Blogs

Email Marketing Trends Research

By Lindsay Diven, CPSM posted 05-17-2021
Did you know that email continues to rank as one of the strongest revenue-producing marketing channels for many industries? However, many professional services firms have yet to leverage all the benefits of email marketing. {Cute dog gif for attention!} Some of you may know that I work full-time for Full Sail Partners, a Deltek Premier Partner. We also developed the Blackbox Connector that connects Deltek to other software like Constant Contact, MailChimp, and HubSpot. In an effort to assist A/E and consulting firms with their email marketing efforts, we are seeking insights into current strategies different firms are using and how effective those strategies ...

A Path to Brand Leadership for 2021 and Beyond

By Ida Cheinman posted 03-11-2021
This article was first published on substance151.com . In the executive summary for the Best Global Brands 2020 report , Interbrand identified three top brand leadership trends for the decade ahead and the ways in which brands can remain strong in the face of rapidly changing environments, technologies and customer expectations. According to the study, all leading brands share the following characteristics: alignment, engagement and relevance. Complete Brand Alignment Most companies by now recognize that leading with purpose creates a competitive differentiation and helps attract customers and employees who are like-minded and see the value ...

Agile Marketing Planning: Flexibility Meets Results

By Ida Cheinman posted 01-13-2021
Agile Marketing Planning: Flexibility Meets Results Marketing planning is hard. Building a plan without having a clear picture of what’s to come is even more challenging. We are a few weeks into 2021 and it’s anyone’s guess as to how this year will go. Yet the planning must march on. What a marketer to do? Traditionally, marketing has relied on lengthy, rigid, long-term plans. The plans that take a long time to develop – and yet sometimes only three months into execution, we realize that the world has changed so much that our plan is no longer useful. This sounds like March of 2020, doesn’t it? How many of you had to throw out your content strategy and editorial ...

The Future Is Now and It’s Online

By Ida Cheinman posted 08-26-2020
This article was first published on substance151.com The highly anticipated digital future is here. Although it’s easy to see all the dramatic changes taking place in our physical world, changes in the digital world are often less noticeable. The present crisis aside, there are many internal and external forces pushing companies to accelerate their transition to digital. The single most critical driver of change in the B2B space is changing customer expectations. Millennials are now 50% of the workforce, and many have moved into positions that make executive and purchasing decisions. The generation coming behind them, Gen Z , is the first ...

Brand New Podcast for A/E/C Marketers

By Lindsay Diven, CPSM posted 06-03-2020
I’m very excited to share with you a brand-new resource for A/E/C marketers. It’s the Marketers Take Flight Podcast hosted by me. This podcast is focused on managing and writing proposals, marketing strategies, time management, and working with technical staff so you can build your career while building your family. Each week, the show shares tangible and tactical advice as well as inspiring interviews to fly through the proposal turbulence! The Marketers Take Flight Podcast is officially live on the major podcast platforms ( Apple , Spotify , Stitcher , and Google ). You can also listen online on the Marketers Take Flight website . I've got ...

Is It OK to Go Back to Marketing as Usual Yet?

By Ida Cheinman posted 05-27-2020
This article was first published on substance151.com . With the initial crisis communications push behind us, many business leaders and marketers are faced with some big questions: Can companies continue marketing? If yes, how should they engage with prospects and clients without appearing self-serving or tone-deaf? What does “good marketing” look like right now? The risk of getting it wrong is high. The reward of getting it right is even higher. And there’s no playbook. The global communications firm Edelman suggests approaching your company’s decisions and actions as immediate, near-term and long-term . Use the same framework for your company’s ...

Embracing a Remote Workforce to Improve Business

By Julie Huval, FSMPS, CPSM posted 05-26-2020
There are four areas challenging remote working: Communication Tracking productivity Trust Unified company culture Communication Miscommunication is a major hurdle in business (and life in general). Misaligned vocabulary, messy thinking, and sloppy language habits are the main culprits contributing to miscommunication. As business professionals, it takes effort and practice to boost our communication effectiveness. We must simplify our message (not everyone understands the science behind marketing like marketers do just like not everyone understands the science behind engineering as engineers do), align our thoughts ahead of time, and know our ...

