Tackling a Summer Slowdown

Sometimes our deadline-driven marketing world slows down a bit during the summer, providing an opportunity to get caught up on non-deadline tasks. Below is a list of ideas you can tackle if you have a spare moment between deadlines.

Public Relations
Ideally, public relations is part of your ongoing work rhythm, but if not, a summer slowdown is the perfect time to start. Public relations is an excellent way to provide your firm with third party validation of your services, and to increase visibility. Begin by hosting an internal public relations kick off meeting to gather data about press worthy topics including project milestones, new hires, and trends. Once information is gathered, map out a public relations calendar, setting one goal for each month. Information can be shared externally through a press release, pitch, or by submitting through a publication’s portal, for example, the Austin Business Journal’s People On The Move section. 

Internal Marketing 
Internal marketing references both marketing your firm to your internal team and celebrating your internal team itself. Recruiting and retention are hot button topics at many A/E/C firms and internal marketing is an effective way to combat turnover. There are numerous ways to market internally. If your firm has an internal newsletter, interview technical staff and share their accomplishments. Host an internal event to celebrate a company or project milestone. Equip your team to have a polished elevator speech about who your firm is. Internal marketing lies at the intersection of marketing, culture and human relations, benefitting all three. 

Proposal Database
Whether you have an existing proposal database or not, a slowdown is the perfect time to make sure you’re capturing proposal data. In the heat of a deadline, it’s easy to submit a proposal document and quickly move on without taking time to catalog the information it contains. But, it’s essential to log information, especially customized written responses. If you have a system for capturing data utilize it, if not start simple. Create a searchable Google doc, or spreadsheet to log proposal responses. You will be grateful to have this document next time you’re in a proposal storm.   

Blog Creation
Blogs are an excellent way to build credibility for your firm and to improve search engine rankings. Unlike traditional public relations, you can control the narrative within a blog. This provides you with an opportunity to share about your firm’s culture, accomplishments, and vision. Blogs and public relations go hand in hand. While press releases and other forms of public relations require an unbiased approach to information sharing, blogs are an excellent way to unabashedly highlight your firm’s differentiators.  

Website Maintenance
Your online presence is often the first time a potential client or potential new hire encounters your firm’s brand. Additionally, whether your website incorporates SEO optimization could make the difference in your firm being identified as a subject matter expert or not. Updating project pages, ensuring all of your team is featured and all company information is current is a good starting point. Updating all security software and plugins and checking for any page loading errors or broken links will improve SEO and the user experience. 

We hope you have time to work on non-deadline marketing initiatives this summer and as always, we are here to help.