TCEP 032: Marketing for Civil Engineering Firms

In episode 32 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I interview Alexi Lambert, who has leadership and management experience as a U.S. Naval Officer, about Marketing for Civil Engineering Firms. She was enlisted in the Navy as an E5 (2010) as a university student and commissioned as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy (2013) and promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade (2015). Here are some of the questions I ask Alexi: What tools do engineers use for their primary research for their jobs? What are the common mistakes that engineering firms make when marketing themselves online? How can engineers create content for their blogs? What metrics are marketers for engineering firms typically measured on? What is the key to getting civil engineering firms ranked for top searches in Google? Quotes to think about: Here Are the Key Points Discussed About Marketing for Civil Engineering Firms: Inbound Marketing and Marketing in general is all focused towards helping businesses grow. The old ways of marketing are gone. Marketing is now in the buyer's hand and not in the seller's hand anymore. The top three sources where engineers are finding their information for their jobs are: Supplier websites Search Engines Trade Applications, print and online The number one reason why online efforts end up failing is because there were not enough of an online marketing strategy. Not coming up with an effective marketing strategy and a way to execute and implement things as well as integrating everything is one of the ways that people and industries have failed in their online marketing strategies. 60% of engineering firms are not writing or posting blog articles. Over 70 % of the websites are not optimized for mobile devices. If you’re website is not easily viewed on a mobile device, google will lower your ranking so that when someone searches for something, your website will most likely not come up because you are not giving users a good enough experience. There are different tools to use like marketing automation software such as HubSpot that helps you find out what content people are searching for. What engineering marketers have to do is to identify, create and publish the most valuable content that will drive traffic to their websites. This content has to be published consistently and has to be optimized for mobile users. Once that traffic comes to their websites, they need to have an effective process for converting that traffic into leads. Interviewing your clients/customers and finding out what they want and building content around that is very good market research. The 3 metrics that marketers for civil engineering firms are typically measured on is: Lead generation Traffic to your sites Generating a sales pipeline A few recommendations from Alexi on what marketing automation software civil engineering firms should be taking advantage of now more than ever: HubSpot ties everything together from pre sales to sales, to marketing. Bazooka for content and creation for topics. Linkedin Sales Navigator is great for targeting the type of people you want to be talking to and reaching out to. SEO has 3 components that it’s ranked on by google: The volume and the quality of the content on an ongoing basis Quality and volume of the links of other websites in social media linking to your website. How your website is coded – Is your website mobile friendly? More details in this episode… About Alexi Lambert: Alexi Managed $18.4 Million in civil engineering construction projects; up to 33 project...