Domain 5: Promotional Activity
Posted by Communications2 on Oct. 13, 2026 / Member Resource / Subscribe 0
POSITIONING YOUR FIRM TO WIN THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA AND EVENTS
By Melanie Nelsen, CPSM | Business Development and Marketing Leader | Ralph L. Wadsworth Construction
As the saying goes, no one has won a multi-million-dollar contract based on a social media post, a blog article, or a booth at a conference. There is simply too much at stake.
However, these promotional activities are a tool for prepositioning that, if used strategically, can vastly improve your chances of winning the project. Markendium’s Domain 5: Promotional Activity outlines strategies, tools, and best practices that you can use to build credibility and preposition your firm outside of the proposal stage.
Think of each promotional activity as a tool that you can use to ensure brand awareness of your firm in your markets while also placing your firm in an easily searchable category on the internet.
These tools range in cost and often lack an easily discernible ROI without following up on metrics and tracking leads as a result.
Develop your Communications Plan: If your firm doesn’t have a plan in place, start here! Start with your mission and vision statements to develop a value proposition that is unique to the uniqueness of your firm. At this point, you will need to decide who in the firm will help shape the plan, who the target audience is, and what the objectives will be. A clearly defined plan with specific objectives will require setting SMART goals to stay on track.
Merge your Media Relations and Social Media Plan: The increased use of social media has made a major impact on how we communicate about our services, projects, and people. While some national publications are still going strong, most have shifted to online-only. Check out editorial calendars and reach out to any publications that seem like a good fit for your firm’s content.
Pull in your subject matter experts and ask for cool topics, exciting project milestones, and events to cover.
Never underestimate the power of LinkedIn. Building internal tools and guidelines for LinkedIn can help your team members not only build their personal network but also increase your firm’s visibility and credibility. Marketing teams can help your technical staff engage with clients and industry partners by suggesting connections they could make, ghostwriting posts, and creating graphics they can use to post that are both visually appealing and tied to your firm's branding, which will increase recognition.
Show Up and Show Off at Conferences: Forget the old trade show approach where you set up a table and participate in the adult “trick-or-treat” of swag gathering and refocus on meaningful conversations and opportunities to make friends!
- Set expectations: A successful conference or event hinges on the expectations set before the event takes place and how the follow-up is handled. Accountability is essential. These events can be expensive when you combine the cost of the booth, sponsorship, attendee registration, and loss of billable hours. So, you need to make it count.
- Prep your team: Once the event is approved and the attendee list is determined, hold a pre-event planning meeting. This meeting sets the expectations of each attendee and a booth schedule, if necessary. Remind attendees that they are ambassadors of your firm and need to accomplish specific goals. What you know about your clients will determine the goals list, but remember, sometimes it’s enough to ask your team to make friends, since people want to work with people they like.
- Look for Opportunities to Present: The marketing team can also increase your potential ROI from a conference by supporting your technical staff and SMEs in presenting on a topic relevant to the event.
- Always Follow Up: Once the event is over, don’t let your team forget all the intel gained and contacts made. Hold an internal mandatory follow-up meeting. This is where accountability is essential. What happened, what should we do the same/different next time, and what are the next steps? Make sure those business cards make it into your CRM with action items and ideas for follow-up.
These are just a few ways to promote your firm, and there are easily dozens more.
Regardless of which types of promotional activities your firm and team participate in, the best promotional activity is one that is consistent and thoughtful. Nearly every AEC marketer operates at capacity on a good day, so skip any half-baked plans and focus on fully executing reasonable plans that support your long game: Landing the next project!
Melanie Nelsen has 25 years of experience in marketing for architecture, engineering, and construction firms and is a Certified Professional Services Marketer (CPSM). Her expertise encompasses crafting compelling proposals, driving business development initiatives and strategy, coaching for interview presentations, and effectively managing a team.
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