WHAT IS MARKETING?

Marketer is the Society’s award-winning bimonthly journal, reporting on current business development and marketing practices, issues, and trends.

Regularly cited as a top benefit of membership, Marketer provides original, knowledge-based content relevant to A/E/C professionals: innovative marketing, management, and leadership strategies, case studies, and lessons learned. Articles are written by industry practitioners and experts who face the challenges of marketing professional services every day.

An updated definition to support today’s business strategies.

Although marketing is a term that most A/E/C marketers use every day, have you ever considered what the definition of “marketing” is?

As you can imagine, even within the A/E/C industries—from region to region, and firm to firm—you’ll get a variety of opinions.

However, for the purposes of the definition of marketing in the A/E/C industries, here is how SMPS defines marketing.

Marketing:

The process of creating firm awareness; building and differentiating the brand; driving business development activities; and identifying, anticipating, and satisfying client objectives to achieve profitable business goals.

Let’s open that up a bit, shall we?

  1. It’s a process. This means marketing is not a one-time event, and definitely not a thing you can set and forget.
  2. This process is about creating firm awareness. This includes creating visibility and recognition of your firm’s name, presence in the market, and reputation to help prospective clients become aware of the pain points your firm can solve, giving you an edge over the competition.
  3. Differentiating your brand is the process of determining your firm’s niche and capitalizing on your strengths to create awareness of your firm, inform how your clients feel and think about your firm, and distinguish your services from the competition.
  4. Marketing should drive business development activities. Some firms may frame this differently, but this is why SMPS views business development as a subset of marketing.
  5. And finally, marketing serves to help achieve profitable business goals through identifying, anticipating, and satisfying client objectives.

In short, although there are creative and sometimes artistic elements to marketing, we view marketing as a business-centric activity. Orienting your firm toward delivering profitable projects and exceeding client expectations will help bring in more work to your firm and meet financial goals. This is business transformation through marketing leadership.

And firms that fail to see marketing as a business-critical strategy are far less likely to thrive in today’s hyper-competitive environment.

About SMPS

SMPS members have access to the best marketing and business development training in the A/E/C industries. With a library of publications, conferences (large and small), certification, and other knowledge and professional development opportunities, SMPS is the only organization dedicated to creating business opportunities in the A/E/C industries.

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