Marketing your practice: the measurement of success

In this exclusive extract from Good Practice Guide: Marketing Your Practice by Helen Elias, we explore some ways to assess the success of your marketing efforts.

The brand of the firm, how it positions itself in the marketplace and how it chooses to build its reputation, is an intangible asset that is difficult to quantify. Yet, it is also an extremely valuable asset, so it is worth attempting to measure brand success wherever possible.

Measuring the impact of marketing

Marketing is frequently described as a 'grey area'. It is hard to measure just how successful all the hard work and time spent promoting the practice across its selected platforms and outlets has really been. It is important to be able to assess, as far as possible, a return on investment (ROI), which marketing initiatives have worked for the firm and which activities have not delivered against expectations in a meaningful way. However, not every investment in marketing will generate an ROI – setting up a client database is vital to marketing efficiency, but can it have a measure of impact attached to it?

Client feedback

Understanding customers is a key driver that will sit at the heart of the practice. Ultimately, the most accurate way to quantify the effectiveness of public relations and marketing activities, irrespective of the platform used to communicate a message, is to survey the target audience to check what goes down well and what has not worked. One way to ensure that the firm is always seeking to improve its service levels and build ever-closer relationships with clients is to check regularly to see that the clients are, in fact, fully satisfied with the service they are getting.

Methods for collecting client feedback

There are many different ways to collect the feedback, so it is important to decide which system, or combination of systems, is best for the practice. The most frequently used formats are:

• Face-to-face interviews
• Telephone interviews
• Questionnaires sent by post or email.

At this point, decide whether the practice wants to gather the information itself or use an independent consultant to make the calls or visit the client for a face-to face interview. The process that is deployed will, to a certain extent, dictate the format for the questions themselves.

Questionnaires by post or email are best structured as scored questions on which the client can easily make judgements. The results can be analysed statistically, but give little scope for interpretation or personal views. At least 20 to 30 completed forms will be needed in order to get a representative sample to reveal trends in answers that make the exercise worthwhile. Posted or emailed questionnaires frequently get lost or are simply ignored, so expect a lower return from this route.

Another option is to gather information by phone. This process best suits a score-style questionnaire, although it does allow room for personal observations as well. Many people dislike being kept on the phone for a long time, so restrict the questionnaire to take less than 15 minutes.

The most in-depth analysis of the practice from a client's point of view will come from qualitative one-to-one interviews. Approach clients and ask for an hour, then send in the practice's representative armed with a raft of five or six conversational leads to trigger information flow about the areas that really matter – service levels, professionalism, creativity, personal relationships and staff performance are usually included. The conversation may also provide feedback on other areas such as IT capability, finance systems, marketing and press impact.

It only takes five or six in-depth interviews using this route for themes to begin to emerge, touching on areas that the practice might have suspected would arise, or uncovering new areas that can come as a bit of a surprise. Clustering results from the interviews can give recognition to the practice's strengths, while identifying areas where there is room for improvement. Clients seem to like being asked to give feedback in this way, and even the busiest of people will set aside time, as they can see the benefits to their future working relationships with the practice.

Do not be complacent about the firms that are surveyed – it is tempting to send the interviewer to speak to people that the architectural principals know will send back a positive message. But is there anything to be learned from this? More constructive information can be gained by being brave enough to explore the service offer of the practice with past clients, and clients with ongoing projects where things may have run into problems. Pick clients strategically from different market sectors and geographical locations, or served by different offices or design disciplines.

Delivery process for this form of measurement must be both professional and efficient. Make sure that the whole system is set up professionally; start by sending personal letters asking for the interview. Send a letter of thanks immediately after the interview, and another a few months later send a follow up letter explaining how the feedback gained has been collected and used to help the development of the practice. It is to the responsibility of any firm that wants to keep repeat business coming in to make sure that service levels and all other aspects of client-facing activities are monitored, and that clients are constantly consulted to make sure that everything is satisfactory. Do not wait until something has gone wrong to send in the client satisfaction interviewer. Make sure that a client is happy with the way that the project is moving along. In the competitive construction sector, where there are plenty of other architects to choose from, forewarned is forearmed. Identify problems and iron them out before they become major issues that can influence a client and create an obstruction to any future work.

Extract from Good Practice Guide: Marketing Your Practice by Helen Elias.

To order a copy of this book, please visit RIBA Bookshops.

RIBA Publishing copyright January 2010

Related NBS information:

Articles:

• A client's guide to engaging an architect: project management
• Cost tracking within NBS Scheduler

Selected links:

• NBS Contract Administrator
• NBS Scheduler

February 2010

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