Recently, the Royal Institute of British Architects released a report entitled, ‘The Future for Architects?’ based on a series of interviews with British architects and designers, clients and consultants as well as students and graduates to explore their visions of the architecture industry in 2025. Though not necessarily empirical, the responses contain much food for thought. It raises many issues and potential strategies that professional design services firms of all types throughout the Western world should have front-of-mind when considering their long term business goals and planning.

One of the reasons why I enjoy working with professional design services firms is that these businesses rarely pursue business growth for growth’s sake. They are businesses built by individuals with more holistic ideals than simply making loads of money. For the most part they aim to contribute meaningfully to society by improving functionality and human experience through design as well as desiring to learn and grow through their work. However, the current and evolving market environment for these professions will begin to force issues of profitability, specialisation, service quality and consistency.

Professional design services firms have embraced strategic and integrated marketing communications to varying degrees in the recent past, however, now is the time to start building capability in this area to ensure the long-term viability of holistic business goals.

Marketing of professional design services deserves its own vernacular – a language that communicates a more subtle and respectful approach to generating new business opportunities.

Marketing is often referred to as “business development” in the PDS environment, with the natural extension of some employees in larger practices being referred to as “business development managers”. This is simply a thinly veiled version of “sales manager”. It also suggests that the other employees of the firm do not play a role in generating new business opportunities, an insinuation which is unhelpful, inaccurate and sends the wrong message to these employees with regard to their role in maintaining client relationships.

Preferable terminology may be “practice ambassador”. The associations of the term “ambassador” with dignified diplomacy seem more fitting.

The role of an international diplomatic ambassador who is sent abroad to develop and maintain friendly relations and alliances between countries is a suitable analogy for any employee of a design practice. Employees who liaise with clients, who venture out to for the specific purpose of promoting the practice or who simply happen to discuss the practice with any new acquaintance should consider themselves a practice ambassador.

It would be helpful when inducting any new employee, apart from outlining their primary role, to make clear that by joining your practice, they have also become a practice ambassador and to outline behaviours that befit the role.

The imposition of psychological pressure is inherent in terms such as “business development” and “sales” that infer a specific outcome. Whereas, the role of an ambassador infers a focus on the creation of relationships – networks of which professional design services firms live and die by.

In these cases the celebrity status of these individuals has superseded the products and services they provide. Without degrading their achievements, it is important to realise that their clients seek the glory of association with the design celebrity as much as their ability to provide innovative design solutions.

The design celebrity approach places design at the centre of business decision-making or is “design oriented”.

Professional design services firms who have not cultivated an iconic house style or a reputation of celebrity pervasiveness should not assume that their business can be maintained or grown via a design oriented approach.

For those businesses that compete as professional design service providers rather than celebrity design houses, a “market orientation” is a far more reliable strategy.

A market orientation places client needs at the centre of all business decision making. In the case of professional design services firms, this means that “design” is a response to the needs of your client rather than a core purpose in and of itself.

It requires somewhat of a revolution for many practices, who although may have some understanding of the necessity of placing clients at the centre, are unsure of how to effectively implement that approach throughout their business culture and operations.

An effectively implemented market orientation sees a design practice define its targeted market segments, gather intelligence on their related target audiences and develop service solutions that are uniquely tailored to the specific trends, issues, constraints  and opportunities facing particular client groups. It should ideally translate to the behaviour of client-facing staff, who will spend time to understand the particular needs of each individual client and to communicate clearly about how each design response is tailored to meet their needs. It even extends to the design project methodology in placing emphasis on understanding the needs of each client stakeholder during a rigorous briefing phase before embarking on the design process. Ideally, subsequent communication materials such as tender submissions and marketing collateral are laid out and written in a way that emphasises how the practice ensures it meets the needs of each individual client as well as providing project examples where clients’ needs were not only met but where the practice was able to add unexpected value.

Stay tuned for future posts and I’ll start elaborating on some detailed examples of how a market oriented approach can be implemented in your practice.

PDS firms such as architects, engineers and graphic designers have been slow to embrace integrated marketing communications strategies. Success in these industries tends to be passive, letting the “work” speak for itself with differentiation revolving around an iconic name and a highly published and awarded portfolio.

In a globalised world, competition is increasingly fierce and technology based trends are forcing traditional business models to change and evolve at a rapid rate. It is my belief that the successful PDS firms of the future will be those that take a proactive approach to the development, implementation and measurement their own integrated marketing communications strategies.

It is true that after 10 years of experience working within and for PDS firms and having embarked on a Masters thesis on the subject, I have amassed a plethora of my own opinions and theories on how best to approach their marketing and business development. However, far from pitching myself as the expert of experts, I intend this blog as a forum in which marketing professionals and business leaders in the PDS industry can share experiences, debate ideas and generally improve their knowledge and capability within a collaborative environment. I therefore encourage comment and debate and would love to hear from anyone who is interested in being a guest blogger.

Via this blog, I hope to act as a bridge that connects the professional design services with current and applicable marketing theory in a palatable and at times entertaining way.

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Alicia Brown