What a Marketer to Do When You Can’t Go Anywhere?

By Ida Cheinman posted 03-23-2020
This article first appeared on Substance151 blog . With many vital marketing and business development programs and tools, such as conferences, events and tradeshows coming to a screeching halt, powering up your company's marketing is essential for its ability to survive and thrive in the coming months. Use the time your team is not attending conferences, tradeshows and in-person networking to revisit those marketing essentials that always get pushed to the back burner. Whatever the future holds, it’s critical to be ready, and if there were the "right time" to strengthen your brand and marketing, it's now! Revisit and adjust your content and ...

A Brand Management Master Class

By Ida Cheinman posted 02-12-2020
The role of brands has changed, and companies that recognize this shift and adapt their thinking about brand management will have an unparalleled competitive advantage in the 21st century. With the changing role of the brand and branding, the roles of those who are responsible for managing their company’s brand have changed as well. In the past, the purpose of brand management, and the responsibility of brand managers, was to police the brand for consistency across all communication channels and audience touchpoints. Today, the primary focus is to grow and sustain brand equity – a company’s most effective weapon against many obstacles it faces ...

Is Your 2020 Marketing Vision 20/20?

By Ida Cheinman posted 01-16-2020
A decade ago, we started planning for the year 2020. Today, we look back to evaluate how closely our Vision2020 matches the reality and optimistically plan forward for the next decade. Whether or not we can truly predict the next big change, one thing is clear: the world will continue to evolve at neck-breaking speed, creating an ever-greater opportunity for marketing to influence business outcomes. To leverage the speed of change to propel their firms into the future, marketers must have a clear vision and learn to distinguish truly transformative strategies from the next shiny thing. So, what does hold true in the always-evolving business and marketing ...

Sales Forecast Research Project

By Lindsay Diven, CPSM posted 12-10-2019
Always looking back at how you did? Look forward instead! Are you simply betting that your future will be bright? Or are you using your data to plan for tomorrow? Forecasting Your Future Forecasting is a way to use pipeline to demonstrate potential future sales. It helps your firm make smarter decisions or know when to course correct. Forecasting can tell you if you need to identify more work, improve your hit rate, recognize “must-win” opportunities, or even when to staff up. If your reports look backward to how you did last month or last year, now is the time to learn to look forward! New A/E/C Industry-Specific Research I have partnered up with ...

Brand Personality: The Best-Kept Secret of Top Brands

By Ida Cheinman posted 10-10-2019
This article first appeared on Substance151 website . The One Critical Aspect of Branding That’s Too Often Overlooked Imagine two brands competing in the same industry. Both have defined a relevant brand position and value proposition, as well as an emotionally resonant brand promise. Both have articulated an appealing brand purpose and a guiding set of brand values. In other words, each company has developed a differentiated brand platform and, therefore, have the underlying foundation to stand out in the marketplace. Then something interesting occurs. As each company translates its brand platform into a public-facing brand identity, brand ...

Calculating the ROI of Branding

By Ida Cheinman posted 09-12-2019
This article first appeared on substance151.com . Read the full article or download it here . How to Use Brand KPIs to Strengthen Your Business Performance Today, data drives all marketing decisions. Companies spend much time setting and tracking marketing KPIs and mining collected information for insight to guide their decision-making process. What they often neglect to measure is the performance of the very foundation of all marketing: the brand. Leadership and the marketing department may intuitively recognize that the brand is doing something positive for the company, but very few can pinpoint exactly what that “something” ...

7 things you should know about Microsoft Teams

By Rosalyn Arntzen posted 09-09-2019
FlexJobs reveals in its State of the Remote Job Marketplace report there are now 3.9 million Americans (or 2.9% of the total US workforce) who work from home at least half the time. And it’s a trend that is growing. Fifteen years ago, remote workers were just that - remote. Silent, sometimes-forgotten employees. However, advancements in communications technology mean remote workers are now connected to the office, their colleagues and teams better than ever before, making working from home a standard practice within many organizations. Ever more traditional employers are finally realizing the benefits that come from flexible working arrangements, including ...

