At the dawn of digital, many had predicted “the end of branding as we know it”—and while the discipline of branding has changed dramatically in the past decade, having a strong, differentiated, and focused brand is more critical than ever before.

Owners consistently say that they want to hire the firm that is “the best team.” But how do you come across as a great team during a one-hour new business interview? This webinar will detail a few keys to ensuring that you come across as a strong team and not a bunch of people that seem like they’ve never worked together before.

Does a non-standard company logo drive you bananas? How about company emails with a notebook paper background? Better yet, who loves Comic Sans? Every professional services firm has a unique style, yet very few have approved Style Guides. This webinar will discuss and explore the components of a Style Guide.

A/E/C firms love to talk about their culture to lure both clients and talent. Culture is the shared behaviors and beliefs of your firm. So, how do you share your culture with a prospective hire or client? Don’t they have to experience it?

Nothing hurts more than spending too many hours on proposals and interviews that lose. Are you doing all of the “right things” with your proposal process to win new business but not seeing results? Do you even have a proposal process? This session explores the common mistakes that lead to proposals and interviews with no chance of winning new business.

Spoiler alert: it’s not about the money. Based on real-time data gathered from A/E/C firm leaders, HR professionals, and SMPS members, our presenter shows us what it takes to hire and retain the best talent to build your company brand, sustain a healthy hit rate, and set your firm apart. For marketing professionals, their day-to-day work has extreme highs and extreme lows; their efforts are the frontline with your clients and your other technical staff; and they’re a valuable piece of your precious overhead spend. Join us for this webinar as we focus on strategies to hire and retain best-fit marketers, while building efficiencies into your business operations model for sustained prosperity.

The SF in SF330 doesn’t have to stand for Supremely Frustrating! If you’ve pursued a federal A/E services contract as either a Prime or Subcontractor, you’ve seen the Standard Form 330 (SF330). Love it or hate it, mastering this form is key to winning work with important government clients. Are you afraid your submission will be non-compliant because you didn’t precisely follow directions? Do you feel stifled by having to use the strict format required? Are you concerned about providing conflicting details from one section to the next? Don’t worry, our January webinar will show you all the steps to master the SF330. Done right, you can enjoy the process of submitting a proposal to be proud of!

Join our presenter Danielle Feroleto as she walks us through the marketing planning process and discusses the approaches that yield the best results.

Marketers constantly juggle proposals, presentations, external marketing campaigns, and whatever else their team throws at them. However, in the A/E/C industries, marketers need our technical experts for input to get these tasks done. This extraction (sometimes referred to as pulling teeth) has easily become one of marketing’s toughest challenges. This session equips you with tools to get content from your technical team that will help complete proposals, project data sheets, blogs, case studies, papers, and other content marketing pieces.

In Editing 101, we talked about the importance of editing, building a style guide, and setting up a quality-control process. For our October webinar, we’ll take your editing to the next level by focusing on rewriting and revising text. Using real-life examples from your proposals, reports, and marketing materials, we’ll employ editing best practices to make the content clearer and more cohesive and concise. But editing isn’t just about cutting and deleting—it’s also knowing when a conversation with your author is better than sending comments through tracked changes. To help, we’ll discuss conversation starters for thoughtfully and sensitively working with authors.

Besides a mind-blowing approach to the project, relationships are a critical factor to increasing your chances of winning. This webinar will highlight the various stages a project goes through in the sales process and will show you how to grow your pipeline through the relationships you already have. The presenter will also spend some time going over a capture plan, which is a key component in one of the sales stages that’s critical to creating a winning strategy.

You’ve done the hard part! You found a potential client, you earned their trust and their business, and you have or are delivering a spectacular project. You’ve asked for feedback, and the client has said emphatically: “Yes, I am very likely to recommend you to a friend or colleague!”

A/E/C firms vary widely in staffing and budgets for marketing. Small firms may have one, or two people, in marketing. Or, your technical person might be doing all your marketing part time. As a small firm, having a small staff and budget doesn’t mean you can’t develop your own high-quality materials. With proper planning, it’s possible to create marketing materials that stand out.

During our June webinar, our presenter will show us how to utilize Google Analytics to improve conversion, search optimization, and engagement. Beyond just what features exist, we'll dive into the why and how so that you can use analytics in an impactful way for your better online marketing—and for your organization.

Wondering how to stop getting sucked into that perpetual deadline craziness? Rushing, stressing, and being exhausted after each proposal or client submittal, over and over again? Join us to learn about the overwhelm cycle—what it is and how to stop it. If you are an entry- mid- or senior-level professional with responsibilities during the proposal process, this webinar is for you!

This session will outline the key components of any effective market research project, and how to take market research and use it for sales, service AND publicity. We will emphasize SMART research: Strategy, Methodology, Action, Review and Tell the World.

Spotting market trends can help you position your firm for future work. Market research and planning can help you determine the work that’s out there and whether your current markets are viable. In this webinar, you’ll learn about various research tools that will help you implement a successful marketing plan as well as the strategic planning process that comes before it.

With deadlines all around us, marketers are often put in the not-so-envious position of choosing between doing things fast and doing things well. This webinar will discuss the importance of editorial quality in proposals (and other marketing collateral!). We’ll discuss some writing and editing basics, such as frequently confused words and avoiding the passive voice. We’ll talk about how to create a style guide and how to work with partners/technical staff to incorporate the style guide throughout the document. Finally, we’ll talk about how to get buy-in to set up a standard quality control process. Importance/Need for the Topic: A/E/C marketers are frequently publishers, whether they realize it or not. Clear, correct prose helps facilitate proposal review—reviewers focus on your firm’s experience and approach instead of typos.

Improve your core marketing functions that lead to your firm’s success. In this marketing webinar, you’ll about email marketing, how to budget and track your ROI, editing basics that will result in winning RFPs, and how to market your firm on a limited budget.

As a marketer, you may be ready to get cranking on online content production — but without buy-in from your firm’s leadership, it can be hard to get the budget, support, and team members you need to start publishing. While some A/E/C leaders embrace strategic content, others are quick to shut the idea down, insisting that there’s “no budget,” “no time,” or “no point in giving away the secret sauce.” This session will prep you for that potentially difficult conversation, detailing everything you need to successfully pitch a content strategy initiative for your firm.