April 9, 2001
Carleton University School of Architecture
Students Design Clinic
Marketing Plan '101'
1. Use lawn signs at all job sites: "Students Design Clinic" with tel. # and web address. Lawn signs should cost no more than $3.50 each. Leave them up forever or until your client takes it down. Add "Free One Hour Consultation" to your lawn signs (they are or can be two sided!) Put your tag line and your logo on your lawn signs. You are a design clinic so your marketing stuff has to look sharp otherwise it is reverse marketing (don't do this!)
2. Create a second web address that points to existing Carleton address (www.arch.carleton.ca/clinic) which is a bit clumsy. Note: check out www.domainsatcost.ca which is Canada's largest domain name registrar and one of the least expensive. www.studentsdesignclinic.ca and www.designclinic.ca are both currently available.
3. Create both private and public spaces on the web site. The private password protected space is and will become your institutional memory of what works and doesn't work over a period of years. (The same thing was done for www.kosmic.ca so that the students aren't starting from scratch every year for goodness sake.) Put in things like how to hire and fire; what to pay people; how to monitor performance; how to interview and select team memebers, what marketing worked and what didn't- all the hidden keys to success…
4. Use PSAs addressed to print, TV and radio outlets. Your PSAs should go to the local publications too such as the Kanata Kourier Standard not just the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Sun. Give them visuals too.
5. Get testimonials for your web site and your flyer.
6. Create a logo for the Clinic and a tag line that is on everything. Terrace Corporation was in the real estate business; they used "Great Space for Great People". You'll want something classier than this- it is much too commercial but you need something that speaks to the core competencies of the clinic and your mission.)
7. Keep a customer data base- tel. #s, fax #s and especially emails.
8. Every year you should email your past client base with the "news"- what's up with the clinic this year. The best place to find new clients is from your old ones.
9. Do a flyer drop not just around the Uni but also in Kanata, Nepean and Orleans.
10. Do a customer satisfaction survey and this is where you get testimonials and references and permission to use them. Put them on the web site and on your flyers even in your PSAs.
11. Avoid expensive advertising and promotions like the Home Show and major media like radio and newspapers. Use word of mouth, flyer drops, PSAs and lawn signs. Your web site is just a support tool but an important one.
12. Put photos of finished work on your web site- create a Design Clinic portfolio.
13. Everyone is in sales- Manager, Assistant Manager, Senior Table Leaders, Table Leaders, Senior Designers and Designers. Make sure you have 24/7 telephone messaging and design clinic email accounts.
14. DON'T call your Junior Designers "Junior Designers"; just call them "Designers". Your next level up is Senior Designer. And so forth- it's title inflation but it works well in marketing your services.
15. Put "Free One Hour Consultation" everywhere- on your web site, on your brochure and on your lawn signs! People love FS (Free Stuff).
16. Put on your web site a few simple to understand reasons why people should choose the Clinic.
17. Your flyer should use colour- it is more costly but you are in the design business. Last year 1000s of good quality colour flyers (8.5 x 11) were printed (one side) for less than 25 cents each. Put a copy on bulletin boards in stores like IGAs, Loblaws, Canadian Tires, Walmarts, Home Depots, building supply stores, etc.
18. Cloroplast signs are very inexpensive (about a $1.25 each). With the SDC web address, logo and tag line, they make good posters that can be put up with a stapler on hydro poles and on city owned fences. (Note you should probably ask for permission from the municipality but in guerrilla marketing people often don't.) If you put them up high (use a ladder), your signs tend to stay up longer.
19. You can offer to do a few free design jobs using your tainees and the local media can be invited to review the work.
20. You can offer to let people buy 'gift certificates' for design services for friends and family.
21. You can run a contest* on your web site. The winner receives, say, $200 of design services with first, second and third runners up receiving $75, $50 and $25. The winners always end up spending more.
22. You can set up a referral system- for each client referred to the Clinic that signs a contract, you can offer a premium like a really fantastic SDC t-shirt. This is more promotion for the Clinic- people walking around with your logo (and web address)!
23. You can develop a $20 coupon program and give out the coupons to clients and to others to give to their friends. Many architecture firms don't have time for the gazebos and decks, fencing and small additions- they can be a ready source of referrals for the SDC and they can give out the coupons to their clients who need SDC type services. You can also print the $20 coupons in SDC local newspaper ads and folks can clip it out and bring it to the clinic.
ps. Faces are very important in guerrilla marketing. You need to put a picture of yourself and your team on your marketing materials (web, flyer, maybe even lawn signs). Because this is a design studio, you should probably also have a watermark in addition to your logo. The watermark reflects the underlying principles of your work and is used as a half tone (usually a sidebar) on all your drawings, contracts, marketing materials.
pps. Can you accept Visa? You should probably ask your bank for that service- folks love paying by Visa and even though you have to actually pay a fee (probably 2.75 to 3.25%) it will save you a huge amount of time and frustration actually getting paid and the amounts people will spend on design services will also go up! This is a double whammy on your bottom line- collect faster and collect more.
* Contests can be like: a) put a piece of a famous structure (the Roman Coliseum, the Acropolis, the Corel Centre, for example) on your web site, add to it every day or so and the first person to email you with the correct identity, wins; b) have clients or potential clients email photos of the worst designs ever seen, and the very worst, wins.