SMPS Build Business 2019: Marketing’s Role in BX, CX and EX

By Ida Cheinman posted 08-13-2019
As marketers, we often talk about the “Experience,” yet there are very few companies that truly excel in this area. Why is that? I just returned from SMPS Build Business 2019 where over 1000 A/E/C marketing and business development professionals came together from all over the country for three days of networking, learning and celebrating. Build Business is always an unforgettable experience! Interestingly, the topic of my 2019 Build Business presentation was focused on the Experience – “Connecting the Dots: Marketing’s Role in Brand Experience (BX), Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX).” A fully packed, standing-room-only, session called ...

2019 SMPS Build Business Conference Recap

By Lindsay Diven, CPSM posted 08-08-2019
This article first appeared on Marketers Take Flight . Last week, I was grateful to be able to attend and present at the 2019 SMPS Build Business Conference in Washington, DC. It has been about five years since I attended the last one. Boy did SMPS step up its conference game. The entire conference was jammed pack with relevant learning, but there was plenty of time to meet new marketing professionals and catch up with friends and peers as well as celebrate the achievements of many marketers. Congratulations to my friend and inspiration, Donna Corlew, FSMPS, CPSM. She received the 2019 Weld Coxe Marketing Achievement Award. SMPS Build Business ...

Five Signs that it's Time to Rebrand Your Architecture Firm

By Danny Burns posted 08-01-2019
In this business, we’re often asked why. Why spend the money to redesign a logo or refine a tagline that’s done what it needs to do for a decade or more? A rebrand represents more than a change of color palette or typeface. It’s an opportunity to strategically define the firm you are today and the firm you hope to become in the future through language, graphics, and content. The wrong toolkit, on the other hand, can do just the opposite. Whether you’ve outgrown the firm you once were or lost your sense of differentiation, the truth is that a brand — no matter how great it once was — simply won’t last forever. All that being said, the question becomes: ...

Build Business 2019 Alert: Tomorrow is the Last Day to Register and Save $100

By Lauren Waldron posted 06-20-2019
If you have not already registered, we invite you to Build Business 2019 in Washington, DC on Wednesday, July 31-Friday, August 2 at the Marriott Marquis. Tomorrow is the final day to save $100 on registration. Teams of three or more can save an additional $90/per registrant with the Corporate Team Discount by completing the registration form here and sending it to denise@smps.org. SMPS members receive the best rate . Additional details: Keynote Speakers Check out our keynote speaker page to learn more about our headliners and our other inspiring Build Business speakers! Opening Keynote: Amy Sandler Radical ...

Money Talk: Fee Structures for Creative Consultants

By Elke Giba posted 05-07-2019
I've heard this question several times lately: "How should A/E/C firms engage marketing consultants?" Apparently, it's a common question that isn't addressed often enough — especially between the two parties who directly benefit the most from working together; your firm and the creative consultant. Fumbling the money conversation brings unnecessary baggage into a transactional business relationship before the project even starts. It doesn't have to be that way. Start the engagement off on the right foot. Minimize the conflict around the fee ahead of time and leave plenty of room for collaboration, exploration and significantly higher satisfaction. Paying ...

The Deciding Power of Emotion in B2B Marketing

By Ida Cheinman posted 04-17-2019
The original article previously appeared on the Substance151 blog . Emotional Connection Trumps Business Benefit in B2B If you keep up with marketing trends, you’ve likely seen terms “B2H” (Business-to-Human), “B2B consumer” and “B2Me” – all emphasizing the dramatic shift in the thinking and approaches to B2B marketing. The fact is, whether your company sells to consumers or companies, you are still dealing with humans. And that means you’re dealing with emotions. Yet many B2B companies still approach marketing as if all that matters is the business case – the bottom-line value delivered, whether it’s increased performance, productivity, sales ...