luce and associates spread holiday cheer—and market their services.

Source: residential architect online
Publication date: 2008-12-16

By Stephani L. Miller

The state of the housing market and the economy in general has many people a little down, if not outright depressed. So Horsham, Pa.-based architects Luce & Associates decided to try to perk up its clients and contacts in the industry with a cheerful holiday e-card. The animated card, which was sent by e-mail and also posted to the firm's Web site and its YouTube channel, features cartoon figures wearing the faces of Luce's designers and staff frolicking to an upbeat holiday tune.

Luce's animated card, while a definite mood-lifter, serves a marketing purpose as well as helping to maintain client relations. Along with wishing recipients a happy holiday season, the card announces the firm's plan to move to a new office in spring 2009. "We figured it would be the best way to get everyone to pay attention, to make ourselves stand out because everyone's been so mopey," says Luce's marketing director, Sarah Will. She reports that the firm has received enthusiastic feedback, particularly from people it had been targeting for a while without any response.

Luce has done away with most of its print marketing efforts, according to Will, instead focusing on marketing through the Web and e-mail. "We had been noticing that most of the marketing that seemed to be having any success for us was through the Web and e-mail, and we wanted to explore that and push further. It's been really successful." The only real cost is time.

The firm's YouTube channel so far offers only four videos, including the holiday e-card, but Will says the response has been good enough to continue posting visuals of projects in progress and completed homes. Because the firm has redirected most of its marketing efforts from builders to the general public, Will is concentrating on making its Web site features and YouTube videos as accessible and as meaningful as possible to the average homeowner. Thirty-second Webisodes of Luce's office renovation will soon be posted to give potential clients some insight into what an architecture firm does. Also, an interactive floor plan feature on www.lucearchitects.com will allow clients to see how a home's layout can be altered to make it more functional.

Will believes architects use the Internet too little for marketing and advertising, particularly considering that society has become so Internet-focused and that the medium is so inexpensive to use. To keep potential clients' attention, Will believes Internet marketing has now become necessary, especially in the current economy when firms must control costs.

"It's immediate, it's eye-catching," Will says. "It's not sending out a list of services you provide. It's providing the same information, but in a very different way. It's interactive, and people are drawn to that."

Courtesy of Luce & Associates A still image of Luce's animated e-card. To view the animated version, click here.