Whereas 2021 confirmed many Structure, Engineering & Development (AEC) corporations studying to adapt to the chaos brought on by the Covid pandemic, many had been hesitant to rejoice, pointing to ongoing labor and provide chain constraints and the uncertainty surrounding the U.S. infrastructure laws. And whereas some AEC corporations have thrived, introducing new instruments and strategies to deal with an more and more digital market, others proceed to battle, trying to find the right recipe for top progress.

Amid the turbulence, one factor has turn out to be clear: Change occurs shortly and people AEC corporations which might be sluggish to adapt might be left behind. The Hinge Analysis Institute’s newly launched Excessive Progress Research 2022: AEC Version paints this image.

Concerning the Research

The evaluation covers 141 AEC corporations, representing a mixed income of almost $40 billion and greater than 60,000 workers. Companies of all sizes, international areas and key government roles had been represented within the examine, with the overwhelming majority of corporations doing enterprise in the USA. 

This 12 months’s examine confirmed that whereas advertising and marketing budgets have stabilized after a fast ascent final 12 months, excessive progress AEC corporations are introducing new digital strategies into their repertoire to assist stimulate progress. Moreover, AEC corporations have gotten more and more extra focused on well-liked subjects reminiscent of workflow/course of automation, buyer expertise and digital transformation.

On this article, I’ll clarify how these fast-growing corporations have constructed their aggressive edge with their pursuits, challenge supply, recruiting and retention in thoughts, by 4 key areas: expertise, expertise, technique, and advertising and marketing.

Expertise

Merely put, excessive progress AEC corporations are using advertising and marketing and enterprise improvement applied sciences greater than their no progress friends—20 p.c extra, to be actual—and particularly on the subject of buyer relationship administration (CRM), advertising and marketing automation and synthetic intelligence (AI). In addition they use expertise to trace their advertising and marketing and enterprise improvement actions extra steadily than their counterparts. 

Nearly half the excessive progress AEC corporations surveyed used information from their web site or different digital sources to attain leads and had been 30 p.c extra worthwhile than the no progress corporations. Forty p.c use metrics and ROI to report on and analyze the impression of their advertising and marketing efforts. These are the AEC corporations to observe as a result of they’ve the information and analytics with which to make extra knowledgeable enterprise selections.

Expertise

Because the battle for prime expertise, fueled by the pandemic and “The Nice Resignation,” rages on throughout all skilled providers industries, AEC corporations have been on the lookout for methods to draw the extremely expert professionals they want. This 12 months’s examine discovered that prime progress AEC corporations usually tend to seek the advice of with outdoors businesses and freelancers to make sure their advertising and marketing wants are met and so they can cowl any vital abilities gaps (e.g., graphic design, copywriting.)

Apparently, regardless of outsourcing the work, the examine confirmed that prime progress AEC corporations have the best abilities benefit in a few of these actual advertising and marketing actions, reminiscent of Search Engine Optimization (web optimization).

Technique

How do excessive progress AEC corporations and no progress corporations differ as they appear towards the long run? Whereas mergers and acquisitions (M&A) will possible nonetheless play a component in excessive progress AEC corporations’ future progress methods, their focus is popping elsewhere. Whereas AI is prime of thoughts for many AEC corporations, the excessive progress corporations are extra focused on studying about VR/AR, innovation subjects and cyber safety tendencies than their on progress counterparts. 

The Hinge Analysis Institute additionally checked out what challenges excessive progress AEC corporations had been anticipating down the street which proved to vary from their no progress friends. Whereas most AEC corporations have turn out to be accustomed to a distant work atmosphere, managing that distant workforce continues to be prime of thoughts for a lot of excessive progress corporations. And as digital transformation takes maintain, the quickest rising AEC corporations are extra involved with modifications in how their patrons are shopping for their providers within the coming years. 

Advertising

It comes as no shock that prime progress AEC corporations are investing extra in advertising and marketing than their no progress friends with a view to drive their progress and profitability, however the place do they see essentially the most bang for his or her buck? The HGS report gives a full checklist of essentially the most impactful advertising and marketing strategies however what is especially noteworthy is that seven out of the ten are digital strategies reminiscent of podcasts (#1), webinars (#2), video running a blog (#4) and key phrase analysis/web optimization (#10).

And once we take a more in-depth look, we are able to see that prime progress AEC corporations are receiving a lot higher impression from presenting in instructional webinars and key phrase analysis/web optimization, two vital, digital strategies which have been missed by the no progress corporations. The examine additionally discovered that greater web optimization maturity (the extra you spend money on web optimization in your agency) interprets to extra digital leads.

Maybe one of many biggest learnings from this 12 months’s examine is the place excessive progress AEC corporations are prioritizing their time subsequent, as a result of in any case, they should be doing one thing proper! Social media advertising and marketing, a low-cost, low-effort digital method, was recognized as their prime precedence for 2022 by virtually 3 times as many excessive progress AEC corporations as no progress corporations. This focus comes because the trade continues to take care of the results from the pandemic and limits networking at in-person occasions. 

The quickest rising AEC corporations are additionally prioritizing creating content material, web optimization and analyzing the efficiency of their advertising and marketing efforts, amongst others that you’ll find within the full report. Possibly the time is now to check your priorities for the approaching 12 months to these of the excessive progress AEC corporations.

A closing thought

Whereas uncertainty about labor shortages, provide chain and laws linger on, the previous 12 months noticed many AEC corporations discovering methods to handle the constraints. Becoming a member of the bandwagon that’s the digital transformation has by no means been extra essential.  

These AEC corporations that use extra digital advertising and marketing platforms and strategies, and that additionally use them extra proficiently, are experiencing extra progress and at a sooner tempo. The higher sophistication of a agency’s advertising and marketing efforts, the higher their aggressive benefit might be.