How much will all of this cost?
Your greatest expense will likely be the
review/enhancement of your internal processes and
existing client service/relationships. You may need an
outside consultant to look more closely at your operations
and suggest improvements, but if you can see the issues
that need to be resolved and make things more friendly
and satisfactory for your clients, you’ll be well on your
way. Full-scale website development services vary in price,
but generally you can get a specialist to complete a solid
project for you for about $5,000 or so. If you are ready to
do it yourself or contract directly with website developers,
you can reduce this cost by one or two orders of
magnitude. (Yes, that would mean $500 or even $50.)
Writing services can be free (outside of your time) if you
are competent and literate or have an in-house staff
person who can write well. Expect to spend upwards of a
few hundred dollars per significant piece if you need to
pay a freelancer or outside marketing consultant for these
services. Forward thinking options
If you are ready to step into the future and embrace
new technologies, you can achieve a significant marketing
advantage by building on your uniqueness and forward
thinking vision.

I think the best starting point for most AEC
professionals will be to embrace Building Information
Modelling. Costs for BIM resources have been declining,
and there are increasing opportunities to learn how to use
these tools. With BIM skills and resources, you can have
fun with automated/virtual reality (and really showcase
your presentations/projects in an interactive way).

If you want to go even further into the future (but we
are talking years, not decades), recent developments with
machine learning and artificial intelligence offer exciting if
somewhat scary automation options – because the
machines can learn from their environment and ultimately
the science fiction concept of computers being smarter
than humans could become a reality.

Conclusion: You don’t need to spend much to
achieve a lot
Even if you go full-bore and contract out all the services
described above, I can’t see it necessary for you to spend
more than $10,000 a year on a truly effective marketing
strategy. This is a drop in the bucket compared to even
the cheapest forms of paid media advertising. If you elect
to spend money on other forms of marketing/advertising,
including trade show exhibits, print and paid online
advertising, the client relationship, website and social
media models will provide you with a powerful backbone
and will boost the effectiveness of your more expensive
marketing approaches.

Go for it. You can truly achieve great marketing
communications results for very little money.

Additional resources
I’ll provide you with a list of service providers (and
some observations/recommendations about them)
without charge if you email me at
buckshon@constructionmarketingideas.com. The Canadian Design and Construction Report — Winter 2018 – 9