HD Squared reached out to us because they were looking for an agency that could understand their ethos and communicate with local audiences. We were honored to have the opportunity to elevate a woman-owned architecture firm. Especially one dedicated to sustainability and resilience. Plus, we were excited to take on a hyper local marketing project!
The HD Squared Architects Audience is Hyper Local
It goes without saying that Architecture is inherently local. In the case of HD Squared Architects (HD2), they are building both a hyper local business AND a sustainability-focused business. Their new build and home remodeling customers show up for their professionalism, resilient designs, and environmental values. They are one of the few Annapolis firms that specialize in keeping the environment safe throughout the building process. HD2 also regularly wins restoration projects for damaged or outdated buildings that have historical importance in the area.
You could say that the HD2 team is entrenched in Annapolis and the Chesapeake Bay communities. Not only do they live and work in the area, Melanie Hartwig-Davis, the founder, is deeply dedicated to the ‘save the Glebe Forest’ movement and HD2 regularly participates in the annual Annapolis Kick Gas! event. It just doesn’t get more specific and local than this!
What’s Different About Local Marketing?
The biggest difference between local marketing and global marketing are the types of details we focus on.
With a global market, your challenges are around being specific enough to communicate with the ideal audience while also being broad enough that you’re not limited to any specific region. Local marketing flips that issue on its head. A local market is different because audience members can physically show up at events and places you share information about. A local audience can also identify dialect mismatches and they may know how to identify native plants, animals, and areas. For us, that means language and imagery needs to be specific to the area we’re marketing to.
How We Grow Businesses with Local Marketing
The first, and best, thing we do to grow a hyper local business is listen. When our clients are part of the audience they’re seeking to communicate with, we take extensive notes on phrases, dialects, and unique pronounciations we can use in a well-placed phonetic spelling.
Next we get to know the location. The city’s best known places and local wildlife are helpful for us to find imagery that aligns with the location. We can use the information about local flora and fauna in content and we can talk about big events in the city. This is crucial in local marketing.
Then we dive deep into the current audience and make a plan around how we want the audience to grow. Because we aren’t usually on site for our local marketing clients, the approval process is more important here. Our clients have to feel like our work reflects their company and their location.
Once we have the basics down, our focus shifts to getting the audience to the website – and making sure they keep coming back.
Why We Chose Email Marketing for HD Squared Architects
HD2 has quite the presence in local magazines and houzz listings. They are well known and have made a name for themselves as a top firm in their area. Where we saw the breakdown in their marketing was that they those listings consistently placed them next to their direct competitors.
We wanted to change that.
HD2 told us that most of their recommendations come from satisfied customers. We devised a plan to showcase their project portfolio using email marketing to capture the attention of their local audience. We filled the email list with past and potential customers and standardized the email template to align with their branding. Then we added a lot of photos to the portfolio posts and the newsletter. Everyone wants to see before and after photos of beautiful architecture!
We also added the newsletter to their website in addition to their projects to help prepare HD2 for a future SEO project. (We always think holistically, of course.)
Their emails were very well received and within just a few months, HD Squared let us know that their call calendar was more full than it ever had been! We think this was a combination of having high-resolution imagery and clear capabilities on their website and having a consistent communication strategy that allowed people to see how excellent their work is.
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