Marketing Excellence Awards: "We make buildings work"

Jan 09, 2015

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Barton BartonAssociates (York, PA), a 57-person MEP engineering firm, created a marketing campaign to target their two niche markets: education and healthcare. The campaign took home fourth place in Zweig Group’s Marketing Excellence Awards in the Integrated Marketing category. Barton set out to reach high level decision makers in the higher education, healthcare and architectural industry in four-month-long campaign. Each marketing piece was further designed to target specialized submarkets that exist within each of the two niche markets. The comprehensive campaign was comprised of a combination of direct mail, email, website improvements and social media efforts. The firm began by researching master-plans for higher education facilities as well as future trends in healthcare facilities. Two separate campaigns focused on specific types of education and healthcare facilities that would be most meaningful to a specific client base. Next, the firm determined what kind of marketing communication would work best for clients by researching B2B content marketing, SMPS resources, and the marketing efforts of competitors. Ultimately, Barton determined that a mix of print and digital methods would extend the reach of the campaign. James Holtzapple, vice president of business development and marketing specialist at Barton Associates, developed the idea and professional engineers at the firm wrote all the marketing content, focusing on providing clients with useful and specific information about each sub-market. Barton Associates began with sending out a postcard, followed by an e-engineer newsletter just one week later. The newsletter contained website links that also had a downloadable brochure. The newsletter was also posted on the firm’s website and LinkedIn company page. The simple postcards had descriptive text, photos of past projects and the firm’s tagline, “We Make Buildings Work.”

About Zweig Group

Zweig Group, three times on the Inc. 500/5000 list, is the industry leader and premiere authority in AEC firm management and marketing, the go-to source for data and research, and the leading provider of customized learning and training. Zweig Group exists to help AEC firms succeed in a complicated and challenging marketplace through services that include: Mergers & Acquisitions, Strategic Planning, Valuation, Executive Search, Board of Director Services, Ownership Transition, Marketing & Branding, and Business Development Training. The firm has offices in Dallas and Fayetteville, Arkansas.