19 reasons why architects find it hard to market themselves, and their architecture services

There are many different reasons that architects feel confounded by marketing and business development.
Photography by Vitaly Gariev via Unsplash.

In more than 2,500 interviews with architects from around Australia and all over the world over the past 25 years, Rachael has heard many reasons that architects feel confused, mystified or overwhelmed by marketing.

This starts at university - where business development and marketing typically don’t form part of the curriculum, so that generations of architects haven’t been exposed to these critical skills.

And it doesn’t help that the marketing landscape is constantly changing, and consumer behaviour is evolving at a rapid pace in response.

What worked last year might fail to produce the same results this year, and keeping up with new trends and methods requires considerable investment of time, energy and money.

In addition, there are countless “experts” shouting about their services and solutions on every conceivable platform. Architects and their clients are now bombarded with messaging all day, every day, and it’s difficult to filter signal from noise.

Like it or not, we live in an attention economy - where the user is the product - and it can be hard to balance ethical concerns, personal preference and effective marketing strategies and techniques in such a fast-paced and competitive environment.

Based on interviewing architects for stories, and consulting work with hundreds of architecture firms, Rachael has learned that each architecture firm has a different idea of what constitutes their best marketing solution.

That makes sense, because every architect is unique, and has different preferences and approaches.

So understanding where you might have particular blocks - and knowing which parts of marketing you can comfortably engage with - is key to creating a strategy that you’ll be happy to execute.

You can start by scanning this list to see how many of these reasons resonate for you.

Get in touch if you have more reasons to add - we’re always happy to expand our knowledge about architects and architecture - and to help you make your important contributions more visible to more people.

19 reasons why architects find it hard to market themselves, and their architecture services

1. The belief that “the work should speak for itself”.

2. A profession-wide advertising ban that persisted in until the year 2000 in some states (South Australia and Western Australia were the last two states to abolish the ban).

3. A lack of education, strategy and structure around business development and marketing (especially because they are not part of the NSCA) - ie, “not knowing where to start and what to prioritise” *.

4. A lack of time to carry out marketing activities.

5. A lack of money to engage an external specialist, and “not knowing who to trust to assist” *.

6. A lack of distinction around different sub-sectors of communications - such as advertising, branding, advocacy, marketing, sales, publishing, awards, public relations, public affairs, stakeholder engagement, consultation - and how to use these effectively for different purposes and to achieve different outcomes.

7. The fact that architects don’t tend to engage with actual clients during their university studies.

8. The fact that architecture students are taught to communicate complex architectural concepts to their peers (students, teachers and visiting practitioners), not non-architect audiences - such as governments, policy makers, stakeholders, communities etc - who don’t enjoy the same degree of baseline knowledge.

9. A preference for communicating visually, and a lack of confidence around text-based methods.

10. A heavy reliance on jargon or archi-speak, which can be exclusionary for people who don’t understand it.

11. The fact that at university – especially in studio settings – architects are taught to ‘defend their work” from critique from teachers, peers and practitioners, which sets up a combative dynamic that often persists in practice.

12. The resulting inward focus, which prefers and prioritises communicating to peers and the profession.

13. The fact that an architect’s self worth is often mistakenly conflated with their work, creating a situation where critique of the output is received as a judgement about their own worthiness.

14. A lack of distinction around self-worth and value, in monetary terms.

15. The fact that marketing and sales feel “icky”, which means architects tend to not be good at it, “and no one likes doing things they’re not good at!”. *

16. A misconception about what architecture marketing is actually for, and what it entails.

17. A fear that taking a public position on any particular topic - especially a topic that’s controversial or polarising - could offend future clients and negatively impact project pipelines.

18. A desire to problem-solve and design every aspect of running a business internally, rather than seeking expert guidance.

19. A propensity to seek the easiest, cheapest and fastest option, without taking the time to understanding the underlying fundamentals so that tasks can be delegated with confidence.

Want to get to grips with marketing in your business?

If you’d like to learn more about modern marketing for architects, and discuss your current reality and where you’d like to go in future, we’d love to help.

You can book a free 30-minute call with Rachael here, to talk about your current business development strategy, what’s missing, and how to plug those gaps.

Or you can access our services which come in Small, Medium and Large sizes, as follows:

• Small - the Acupuncture Service is a “book-an-hour” session with Rachael, where architects can seek input around any business development or marketing topic of their choice. You can buy your session online and book your appointment via the online calendar.

• Medium - the on-demand, online CPD course Architecture Marketing 360 is a 101-style course about modern marketing for architects. It outlines Sounds Like Design’s proprietary MArchitecture System so you can design and build a pipeline of new clients and projects that you love. Work through the course at your own pace, and use the New Client Pipeline Roadmap to guide your implementation.

• Large - our one-on-one consulting package Review + Reset takes place over 3 months. It’s a deep-dive into your current business development and marketing activities, and we’ll co-create your Business Development and Marketing blueprint, so you can delegate and automate key tasks, and free up your time for the creative work you really love doing. 4. Architecture students are taught to communicate complex architectural concepts and ideas to other architects (students, teachers and visiting practitioners), not potential clients

References

* SLD Market Research Survey responses, 2024