When you're a small built environment business, you wear a lot of hats. You're the manager, human resources authority, accounting department, sales team and the person that orders materials and products.  You're everybody. Marketing is often one of those tasks that people place near last in the order of business priority. 

Here are some marketing tips to help you maximize your ROI and make the most of your limited time.

Hire Copywriters

Blogging is the most effective thing you can do to attract new clients to your business but you don't need to hire a team of in-house copywriters.  Quite the contrary!  Small businesses often have limited resources and tightly constrained budgets, but that doesn't mean you can't afford a little help.  There are a lot of resources out there that can help you with your business blogging, web design, newsletters, and other marketing campaign efforts, and many times, the work is super affordable.  Companies like Zerys.com can introduce you to high-quality writers who write web content and blogs for nominal fees, and if you find a writer or two that you like, you can "bring them onto your team" develop a relationship and send them work regularly. UpWork and Freelancer also have people that can write content. 

Put All of Your Eggs in One Software Basket

Yes, this is contrary to every piece of advice you've ever been given, but times are changing, and integrating all of your marketing efforts into one concise place is one of the best marketing tips we can give you!  When you integrate marketing tasks into a simple to use software like Hatchbuck you can manage all of your marketing tools in one place. so you maximize your time and your return on investment. Hubspot and the much more affordable Hatchbuck have email, social media, blogging, landing page and SEO tools that help convert visitors to your website into business leads.  Having a single source marketing suite means having analytics that tell you what campaigns are working well and where your opportunities exist.  You have the ability to customize emails and web content so your viewers see the best you possible.

Post Social Media When You Blog

Social media is where many of your customers are. It's time to acknowledge that it's here to stay, and it's time to embrace all that social media can do for you! Software platforms like Buffer make the most of your time by helping you manage multiple social media sites at the same time.  Facebook and Twitter might have started the rage, but that's certainly not where the social media craze stops!  You'll want to be seen on LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, and all of the up-and-coming sites.  One of the marketing tips that you'll want to pay attention to is keeping up with your customers by socializing with them.  This lets you know what they like, what they're up to, and what your opportunities with them are. Website platforms like Squarespace allow enable you to post blogs when you publish articles. We recommend Squarespace for building interior design, architecture, design-build and landscape design websites.

Do you have other marketing tips that can help fellow architects, interior designers landscape architects and design build contractors get the maximum ROI from their marketing time?  We'd love to hear your tricks!  Share them with us in the comments section below!