees to share your content

You’ve written thought-leadership blog posts. Designed beautiful infographics. Developed engaging videos. Created valuable e-books and white papers.

You’ve then shared the content on your company’s social media accounts, sent it to industry influencers, promoted it on your email newsletter, sent out a press release and more.

Now, wouldn’t it be fantastic if all of your employees shared the content to their social media networks? “Yeah, right, like that will happen,” you’re thinking. But it’s not a pipe dream. In fact, it’s one of the biggest trends in B2B and professional services marketing.

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How to address your AEC prospects’ sales objections with great content

March 14, 2017

How to address your AEC prospects’ sales objections with great content

Think back to your firm’s last major client project. Now consider the process of winning that contract in the first place. That journey can be almost as complicated and drawn out as the construction project itself.

In a perfect world, your business development team would love nothing more than smooth sailing from start to finish — question-free sales calls, a straightforward proposal presentation and full agreement across the board with no objections or back-and-forth whatsoever from the prospective client.

Alas, life isn’t an episode of “Friends” where all your problems are solved and loose ends tied up in just 22 minutes to the sound of a laugh track.

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9 ways AEC firms are missing the mark with content marketing

March 9, 2017

9 ways AEC firms are missing the mark with content marketing

Content marketing isn’t going away anytime soon, especially in B2B markets that have a  lengthy procurement process (*cough cough* AEC).

A recent survey by HubSpot showed the number-one challenge for B2B marketers (with 65 percent of respondents) is generating traffic and leads. That’s because only good content marketing can help. In fact, the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProf’s collaborative research report found that in 2016, 85 percent of companies who reported better content marketing over the last year upped their content creation while 72 percent attributed success to strategy development. There’s hope for you, too.

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Why your AEC firm’s business development team should be using your content (and 5 ways to do it)

March 2, 2017

Why your AEC firm’s business development team should be using your content (and 5 ways to do it)

So your firm is producing useful, educational, client-centric content. Or maybe you’re just exploring content marketing and wondering if you should incorporate it into your firm’s strategy.

No matter where you are on the spectrum, you must ask a crucial question: What is the business development team doing with our content?

Your marketing team’s blog posts, e-books and white papers can’t live in a vacuum. By using a balance of inbound and outbound tactics, your business development team can leverage your content to win more contracts — and they should.

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#FamousMelaniaQuotes: How to avoid plagiarism in your marketing

July 19, 2016

#FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes: How to avoid plagiarism in your marketing

Melania Trump’s elephant-sized mistake is trending everywhere, positioning plagiarism as one of the most talked about topics from the Republican National Convention. ICYMI: The wife of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump gave a speech that contained word-for-word pieces of current first lady Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech

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SEO tips for the human search engine

May 15, 2014

 

magic eight ball, conversational search

You’ve got to hand it to Google. Those geniuses know more and more readers are searching how they speak. And with the launch of Hummingbird last summer, they’re making sure we all give more attention to context and less to keyword-crammed text.

What better way to keep the context behind the keywords conversational than to allow voice-commanded search? Much like Siri on your iPhone, you can ask questions directly in Google Chrome, simply start by saying “OK Google.” 

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