#16: How to Conduct Market Research for Your A/E/C Firm
Planning for our firm’s futures starts by understanding our clients and seeing trends that correlate across markets and services. Our A/E/C firms can respond with new services or reimagine how we deliver our services to meet those clients’ needs.
We can accomplish this by conducting market research. And, it doesn’t have to be a difficult, time-consuming, or a monumental effort. You don’t have to be intimidated about undertaking market research for your firm.
In fact, performing primary research at your firm is a great way for marketing and business development leaders to position their firms for the future.
And, primary research is especially important now that our A/E/C firms cannot rely on traditional CIPs, budgets, and industry association data that was produced a year ago. Because of this, I turned to an expert when it comes to market research for our industry, Sarah Kinard. She is the founder of The Flamingo Project, a consultancy dedicated to grow existing service firms and launch new businesses.
You’ll learn:
- Traditional market research approaches prior to COVID and why they are not so reliable now
- Philosophy when it comes to “following the money” approach to market research
- What market research strategies are working in today’s marketplace
- The four-questions you need to ask any client in your market research
- Steps to organize and conduct primary research for your firm
- How to use the information you collect in your research efforts
- Stories from two A/E firms who applied research to create new work for their firms
Meet Sarah Kinard
Sarah is a strategic visionary who continues to build her career shaping marketing strategy for professional service firms. Known as a change agent, she tackles your challenges with strategy and implementation at a scale you can handle. Sarah’s curiosity, fail-forward/fail-fast approach, and desire to have fun in everything she does, are the hallmarks of how she “does it differently”.
Dive Deeper
Now Sarah and I would love to hear from you. What ahas did you have about market research? How can you turn those insights into action right now? Is there an area of your firm or market where you want to investigate further?
Leave a comment below and tell us all about it! Hundreds of industry marketing professionals come here each week for insight and motivation, and your story could help someone else have a breakthrough.
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